When Beard Singed the Seer

The seer who was super famous was visiting the city. Like the dust in the city his fame too had spread across every nook and corner. In the city convention hall, he would grant audience to his numerous followers. If you were short of time, you could book a slot at a fixed time and pay a premium fee. Then your waiting time would be shorter and you could get to speak to him for a minute or two. For the general public one had to wait in the serpentine queue and get to have a glance at him. No more. Unless you were lucky and the guru tends to talk to you on his own volition. It was believed that the seer could foresee future and as well knew the past.

When the booking opened the tickets sold out in no time. On public request as we often hear he had agreed to extend his stay in the city so that others could also book and get to meet him. By this seer had to extend his stay by two weeks, such was the rush to seek his blessings. The seer and his entourage were staying at a five-star hotel. Please don’t raise your eye-brows questioningly. His PR had said this was required due to security reasons. Like many other predecessors he was close to those in the corridor of powers. He had rubbed shoulders with the PM himself when the latter had visited his huge retreat by the river side to inaugurate it. Some stupid activists had filed a petition alleging violations of law by building this ashram on the river banks. The state’s solicitor had represented that the state didn’t consider it as a violation of law at all. Under some exempt clause the state had the powers to grant retrospective relief. Nothing further was known about the case in the media. So, you could imagine the kind of power the seer wielded both with the gods and mortals.

It was time for the general public to seek his grace. He barely looked up to see who was touching his feet but offered some Kumkum like a robot. But once he did and got a shock to see a woman with a black mole on her right cheek standing up in the line.

His memory was clear. Some years ago, six to be precise the same woman had come to see him at the retreat. She looked vulnerable then. That time the seer had more time in his hands and when he tried to talk to her realized she was deaf and dumb. However, language was not a barrier when it comes to matter of chemistry. The seer had felt a hormonal reaction when the woman was seated opposite him. He soon realized that she had come alone from nowhere. He offered her stay that night. His hospitality included rape too, which the deaf and dumb woman didn’t know. Once his passion had been vented, he signalled to his aide to remove the women from his room. The aide too tried to vent his passion but he didn’t expect her violent response. She kicked him so hard on his balls he had momentarily lost conscious due to excruciating pain. While he hollered in pain, the women made good her escape. The women couldn’t be traced further in the following days and the seer went back to business-as-usual life. And now her sudden appearance. However, he kept his cool and continued his Kumkum offering.

He could see in the corner of his eye that the woman was in front and was accompanied by a five-year old boy. He felt a pang in his heart and for a moment looked up to meet her eye. The little boy playfully reached out to him, stroked his beard and pulled at it hard. The seer shrieked in pain and in the melee the woman quickly led the boy out with her apologizing to every-one. When the cardon of security staff realized she was deaf and dumb and didn’t mean any harm they let her go. Little did they realize that the boy had now a tuft of the beard and the woman had quietly taken it and put it in her purse.

Three days later in a press conference called by the city NGO famous for its urban Naxalite like stance a bomb shell was dropped by its founder claiming that the seer had raped a deaf and dumb woman and sired a son. He waved some papers as proof of DNA. It would be an understatement to say that the hell broke loose.

The woman followed him in his announcement and explained her story in sign language. She said some six years ago she had gone to see the seer hoping that she could get a job and stay at the retreat itself. He offered her hospitality for the night and raped her. When his aide followed suite, he had kicked him hard on his balls and the aide had fainted. She managed to grab some money from his wallet and made good her escape. She was lucky to find there was a good amount of money. She had come to the city then and found a job at the NGO. Soon she realized she was pregnant and decided to keep the child and also it was a little late to abort. When she learnt from the papers the seer was visiting the city, she had confessed to the NGO founder about the incident six years ago. They discussed the possibility of filing a policing case and then the founder had mentioned about some proof. It was then he mentioned about DNA too. Then she had plotted the idea of letting her son innocently grab the seer’s beard and the ploy worked out well. Now they had incontrovertible proof after the city lab had confirmed the one hundred percent matching gene. Needless to say, that the broadcast saw repeat telecast often and the social media got hit by a tsunami.

The next day seer had surrendered to the police on his own accord. The judge sentenced him to life time imprisonment for raping an innocent and vulnerable woman. He also awarded Rs one crore compensation to her. He also ordered the state to guarantee her and son personal protection. He knew that nobody would dare touch the NGO founder

In his oral observation he committed the faux pas of stating that bearded men with halo around them cannot be trusted. You can imagine the furore his statement had made. What happened to the judge deserves another story.

Both the woman and the NGO founder were lauded for taking on the mighty. The state for its part let loose their institutional dogs under its leash. Both the NGO and its founder had impeccable records and their dogs could not do anything to bite but merely barked.

Sometimes in this country justice do prevail.