Death
On a cold winter night, I heard a sudden cry of the whole family in my neighbourhood. I was shocked and felt sudden fear running through my veins. The man in the family was ill for some time and the wife and the children were helpless. None of their relatives ever paid a single visit to them in their challenging times during the last few months. The poor family lost its only breadwinner. The future of the three children – two girls, five and six years old, and a three-year-old boy – was in dark now. Who will feed them and look after their needs such as their education? And what about the young beautiful wife? Ever ready to pounce, the hungry street dogs and wolves in the nearby jungle, barking and howling, made the scene even more terrifying. Next day the body was taken in procession to the nearby crematorium. The boy’s head was shaven and right in front of the whole family and some of us, the body was burnt to ashes. The other day, I was travelling by a local train and it stopp...