The Gangster Prince
The wedding was organized with a great pomp. An impressive turnout of politicians, Movie Mughals, the Mega stars in their imported cars and the numbered heroines of the silver screen and the beauty queens with their diamond studded jewelry and the designer dresses just picked out from their wardrobes and industrialists with their glamorous wives or fiancées enhanced the glamour at the wedding venue. They waited for the marriage procession to arrive. An air-conditioned luxury car with the groom sitting inside and four bodyguards on either side of the car finally arrived with mind-boggling music emanating from the best band troop of the city. Silver and gold coins were tossed in the air as soon as the procession reached the bride’s house. The bride, daughter of an industrialist was decked in gold and diamond ornaments. More than two thousand guests helped themselves to the lavish spread at the dinner tables. All these guests came prepared to stay on till the wedding ceremonies concluded and to regale themselves with the song and dance items that were to follow to entertain them. . It was the wedding of the son of Kishen, known as ‘Kaka’, the dreaded gangster! In the formative years the kaka was a notorious rowdy-sheeter in the records of the police station. He was involved in murder cases and in cases under the Arms Act and a kidnapping case apart from other offences like chain snatching and robberies. But as the time passed, he grew up in stature with his notoriety, and presently without his support no politician could get elected either to the assembly or to the parliament. It was but natural that the political leaders were vying with each other for his support though he was the ever-elusive fugitive who had terrorized the area for the last twenty years. In the process he made enormous money and lead a lavish lifestyle and with a twist of his finger he could rule the political scenario. The stories of his debauched life, boozing and womanizing were legion. Once he was even served an extermination notice from the city by the police for a period of six months but he managed to remain in the city under the very nose of the police. . Now he celebrated the wedding of his son Raghu Yadav with a great pomp. The groom was the ‘King’ in the making and hence at least two bodyguards always stood by his side even in the midnight. It had to be like that because he would be ‘Crowned’ soon. Presently kaka carried a reward of five hundred thousand on his head. Though he was not visible at his son’s wedding the presence of Members of parliament, Legislative assembly, ex and present and the other dignitaries, glamorous women, more than made up for his absence. Two Ministers known for their criminal antecedents also attended, however, they made sure that they escaped attention by traveling incognito in private cars and left the venue much before the scheduled time of the wedding, after blessing the couple. Though kaka had not attended the wedding he was in constant touch with his family members over the telephone. The police knew that he even spoke to some of the VIP guests during the wedding but they stood by mutely watching and waiting for their turn for the dinner. The police tried to evade chasing Kaka on the pretext that identifying him posed a major problem since they did not have a single photograph of his! However they described him as ‘a robust figure with a balding head, small beard wearing sunglasses in a gold colored frame and gold rings for all the fingers of both the hands except the thumbs, a gold chain dangling from his neck and always carried a hand phone in his left hand’. Persons of such description were very commonly found and hence they express their inability to find him. But it was the open secret that the reasons were quite different. Amidst this pomp and din a girl of about twenty five years slowly walked into the venue and sat in a chair twenty yards away from the groom and the bride. She was not well dressed but looked graceful and because of her grace no one objected to her entry. Though majority of the guests were helping themselves at the dinner tables, she was watching only the groom. * A week earlier in a small village about one hundred kilometers away from the city, the sun was setting as usual and Roja got down from the bus and walking towards her house a walk of a kilometer, carrying her one year old baby. The baby had put on weight and Roja was carrying her with difficulty apart from the heavy bag. Her father who was a schoolteacher in the village had not come to the bus stand to receive her. “Perhaps of old age,” she thought. Or might be he had not received the letter she had written. After all it was the village she was born and knew every inch of it and she could make it alone. She was educated in the city and got her post graduation degree. Immediately thereafter she was married and presently living with her husband in the city. It was almost nightfall and in spite of the heavy bag and the baby, Roja walked with speed though breathless. Suddenly someone covered her face with a cloth and lifted her and some other had dragged her baby into his arms. She struggled to remove the cloth from her head but it was fastened tight. She could hear the baby crying loudly. She also tried to cry loudly but her voice was chocked. With lightning speed she was dragged to the nearby mango grove and one fellow with a smell of perfume pounced on her. Her struggle to run away was in vain and shortly she was made naked. And again with a lightning speed four persons raped her one after another and left her senseless and motionless. But she heard the sound of a speeding car her baby crying somewhere nearby. She could distinctly remember two of those faces. With agony she stood up lifted her baby to her arms made up her sari, lifted her bag and walked towards her house. * It was nearing midnight and the guests were thinning. The two bodyguards left for dinner anticipating no trouble at that time of the night. The bride though appeared to be cheerful, was tired and waiting for the function to conclude soon. Suddenly the groom saw Roja and his face went pale. It was he who led the gang rape on her a week back. Though pale for a moment,he turned his head towards his bride with a vicious smile and again turned aside to control a cough. In a fraction of a second Roja pounced on him like a tiger on its target and stabbed him with a long knife. She repeated the stabs till she was out of breath and until the stupefied bride and the horrified guests overpowered her. She had left the knife in the chest of her victim and in the melee she managed to swallow a pill. The next day the doctors at the hospital declared that the groom and also Roja dead! There was a letter in her belongings addressed to a Minister, who received it the next day after a scrutiny by his secretary and read it. “Honorable Minister, I don't know whom i should address. but by the time that someone reads this letter I would be in a deep forced sleep. Even when I sleep one might not miss the agony apparent on my face. I was a victim of a gang rape, you know by whom? The son of the ‘Uncrowned King’-that illustrious son of that dreaded gangster Kaka. I read somewhere that, if a rape is inevitable don’t struggle but lie down calmly and enjoy. Perhaps one who was a rapist by himself made this dirty statement? A torturous death might be less painful than this..this... The rapist got married in pomp and gaiety in the presence of people’s representatives damning an innocent girl. I believed that stories of rape were mostly untrue and could be seen only in movies. But I must be totally wrong. For years now, in the small world around me,I believed that human beings stand for certain pious values. I was entirely wrong. I have heard so many rags-to-riches stories and here is a case of someone convicted in a criminal cases- a criminal ruling the lawmakers. Unfortunately there are overflow of cases of petty thieves and the scavenging pickpockets locked up in jail for three or four months for stealing a mere ten or twenty from a bus passenger. No one makes any noise about them or their starving families. But if only those fellows manage a bigger kill and end up richer by millions like these Kakas or their sons,it is quite possible and no wonder that we people may hoist and elevate them to the Parliament or Assembly, as it is happening now.The venue of the wedding was a live example of how our representatives stoop to lower levels just to thrive in politics. What happened to all this loud talk about punishing the criminals and the corrupt? And who cares whether one is corrupt or not and cases of rapes- they are all a gang of dreaded gangsters who rule the country. I know that this letter will not open the eyes of millions of gangsters and rapists and other criminals that are sprouting at every corner of the country. But I should atleast speak out knowing pretty well that this letter ends up with your endorsement 'Secretary for immediate action'. May God bless all those politicians who are wielding power and the criminals who rule the politicians and may God bless the innocents to be always a prey to the above two species. With regards Roja” The Minister had taken immediate action. He had endorsed on the letter with slight modification, “Secretary, examine and put up.” ______________
Copyright © 2001 Sreenivasa Murthy Govindaraju |