‘Why don’t you relax?’ Roopa tried to persuade him.
‘The wound I received at the Muslim hand is bound to heal in time,’ said Raja Rao regardless. ‘But the humiliation I felt amidst the Hindu mob would be hard to obliterate from my memory.’
‘This is the ugly face of these two great religions,’ said Dr. Wazir Ahmed stoically.
‘My good doctor, to say that all religions are great is a quid pro quo,’ said Raja Rao excitedly. ‘Well, the followers of all religions feel great about their faith. If not, how would they become believers in the first place? But, if we were to go by the static inscriptions of their scriptures, then, the one common drawback with all the religions is the diktat to conform to their unique dogmas. In the guise of preaching goodwill, all faiths effectually divide humanity on religious lines. Isn’t it the villainy of religion?’
‘On the other hand,’ he continued, after having some glucose water that Sandhya gave him, ‘should the behavioral pattern of the followers be the criterion to judge the greatness of a religion, don’t we find that all faiths are equally wanting? How can any religion claim to be great when it fails to inculcate human values in its own followers? Oh, it’s but the poverty of thought that veils us from the fallacy of the faiths.’
‘But then,’ said the doctor, ‘are there not good people in all faiths.’
‘That’s due to the diversity of human nature, said Raja Rao, ‘and not owing to any religious conditioning of human character.’
‘The trauma of the event could be but a passing sentence in the history of man,’ philosophized Ranga Reddy, ‘and life, except for the dead, would go on, on the familiar course.’
‘You can take him now,’ said Dr. Wazir Ahmed, after checking up Raja Rao’s condition all over again. ‘This is the case history for reference.’
~~~~~~
Having thanked the doctors and the staff profusely, Raja Rao left the Osmania General Hospital with his family and friends for recuperation at the Gaganmahal Nursing Home. Once he was admitted there, he was gripped by an urge to see Saroja, and once Sathyam fetched her soon enough, he held her, as if he were clasping to his life itself.
‘How pleasurable it is to live?’ Raja Rao said, turning to Sathyam and seeing him visibly moved, he thanked him for his concern and expressed his regret for having detained his wife.
Towards the evening that day, Aslam came with tears in his eyes and a bouquet in his hand. Narasaiah, on hand, then narrated the tale, as if he were the eyewitness to the happenings.