‘Maybe, I might escape the noose but would she be able to stand the shame of her owning up all?’ he thought reflectively. ‘In spite of everything, wouldn’t she be clinging to her honor as dearly as I might like to hang on to my life? Anyway, what is so worthy about my life that it should be saved by embarrassing her before the Justice and the others? Why should I let her pay the price for my sins? If her peccadilloes are exposed in my defense, won’t she stand naked in the court, though in camera? Won’t she then die in disgust in the court itself? Don’t I know of her haughty nature? Why should I have more blood on my hands, and for what avail?’
Overwhelmed thus, the accused expressed his aversion to the expert’s envisaged line of defense. In turn, that threw Dr. Gupta into a dilemma of qualms.
‘Maybe, he’s right in not wanting to compromise his mother,’ thought the psychiatrist. ‘And it is even indicative of his altered sensitivity, isn’t it? But is it right for me to keep quiet, for that could signal his death? And then, how ethical is it to damn a woman to save her son? I would be damned if I testify, and no less damned if I don’t. What a dilemma of qualms! Acquittal is a long shot but my testimony might save him the rope, wouldn’t it? Yet, if I keep off, it looks like the noose for him. Then, will I ever be able to live in peace, having failed to save a life when I could help? But still, how can I flout my professional ethics to go public with a private admission? What if I breach the code of conduct for a perceived good? Would I be able to do that with a fair conscience? Oh no, while the disclosure might help the son, it would devastate the mother, no mistaking that. How are the interests of the duo at loggerheads hindering my vision? Who’s there to guide me now?’
As though led by the divine hand, Dr. Gupta went to Sneha to confabulate with her. Apologizing for his intrusion into her private terrain, the good doctor proceeded to psychoanalyze how her adulterous ways led to her son’s misogamist mindset. Ashamed as such for having become the talk of the town, she was truly devastated by the doctor’s disclosure. Affected as he was by her predicament, yet the doctor in dilemma rooted for her testimony. He averred that it was bound to buttress her son’s defense in medico-legal terms and thus earn him a lenient sentence. Sadly, he concluded, the choice boiled down to owning up her shame in camera or seeing her son in the death row.