Garland of Guilt
Soon, under the shadows of Sneha’s death, Suresh’s trial was on course at the Tees-Hazari. At the behest of the defense, the hearing recommenced in camera to avoid further damage to the dead woman’s image. Sneha’s suicide note and Dr. Gupta’s testimony insensibly tilted the needle of sympathy in Suresh’s favor. Paranjape too felt it would be heartless to press for the exemplary punishment. Arguments over, Justice Sumitra reserved her judgment and adjourned the court.
‘What was the trial all about?’ Sumitra found herself contemplating that night. ‘Are rapes and murder the only issues on trial in this singular case? Was not Suresh the violator as well as a victim at the same time? What about those who blackened their faces in this sordid drama of human depravity? Are they any innocent? Well, it was as if the parents insensibly combined to collectively jeopardize their son’s life. Gautam surely was guilty of prostituting his wife. Was it not the beginning of the end of them all? How it would have pained as well as shamed him! Is not Vivek free though it was he who sowed the seeds of this crime? Could the law have reprimanded Sneha, the eye of the storm? How she affected her son’s psyche! Through the impediment of her past, didn’t she clear the way to his fall! But, didn’t Manian, the villain of the piece go scot-free?'
‘Oh how callously Shanti’s parents colluded with the defense!’ she thought, turning her searchlight on the darker side of the prosecution. ‘And the way they tried to bail out their daughter’s murderer at that! If the rope were to answer Suresh’s crime, what should be done to book Shanti’s people for their calumny? Well, to appease his lust for fame, how routinely Mehrotra subjects justice to multiple rapes! Why, won’t the police deliberately fail the prosecution for a price? How the politicians are wont to pull the strings to extricate the culprits of their class? Whither the public morality! The society seems hooked to Mammon, doesn’t it? How life itself has become a punishment to the decent! Oh, what life has come to be, but yet it goes on and that’s life.'
‘What justice, or whatever is left of it, would serve the ends of justice in this multifaceted crime,’ she thought as she reached for the pad to write the judgment. ‘After all, wasn’t Suresh’s criminality more a product of his perverse psyche than that of his innate nature? If he were to be given the rope, how would he ever have the chance to discover his true self? Is it the spirit of life that one should die in a state that is not his true self! If, the meaning of life is fruition of the soul, the ultimate penalty seems contrary to the rationale of life and the wisdom of the Creator. How am I to know what role God had ordained for Suresh in his latter-day life? After all, he is so young and thus changeable. So, it seems fair that he survives the noose and serves out the sentence.’