Tragic death, worse aftermath

An extremely moving article in the online edition of the Sunday Indian Express. It deals with the gruesome murder of Manjunath, the IIM graduate. Makes us think ... and question our own value systems. Excerpts:

"Manjunath will be 28 on February 23.’’ A birthday reminder flashed on our e-group. There was a sinister irony in this. For today was also the day the chargesheet in Manju’s murder was filed.

I deleted the reminder but not the memories. I went back to the day I visited the petrol pump where Manju was shot. As I stood in the eerie silence of that sealed, deserted pump, I could really feel the death he must have died. The kind of death that nobody should die. All alone and cold. On a dusty road, in UP’s hinterland, in the dead of the night. Dying with just one thought. It’s all over.

Manju’s parents stand with me, their sorrow merging with the silence. I feel an indescribable pang. Manju’s mother Pramila asks the police escort, ‘‘What were Manju’s words when he saw Monu Mittal pull out the revolver?’’ She explains, ‘‘Monu Mittal always behaved like a friendly dealer. He’d come home once, when I was with Manju. I had even served him coffee.’’ ...

I have been their interpreter all day. I had taken them to the Mahauli police station first to meet the constables. The constables who’d spotted a vehicle in the dead of the night, given chase and nabbed Monu’s henchmen red-handed. Without them, the case would never have come to light. In fact, the adulteration mafia had planned to dump Manju’s body and weave a story around it—portraying Manju as an unstable, wayward drunkard who got into a brawl and died.

I failed as interpreter, though. It was beyond me to translate into Hindi those outpourings of gratitude. Manju’s parents’ expressions, their tears said it all—the debt we owed the constables. The head constable said, ‘‘We were on patrol but we went to have tea and saw the car. They immediately offered us a bribe of Rs 2 lakh—to let them go and dump the body at a spot nobody would locate. But their crime was so heinous I wouldn’t let them off for Rs 2 crore!’’

This overpaid IIM graduate doesn’t think of a lakh or two as a big amount. But even this MBA begins respecting the value of Rs 2,000 when the head constable says, ‘‘Sir, can you help my son find a job? He’s just completing his B.Sc, even a job for Rs 2,000 a month will help a lot. You will help an honest boy.’’

''When I first heard of Manju’s death I used to wonder if it was worth it. If Manju lived, he could have served his parents in their old age, gotten his sister married and so on—all the things every well-bred Indian takes pride in doing. So I wondered, couldn’t Manju have done the slight paap of going a bit easy on his values—with the long-term punya in view? Was this death worth it really?''

In response, a reader had written something that made me hang my head in shame.

‘‘I don’t understand why for everything in life we ask ourselves— was it worth it? There are some beliefs, actions and motions that are above this ‘‘deal evaluation’’ exercise that we apply on everything. Like in love. It doesn’t matter if you can or cannot justify the effort and time spent in chasing a dream. What is important is that you believed in the dream and the need to take the journey. Let’s not trivialise what Manju did by even pontifying on whether it was worth it or not. Let’s not demean a believer! If you need to do anything, try dreaming the dream that he probably had.’’

Honesty is like love. Inexplicable. Unjustifiable. Just do it.