mumbai on november 23 arohi turned 18 but unlike most girls her age who would perhaps have celebrated their coming of age she was on a missionplotting her escape from her parents father and stepmother home in cuddalore in tamil nadu to her maternal grandfathers residence in mumbai just six months ago the plucky teenager was caught in the midst of a bitter and highly publicized custody battle and the bombay high court had granted her custody to her father and stepmother much against her wishes so as soon as she turned a major arohi who aspires to be an aeronautical engineer returned home to kings circle in mumbai iterating that her bond with her grandparents is much stronger than that with her own father the youngster is now preparing for her hsc examinationdressed in a black tshirt and jeans arohi explaining her brave decision to run away from home on december 7 said i had kept in touch with my grandfather over the phone even after my phone was confiscated by my parents i kept in touch with him through public phones i wanted to run away on my birthday itself but my stepmother was in mumbai at that time so i waited for her to begin her journey back to cuddalore revealing that her college friends had egged her on to listen to her heart she said i took the afternoon bus to puducherry which is not very far from cuddalore my grandmothers sister lives there i reached late in the evening and spent the better part of the evening in a public garden in fact it was not the first time that the girl had tried to escape to mumbai arohi had made a similar attempt in may barely a month after the court order but her father traced her and took her back home but this time things were different on december 8 i went to a womens police station and told them that i had turned 18 and wanted to live with my grandparents my dad did not pursue me this time i wrote a letter saying that i had no grievance against him and this would not spoil our relationship she revealed smiling her grandfather drove to puducherry and brought arohi back to the city on december 15despite the bitterness arohi refrains from using harsh words against her parents i just never felt part of the family my dad was good to me but when it came to my stepmother he always took her side she always treated me badly and favoured my stepsister and brother she said arushi also expressed surprise that her father had made no attempts to contact her this time around i want to talk to him but i will call him only once my exams are overarohi lost her biological mother in 1994 when she was just oneandahalfyears old her father remarried and she grew up thinking her stepmother was her mother only when she turned 10 did she