Sajjan returned early afternoon to attend his last meet with the village heads. He checked and was satisfied that Leela was indeed playing with little Leela in the field leading her to the machan as per his instructions. He and Amar sat in the veranda even as the village heads started to arrive. Once, all had gathered and Sajjan started explaining to them, his plan for prosperity in detail. They listened to him in awe and excitement as they could now almost count the profit they would be earning.
“I’m going to keep all details with Amar here so that you can refer when in doubt.” he stopped as the gathering applauded, as well, he saw Birju arrive at the main gate of Amar’s house.
He nudged Amar’s attention to Birju… Amar called him in with a warm welcome and asked him to join them in the veranda. Amar started explaining to the village heads as to how the leaves brought in by Birju had helped him in preparation of the manure based fertilizer that had helped everyone so much. Sajjan wishfully looked at his wristwatch, “C’mon Leela, where are you?”
Suddenly, he felt tiny hands hug his shoulders from behind and he saw little Leela who playfully asked him. “Where’s my chocolate bar?”
Sajjan put his hand in his pocket and deliberately moved his hand that held her chocolate in a circular motion as if playing mischief. Little Leela’s gaze followed his hand that held the chocolate bar even as Birju stood up to run away.
“He’s the bad uncle who tried to hurt me the other day.” she screamed in fright pointing at Birju and he started to run away. Sajjan extended his foot and tripped him so that he fell down. Amar was up and on him in a flash. Birju knew he was trapped and wanted to struggle his way to safety. But the crowd started raining powerful kicks at him as they all recollected the painful death of little Reshma. Their anger was rising to its peak.
“Why?” Amar asked hitting another blow.
Birju was scared beyond thinking, his mind just wanted to escape the mad crowd, “I’ll tell you – please listen to me – I didn’t do this of my own will – Rana told me to do all this for Rajasaab – he said he will pay me heavy amount to get this done.” The crowd stopped hitting him for a moment trying to digest what he had revealed.
Leela was there and she came forward and kicked him hard in his stomach similar to the kick in the stomach of her sister. “It may be so – but – you are the one who actually does it, you kill people when Rana tells you to do so – you killed my innocent sister. You are a murderer. You killed my sister and you killed the child Reshma.” and she followed with more fierce kicks on his stomach and face in her anger.
“What guarantee that he won’t do it again?” someone from the crowd growled, “Let’s drag him to the main square of the bazaar. Let people decide what to do with him.”
The crowd dragged him all the way to the main square in the bazaar and tied him to the lamp post. They started telling everyone who gathered about what Birju had done and how Rana and Rajasaab were behind the killing of little Reshma. Someone from the furious crowd threw a stone at Birju and others in the crowd, with uncontrolled anger followed him. They kept pelting stones at Birju even after he was dead. The crowd decided to hunt out Rana and all his men and give them the same treatment as Birju.
“I hope you feelings of hate have now vanished. You have seen how brutally Birju was punished and he died a real horrible death.” Sajjan said after they returned from the bazaar and she nodded happily, “I did this so that you can now be at peace and start teaching those adivasi girls the defence tactics, not hate.”
“How did you know that it was Birju who tried kidnapping, little Leela?”
“I got my ways of figuring such things out.”
“And what if it wasn’t Birju?”
“I’d have sent him back to his tribe where you would have had your chance of revenge.” he smiled.
Amar knocked at the main door of the outhouse and hugged Sajjan as he entered.
“You really are a saint who has blessed Dheemapur with his presence. Even as you leave Dheemapur, you are blowing away sinister clouds of hate and fear away. I really don’t know how to thank you.”
“You can thank me by ensuring that Leela safely boards the 4pm passenger.”
“You can count on that, I’ll personally see her off. Why didn’t you tell the farmers that you were leaving tomorrow?”
“That’s because they would have tried to stop me from leaving.”
“Even I want you to stay and not leave.”
“Please understand, I got to be travelling. I got to visit other towns like Dheemapur and help people there. I need to meet many Amars who would lead them to peace and prosperity. The farmers here have found a new leader for them in you. Go on – lead them to peace and prosperity.”
“I promise – I will” with nothing more to say, he left with heavy emotions.
“Let’s go to the machan – one last time.” she said after they had their meal. He complied. She noticed that he wasn’t touching her. He was silent.
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- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/
- Prasad Deshpandehttps://storiesandme.com/author/prasad/