Sprouts of Love
Following Suresh with her eyes, Vidya thought about swamiji’s benign gesture to him that she had heard about. She felt that swamiji’s regard for guruji’s prodigal son vindicated her own position. She recalled that day when swamiji briefed her about the life and times of Suresh. How even before she could recover from the shock of what she had heard, swamiji placed Suresh’s photograph before her! And didn’t he ask her to make Suresh’s story privy to every inmate of the Shanti Sadan!
How impressed she was with what she saw of him in that picture! How puzzled she was when swamiji ordained that Suresh’s pictures be displayed all over Shanti Sadan! Didn’t he theorize that the picture of his youth and the plight of his soul would enable the inmates to reflect upon their hurt from the angle of the culprit’s suffering? It was swamiji’s belief that the very fact that the inmates owed their succor to a reformed sinner might help them overcome some of their own bitterness. Besides, as Suresh happened to be guruji’s son it would have value addition as well, would it not?
How swamiji’s disclosure and his diktat affected her! Why she found herself staring at the photograph all the way to Shanti Sadan! How handsome he looked in that picture and what mischievous smile he had! Didn’t she feel as though he was smiling at her? What a pair of magnetic eyes he had! How they had kept her glued to the frame for hours on end all these years! How long did she search for the clues to his criminality in his serene demeanor! But did she find any? And having found none, didn’t she fall in love with his attractive face? All the same, how shocked she was when she realized that!
How troubled she was that he was serving time at Tihar for rape and murder! How the mixed feelings of awe and pity perturbed her! Didn’t she in the end pardon him for his crime as he showed the strength to reform himself? How glad she was that he was a sensitive soul! Didn’t she feel proud of him that he turned out to be a Good Samaritan? Did she ever think about anyone other than him from then on? How often did she wish he had not done what he did so that he wouldn’t be languishing in the jail? What a wonder that she began to see his crime itself as misdirected masculinity! How she waited for him in the hope that he too would fall in love with her! Did she have a wink ever since guruji told her about his impending release? Now that he had come, could her eyes keep sleep away for her to cherish his visage all the night? If he looked handsome in those pictures, oh, how divine he appeared in his person!