(continued from the previous post)
Padma
was in her mid twenties. Their house
bore a pall of gloom because of the death of a relative – not that their family
had not known death, because the deceased individual forced it upon himself! This was the first ever suicide heard of in
the village the family hailed from!
Moreover, the relative was a prodigal son who wrought infamy upon his
parents – he would purchase expensive items from the market on credit by
(mis)using his father’s name and the poor father would have to foot the bills
at a later date. There was a point when
the parents grew tired of his spendthrift habits – they warned him
strongly. The suicide was not the result
of the repentance, rather of determination to put elderly parents into further
trouble. When he was ‘fished’ out of the
river, a suicide note was recovered from his possession, which said that his
parents drove him into taking this extreme step and that he would take revenge
on his parents and those who supported them by haunting them. In addition to the sorrow, Padma was worried
about this ‘haunting’. She expressed her
fears to Sakti, who assuaged them by saying, ‘Don’t you worry, Padma! If each and every individual who committed
suicide would decide to haunt some one or the other, the roads would be full
after dark and there would be no room for traffic either’. Padma was relieved.
* * * * * * * * *
