MURDER IN INSTALMENTS
[As an aside, almost three years ago I had opined precisely so. And yet I am saddened at this verdict. The jury is yet out on the ultimate truth. For all we know they fell victim to botching up by the CBI. But for now we have to go by the court of the land]
And, yes, if I were the judge – limited by the same jurisprudence – I would decree similarly. And yet I feel very sad.
Sad for Rajesh and Nupur. Two middle class parents who happened to see their lovable and darling daughter having sex with “their servant”. The shock yielded to momentary anger and the rest is justice. Sad, brutal, blind and yet the only way justice can be.
How many of us, the middle class parents are damn sure we would act very differently given the sequence of events? Yet, Rajesh and Nupur are wrong. But exactly how?
What went wrong? When exactly did Rajesh and Nupur kill Aarushi? Where exactly these apparently loving parents fail?
Well, they killed her within a few years of her birth, when she was raised a single child, without a sibling, without a company, without anyone to share her pangs and pleasures.
Then they killed her when she was attaining puberty. They failed to gauge the importance of sex as a driving force for today’s teens.
They killed her when they hired a good looking Hemraj and left them alone. Indeed, they killed Hemraj that way, too.
They killed by virtue of living in a nucleus family with a young, ambitious daughter with so much privacy for herself – and so much distance from parents, and with access to a boy fit for her age.
They failed as parents all the way. And their failure caught up with them at a very, very wrong moment, in a very, very sad way. For all concerned.
But can any of us be very sure we wouldn’t, we couldn’t and we will not be Rajesh and Nupur? Think.
