Seven

11. Deal Breaker

Sunday, December 16, 2018

Lucifer smiled, the coldness of his smile chilling the air around them, "You humans have no grasp of the truth, despite people coming out with brilliant quotations. As one erratic genius said, 'the truth is never pure and rarely simple.' What I showed you were facts but not the full truth, to understand the truth, you must put the facts in the correct perspective.

Let us start from the beginning. Shiraj Patel, whom you were convinced was a womaniser? He was, there is no denying that weakness of his, but then he is also the man who saved thousands of families from being homeless. In the long drawn out battle where the people refused to vacate the slums they built on the land that legally belonged to someone else, he came up with a solution of relocating them by constructed small apartment flats for them. That was how those tall sixty stories high residential towers were built. Prudent of him and a win-win solution for everyone concerned. He had a funeral fit for a hero.

Dr Mitra, whom you judged wanting, convinced that she facilitated illegal abortions of female foetuses. The girl she was helping out, is fourteen years old and a victim of sexual abuse, in the hands of her father and brother. There was no way she wanted nor could she carry the baby to term. But then your country laws made it impossible for a legal abortion. That fact that the unborn child was a girl was incidental and did not influence her decision, though it helped you make up your mind. Dr Mitra has helped many young girls terminate pregnancies as a result of abuse, despite not having the law on her side. Why do you think she had her clinic so close to Sonagachi?"

Raghuveer had no answers, not that he was expected to reply.

"Who was next? Deepshika. The factory she closed down was an environmental hazard. In its place, she planned to build a humongous shopping mall and would ensure that at least one member of the families of the displaced workers would be given a job. Mr Gupta opposed the decision for he was using that factory for his illegal operations. She knew about that but was hesitant to initiate legal action against a man she considered to be like a father. A courageous woman, you would have to admit."

And he had pegged her to be a callous businesswoman, with a focus only on money and profit. But what he heard next destroyed any illusions he might have had that the others deserved their fate.

"Then there was Arjun. I almost thought you would not shoot him. I could see the sympathy despite the evidence that he had killed others. And your sympathy would not be misplaced either. He did kill three people, but only because his sister had been gang-raped by them and subsequently murdered. His family had waited for a month as she battled for life before she succumbed to her injuries, as per the hospital report. Which again was a lie, for she was killed by Muthuswamy to prevent her from filing a case against his brother. That tipped the scales and Arjun took matters into his own hands. Guess his temperance had reached a breaking point."

Raghuveer struggled to breathe as he remembered Arjun's mother's face; that abject helplessness, to which he had added, would haunt him for the rest of his life. He did not want to hear further, though Luc did not give him any other choice.

"Annapurna, like her name, runs a free kitchen that feeds the poor and homeless. She turns a blind eye to the pilfering because she cannot take any more beatings from her husband who owns that shop. She cannot cook with broken bones and there are a hundred people who depend on her for their only meal of the day.

And the last, Satish, the paint maker; he paints dreams on the walls of bedrooms of kids who have terminal diseases for free. The background, the financial status, nothing about his young patients, matters to him. For a little while, he is happy to see them smile. He is an artist, one who restores faith in humans, however temporarily."