Tanvi Vaswani

Children Tragedy

3.9  

Tanvi Vaswani

Children Tragedy

The Truth Is Revealed

The Truth Is Revealed

7 mins
1.7K


Ramesh sincerely believed in the adage 'Honesty is the best policy' but there come certain times in life when we are forced to think otherwise.

Ramesh sat at the dining table, having his breakfast and reading the newspaper. His father Mr. Lal Tinani, came out of the bedroom and said "Good morning, son."Good morning, father" replied Ramesh. Mr. Tinani did not look sleepy, instead his eyes looked wet. When Ramesh asked him about this, his father replied, "Oh, that,… actually I just yawned." "Oh, okay father. I have prepared breakfast. Please freshen up and have it." said Ramesh.

It was 6 in the evening, and Ramesh decided to go out for a stroll. He looked out of the window and felt the force of the breeze on his face. He was enjoying it. Then he went to the shoe rack. As he was tying his shoelaces, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver and said "Hello?" " Lal, this is becoming difficult now" said the person on the other side, "The evidences say that the corpse is of Mrs. Tinani but you say that you don't know much about it. How will this work?"

Ramesh was confused. "Whom am I speaking to? Who is Mrs. Tinani? What corpse?" Mr. Lal heard Ramesh speaking all this and ran towards the telephone. He pulled the receiver from Ramesh's hand and told Ramesh that it was a call for him. Ramesh was worried and confused. Who was the person on the phone? Who was Mrs. Tinani? Ramesh was not married. Then was it his mother? And what corpse was the man speaking about? Mr. Lal spoke, "Hello, oh, okay. Please call me later. I cannot talk now. Yes, Yes. That was my son. No, he does not know about it. Okay, thank you, thank you." He hung up.

Ramesh kept staring at his father and his face told Mr. Lal that he wanted to know everything." Ramesh…. I don't know how to start. This all is like a bad phase. A very very bad one. I know that someday the police is gong to come home. I want to listen to them first. Only then can I understand what has happened. I myself am very confused." That's all Mr. Lal could say. What could he do? He himself didn't know enough.

A week passed, but the police did not come. Mr. Lal and Ramesh did not talk much. Each one of them knew, in their hearts, that they must leave the other one alone sometime. Mr. Lal was sitting in the bedroom and was looking out of the window. Meanwhile, Ramesh was in the kitchen, trying to experiment on food. He was quite fond of cooking. He had never needed a maid to do it. He could manage it himself.

The door bell rang. Ramesh thought the police had come but when he opened the door, it was the postman. He closed the door and opened the letter, while walking towards the sofa. As he sat, reading the letter, the door bell rang once again. Looking into the letter, Ramesh opened the door. He looked up. The police. They had come.

"Are you Mr. Ramesh Tinani? Is Mr. Lal Tinani your father?" asked the inspector. "Yes, I am Ramesh. Yes Mr. Lal, my father…."Before Ramesh could continue the inspector said, "Where is he? Call him right now." The inspector was such a rude man, Ramesh thought. Maybe his job had made him like that. Ramesh went to the bedroom and came out with his father.

Unlike guests, the police did not sit. They started firing questions at Mr. Lal as if they were asking the questions of a rapid fire round in a quiz. "We have found a body of a woman. Two months ago, a small slum existed in Aman Nagar, in Gujarat. Now it has been broken down to build a building. As the construction work had to be started, the workers began digging the area. During their digging they found a dustbin with a completely broken lid. The woman was in that dustbin. Only broken pieces of the skeleton of the body were found. When the post- mortem was done we found that the woman had died due to loss of blood caused by an injury on the head. The body is almost 20 years old.

After much investigation, we recognised the body as Mrs. Kiran Tinani's but at that time we were very busy working on a kidnapping case and hence could only call and speak to you. Investigation and evidences make us feel that this is a murder case, because even if Mrs. Tinani had injured herself and died, why had somebody hid her in the dustbin and in the ground, so deep? Do you want to say anything? Can you tell me everything that you know?"

The inspector had become a little polite, as he, could see the pain in a husband's eyes. Mr. Lal, slowly said, "Inspector, I want a day to tell you everything. I want to speak to my son and tell him everything first. I request you to give me one day." The police were feeling that that would be a waste of time. Initially, they were reluctant but later, they agreed.

When the police left, Ramesh brought a glass of water for Mr. Lal. Mr. Lal was in tears. After 10 minutes, Mr. Lal said, "Son, I am going to tell you the truth. It has always been like a wound inside me. I kept on telling you that your mother had died in an accident. But that was a lie. I did not have the courage to tell you.(sighs) Son, you were about three years old. You were the best thing in your mother's and my life. We loved you immensely. One day, in the morning, while you were sleeping, your mother was preparing breakfast and I was trying to help her. I cannot ever forget, how those happy moments turned out to be the worst moments of my life. Your mother kept cloth near the gas stove, and it caught fire and the other things also tried to catch the fire. Your mother was looking towards me and saying something ,and she was going to catch the cloth, without knowing what could have happened.

In order to save her from getting burnt, I pulled her towards me and pushed her away. Before the fire could spread more, I quickly pushed the burning things into the sink, that was full of water. I sighed and looked towards your mother. Her head was bleeding. When I had pushed her, she had banged her head, at the platform of the kitchen and suffered a fatal injury. I was in the most horrible position of mental state. I had murdered my own wife but it had been an accident. If I would have gone to the police, they would have punished me, and sent me to jail for many years.

And then what would have had happened to you? Your mother had no family and I had the worst brother on earth. He was a drug addict and you would have been sent to him because he was the only family you would have been left with. But my brother, Prakash would never take care of you and would make you a bad person. And hence, I did all this. I hid your mother and ran away from Gujarat and came here to Delhi. I never told about this to you because I knew that one day you would come to know about it and you have the full right to punish me. If you want to send me to jail and tell the truth to the police, you are free to do so. I won't stop you. But please try to forgive me."

Mr. Lal burst again into tears. Ramesh could not stop himself too.

Ramesh now had to take a big decision would change his life completely. But he had realised one thing today, 'Honesty is not always the best policy'.

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