Kunchu,
You will drive your readers nuts looking for the clues to momentous developments that you have hinted at so tantalisingly.😉 As for me, I am
not going on a wild goose chase, or even one of a nice fat Christmas goose, being content to go with the flow and see where it takes me.
So Russel has bumped off Zaid's informer and is zeroing in on Varun Jha, I wonder after which Indian politico you have modelled Jha . Not Arvind Kejriwal, that is for sure!😉
Varun's confidence in his survival might seem overdone, but then, as they say, every bullet has the name of its target written on it, and I am sure Arjun will kill this Russel and save Varun.
I liked the way in which you are developing your Karan, not just as a very useful tool for Arjun, but as an unusual personality in his own right. I noted that you have not forgotten to factor in the loss in terms of his academic performance, and thus the damage to his career prospects. because of Karan's activism on behalf of Janhvi. You have not glossed over that in an attempt to demonstrate that
satyameva jayate, a manifestly false assertion for the most part.
As for Karan telling himself "
There was never a "They". Its just Arjun. He was just returning a favour. Or was it really that?" , that too is a manifestly false assertion. For it is nothing less than a crusade against evil for him. as much as it is for Arjun. He has all the zeal of a fresh convert to the cause.
Now for my priority No. 1, Arjun. That was a shocker, Kunchu. So Arjun, in effect, executes that youngster by making him overdose himself.
I do not know whose trust that boy had broken, that of Raghu Sir? A death sentence seems far too much for drug abuse, but then Arjun sees it, and the boy, differently. As an infection that can spread and affect the whole social mechanism. There being no guarantee against recidivism on the part of a drug addict, and as he was bound to turn to increasingly serious crime to fund his drug habit - many drug addicts end up as drug peddlers - forcing him to commit suicide was perhaps the only effective way to negate the threat he would soon pose to society at large.
It is another matter that Arjun leaves his alter ego, Shaleen, still consumed by guilt for having failed to prevent the "suicide". The irony is strong and unmistakeable.
Of course we would find it difficult to accept the end product of this logic - the execution camouflaged as a suicide. But it is all a question of perspective. I once saw a German telefilm about a father who shoots his drug addict daughter dead to prevent her from degrading herself further by turning to prostitution to fund her drug consumption. He was devastated after having done it, but relieved for her as well. Here, the motive for what Arjun did is more a public rather than a personal one. But the principle is the same.
The one uneasy doubt that surfaces is for how long Arjun can be depended upon to dispense his brand of instant justice only to truly deserving candidates, who are from the scum of the earth. It is almost a given that over time, exercising the power over the life and the death of various persons will go to Arjun's head, making him autocratic and idiosyncratic in his decisions. That is a dangerous trend, and could end up turning him into an oppressor himself..
For now, however, we still have Arjun the mysterious knight errant who gets justice for the oppressed and the powerless. I hope he never changes, and never gets caught.
Shyamala Aunty
PS: I almost forgot this. Madhumati is not a book, it is a very famous 1958 film about reincarnation, directed by Bimal Roy and starring Dilip Kumar and Vyjayanthimala. When the hero is stranded on the road at night due to a mechanical breakdown, he takes shelter in an old haveli that seems eerily familiar (it features in his previous birth), just as the inside of the Little Flower Hospital might have seemed eerily familiar to Shaleen had he gone in and not just stayed at the gate.
Get ready... soon some major twists are coming up.Keep yourself ready as the start of many things is down here.
PART 31:
Edited by sashashyam - 11 years ago
Udne Ki Aasha
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
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