Sonder To Ikigai - The Freedom in Love.

🌠Hadar🌠

Hadar - a star name meaning 'the settled land'.

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Sana Kaur Dhillon,

Throughout my life, I have thought about you more times than I could count. I am Viraaj Shergill. I believe you've been told that I was Viraj Singh Dhillon, I'm not. I am your brother, later on as the letter progresses, you will understand what kind of a brother.

I hope you are well, I hope you are happy because you deserve to be. I only found you after your picture with Siddharth Singh Sathraj went viral and the old news of your trauma was dug up, I recognised your name and decided to look into who you were. I'm sorry I wasn't there, maybe if you had a family, you wouldn't have gone through what you did. I'm sorry that you lost your child, and had no one to lean on. Having said that, I believe you're one of the strongest people I have heard of.

I would like to tell you a truth, something that will help you understand who you are and where you come from, but I hope you don't give it much importance, because it doesn't matter, who you are today… that's what matters.

Our mother, she was a kind woman. I loved her. She was everything to me, but not everyone is perfect. Her name was Haripreet Kaur Shergill. My father, an even kinder man, a respected and admired man in the Sikh society of Bathinda - Bhumeet Shergill. You're probably wondering why our family name is different from yours, just know that you're Sana before you're Sana Kaur Dhillon.

Our mother was unsatisfied in her marriage when my father left the country for 2 years for work, he did it for my family, because it was an opportunity that would change our lives. But what seemed life changing was that in the middle of those two years, after 1 year and 3 months of my father's departure, things changed, our mother was pregnant with you and she finally took a step to fix what she often called a 'mistake'. She took me off to Mohali to hide away from the society that knew of her and our family. I was 7 years old, I vaguely remember standing at the doorstep of a huge house, it was majestic. There was a man, very handsome, he took us in, he seemed shocked. I remember my mother crying and begging for him to let her stay, he agreed of course. I slept in a room alone and our mother slept in another room with that man, your father - Ekam Singh Dhillon. It confused me. Our mother was already 6 months pregnant by then.

It took me a while to understand that our mother had committed infidelity. She had cheated on my father with yours, becoming pregnant with you. I'm your half brother, Sana. Your father died with a heart attack a months later, before my father came back. He met you, Sana. He loved and cherished you, you were his princess, so know that you were loved. He was kind enough to leave everything to our mother with hopes that she would pass it all onto you.

My mother had no other option but to go back to Bathinda after my father came back. I was young, but I still remember the hell my home had become. You were looked upon as a rag doll by my father, I however thought of you as my little toy that I could play with, I was used to being around you, and somewhere, I even believed that you were my baby sister and loved you. My father gave our mother an ultimatum - to choose between you or us. My mother chose my father and I, she left you at the orphanage and signed over the house to you in her will. We moved away to Canada after that. I still live here. My parents pretended to be a happy family with me. It was sickening, they seemed to not even acknowledge that I knew of you. Or that you existed. It was sad.

Your father was a very kind man, he loved you more than life itself. Even at that young age, I could see how he held you to his chest every single night and loved you to sleep. My parents were good parents too, but life wasn't. I'm sorry for everything that happened.