Chapter

The Judge

It was a cold winter morning. Darkness at 11 am. Snow forming a thick carpet on the ground. Santim, however was freezing not from the winter but from the injustice he just saw dispensed. His face was all blue and he felt his soul withering. His mind numb. ‘Was that the Council of Elders or a flock of cattle?’ The question kept recurring. Unable to make earthly sense, he slowly let his eye lids close and fell into the deep dark bottomless hole . As he kept falling with closed eyes, he kept seeing.

“This is the day when all justice shall be dispensed. All with grievances with anyone including the King shall assemble”. The officious voice promisingly called out to the crowd that began to swell. The trumpet was blown and soon thereafter the 5 fat, aristocrats with fine clothing took their position on the stage. Each sitting in a red, throne- like chair. The Elders. The Dispensers of Justice

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The roll call always so promising to the innocent peasants, the sheep, the masses. The rituals dazzles the mind and unsuspectingly hides the Farce.

“Your Wise Elders,” begins the paid, fat prosecutor, “This man, Sikara Jamili, stands before ye charged for stealing a loaf of bread. A heinous crime indeed for this land condones no criminal conduct. I ask for the maximum sentence that ye deem fit to impose. O Wise Elders”. Pleased with his speech, he sits down.

Being charged for stealing a loaf of bread, an advocate is the last person he was able to afford. He was blessed with relatives, equally poor that he was unable to even think of bail money. Sikara therefore had decided to conduct his own defence. He had great faith in the compassion and listening ability of the Wise Ones. But for this crime, he has a clean record. All his friends know him to be a kind and honest man. He will relate all these to the Wise Ones and they will understand. They must have children too. He has heard about the Garden of Justice. He has faith in them.

The Wise Elders look down at the accused man in tattered clothes standing in the specially made dock. ‘What have ye to plea?. The Elder in the middle asks him. Sikara mumbles something which inspires the Elder to present a lecture to the crowd. He lectures on the virtue of speaking up in the Garden of Justice” The man attempt to speak again and immediately gets stopped by the Elder, now visibly angry.

“You did not address me as O Wise One! You did not address me as O Wise One! Don’t you know decorum?. And he proceeds to give another one hour of lecture on decorum in the Garden of Justice.

How very often do we sacrifice justice at the altar of decorum and man made rituals?

A sharp arrow darts through Santim’s heart. It does not matter that Sikara is uneducated and unprepared from birth to appear before the Wise Ones. It does not matter he thinks it is important to explain why he stole the bread. It is does not matter. For justice to be dispensed at all, one must begin with the rituals. Decorum. Santim keeps falling and seeing.

There was a loud thunder in the sky. ‘Hear one, Hear all. The clouds are dark and rain is soon to come. The Wise Elders shall now adjourn. All accused to be kept in the dungeon until the Wise Elders sit again in four months from now’,

Sikara’s trial, therefore, gets postponed. The dungeon, Santim knows, is the prison where the accused are kept until they are tried before the Wise Ones. In one cell which is about 12 feet by 12 feet, there can be as many as 10 prisoners. All supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. They may sleep on the cold floor but are given one blanket each. He will be fed with what they call ‘food’. Occasionally, the dungeon wardens will come to kick them around for sport. Since he carries the sin of poverty, he has to atone for it by being punished before being found guilty. For Sikara, the 4 months pass slowly like 40 years.

In the dungeon, Sikara sees the face of Zirasha, his 4 year old sickly daughter, his angel. He loves his wife and his other 4 children too, but Zirasha is special to him. She was born sickly and had a kind of disease which required her to be fed more often than normal children. The Medicine Man had predicted her death one month after birth but Nature intended otherwise. Lack of feeding can be fatal for her as her abnormal stomach walls will be gradually destroyed through lack of food. Whenever she does not eat, her eyes roll until only the white is seen due to the pain. He begins to cry. He does not care that he is punished but why his child too?

‘I have been a useless father’, his mind tells him as he cries. He feels the pain Zirasha must have felt from not eating for the 2 days he was in hiding with the loaf of bread. As a provider, he has failed. Who can he complain to when fate had decided this?

Santim’s eyes gets blurred by the pool of tears. Life is a chain reaction. One event affects the other. We all know it. It is in Nature. When you put your hand in the fire, you know what ensues. When you place you hand in the ice, you know what results. Nothing stands in isolation. Nothing. But Santim’s heart cannot accept why Sikara’s daughter ought to be punished for the deeds of her father. Justice on earth is indeed blind and dented.

Exchanging jokes, smiling a lot and laughing loudly are the domain of the rich, powerful, famous and the successful lot. If you cannot, you will never be one.

Never mind that others are dying from lack of everything.

Its their fate!

Tears fall from Santim’s closed eyes. Man made laws by the exalted few supported by the foolish mob called the people. The People. Where are they now to stand in defence of Sikara? Do they not see that what befalls Sikara crime was poverty and wanting his sick daughter to eat, to live? Not a mortal cares when it touches not their own skin.

Santim did not know whether to be angry or to be sad though his tears had a life of its own. In this confusion, he experiences numbness and surrender to the laws of nature. Then his mind looked at the image of the 5 Wise ones whom the people are applauding and bowing down to.

Five Old Shameless Man, knocking on grave’s door – yet unrepenting!

Make an exit when you willingly can for unwillingly you will be exited from life when the Angel of Death punctually knocks on your heart.

Then, you may no time for redemption.

Santim awoke from his drowsiness and realized the Supreme One still wants him alive on this earth. Why? I am a spectator and a traveler on this earth. There are too many scorpions on earth and I cannot ask why a scorpion stings. It is its nature. The rule of nature and the rule of human base desires are at total variance. Clarity in one, confusion in the other. Of all the scorpions, the most vile one is the unbridled “Me” which is the ultimate cause of injustices on earth.

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What is the rule?

Me. My family, my children,

ME!!!!!

Me! Me! Me!

NO,

These are exceptions to the rule, so says the Balancer.

END.