The death of a young boy. The eight year old who tried to cross the road to pass on the message that his mom had written down in a piece of paper to the pimp who lived across the street, found himself stuck under the wheels of a speeding pleasure car. There was enough blood spilt. Before anyone could reach there, he gave up his ghost. Indeed it was a dark, gloomy evening.
The man in the pleasure car held a powerful position and was rich enough to silence the crowd - because people feared him. He threw them cash. Plenty of cash. We are in such dangerous state of rottenness that we wouldn't mind numbing our conscience and killing morality altogether in order to save our face. Money, as it goes, could buy anything. There is absolutely no value for life here. The man wanted to speed up the burial before news got out. So he gave his mother two lakh rupees immediate cash. There was no police involved. Only a handful of people were present for the funeral service which ended in less than 15 mins and the body was taken to the graveyard. Within two hours, one beautiful life was totally extinguished and there was no sign of the boy having lived in that place for 8 long years. People there did not seem to bother at all. There was absolutely no sense of loss, no one to mourn the death or shed at least a few drops of tears to comfort the prostitute mother.
We could easily dust off poor people treating them like dirt, with a sly 'move-on-who-the-hell-cares' attitude having no regret whatsoever and go on leading our fake lives like nothing ever happened. Woe unto us, I say, for we shall verily grow weary and drown - for our lack of kindness. Woe unto us, for our lives shall be filled with desolation - for being disrespectful of the lives of others. Woe unto us, for there shall come a dark time when we shall seek refuge in all places and yet shall find no help anywhere under the sun.
One might argue that there is nothing wrong in what the rich man did! He did recompense for his misdeed - paying in lakhs. What else do you want him to do? Well, there are two things one must not fail to notice. One, the rich man did not feel sorry for the death of the young boy. He just threw his money not with an intent to recompense, but to hush things up. Had no one noticed the accident, he would have probably driven away very fast without stopping. Two, he had actually come to that place to have sex with another prostitute. Rumour has it, that the mother who now weeps for her child was once the most famous of all the prostitutes and the rich man used to visit her more frequently to taste her flesh in the past - at a time when what hides beneath her bodice was more tender and firm. So, one cannot also rule out the chance that the rich man could probably be the real father of the child who he just killed. Yes, things get more dirty when we dig in the details. They say - you shall know a tree by its fruits and a man by his actions. But when our actions lack humility, conviction and sincerity, we cannot be justified by any means.
There was just one person who wept for the child all day and all night. The boy's prostitute mother. He was her first-born. There were other children too - four in total (now three) - from strange men. But this boy was her favourite child. He was an obedient son and loved his mom so much. The story goes that there was one instance where he almost bit off the penis of a man who was having sex with his mother. That was the only time he happened to see lewd things with his own innocent eyes. It was two years back. Though he did not understand much of what was happening, he was certain that somebody was hurting his mom and he did not like that. After this incident, she was very watchful of the boy not getting to know about what she did to win bread for the family.
She wept, wept and wept. No one could console her of her grief. She mourned the death of her child to a point where it affected her mentally and she was no more stable. Yes, she became hysterical, gave herself up to strange mood-swings, started yelling and throwing stones at people, did not take care of her other children, refused to have sex with men, brought down the business of the pimp who in turn hit her hard and left her to bleed from her bruises atleast once a week. Everyone started calling her - retard! She was subjected to public ridicule. Even at this sorry state, some strange kinky men would reach out to the pimp so they could have sex with her forcibly - beating her up so badly. When the children would enter the house, she would be sitting like a ghost totally lost in her thoughts, with un-explainable scars and bruises everywhere. No one could read her mind. Life was extremely harsh on her, that - one day - she decided to commit suicide. And she hung herself from the only ceiling fan in her house orphaning her three children.
She was given a grand funeral. So many people attended the service, spoke highly of the prostitute mother who took away her life mourning the death of her son. There were so many good things spoken about her. The way she used to give away money that she earned from prostitution to pay for the education of few of the school going kids from the slum, the kindness with which she greeted the elderly people and took them to hospital whenever they were in need, and the constant love she showed to all the disabled people living in the slum. Her grave was not a fancy one but a simple heap of mud, and over that stood a cross and a placard. The placard carried this beautiful Bible verse written in local language:
One might argue that there is nothing wrong in what the rich man did! He did recompense for his misdeed - paying in lakhs. What else do you want him to do? Well, there are two things one must not fail to notice. One, the rich man did not feel sorry for the death of the young boy. He just threw his money not with an intent to recompense, but to hush things up. Had no one noticed the accident, he would have probably driven away very fast without stopping. Two, he had actually come to that place to have sex with another prostitute. Rumour has it, that the mother who now weeps for her child was once the most famous of all the prostitutes and the rich man used to visit her more frequently to taste her flesh in the past - at a time when what hides beneath her bodice was more tender and firm. So, one cannot also rule out the chance that the rich man could probably be the real father of the child who he just killed. Yes, things get more dirty when we dig in the details. They say - you shall know a tree by its fruits and a man by his actions. But when our actions lack humility, conviction and sincerity, we cannot be justified by any means.
She wept, wept and wept. No one could console her of her grief. She mourned the death of her child to a point where it affected her mentally and she was no more stable. Yes, she became hysterical, gave herself up to strange mood-swings, started yelling and throwing stones at people, did not take care of her other children, refused to have sex with men, brought down the business of the pimp who in turn hit her hard and left her to bleed from her bruises atleast once a week. Everyone started calling her - retard! She was subjected to public ridicule. Even at this sorry state, some strange kinky men would reach out to the pimp so they could have sex with her forcibly - beating her up so badly. When the children would enter the house, she would be sitting like a ghost totally lost in her thoughts, with un-explainable scars and bruises everywhere. No one could read her mind. Life was extremely harsh on her, that - one day - she decided to commit suicide. And she hung herself from the only ceiling fan in her house orphaning her three children.
She was given a grand funeral. So many people attended the service, spoke highly of the prostitute mother who took away her life mourning the death of her son. There were so many good things spoken about her. The way she used to give away money that she earned from prostitution to pay for the education of few of the school going kids from the slum, the kindness with which she greeted the elderly people and took them to hospital whenever they were in need, and the constant love she showed to all the disabled people living in the slum. Her grave was not a fancy one but a simple heap of mud, and over that stood a cross and a placard. The placard carried this beautiful Bible verse written in local language:
"Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame."
Song of Solomon 8:6
Sometimes, the way the story of our life ends might not be all that great. Our minds could force us to think that we deserved a better finish. We need to quickly grow out of such depressing thoughts. Truly, it doesn't matter how we are doused. But it does matter how we burnt when the wick was still wet with oil.
