Anything,
absolutely anything can happen in Life. You just have to learn to face it and
deal with it.
A couple of days ago I finished reading “Aarushi” (Penguin, 2015) by journalist
Avirook Sen. The book obviously tells the story of the double murders (of
14-year-old Aarushi and the middle-aged housekeeper Hemraj) that shocked all of
India in May 2008. But more important, the book tells us that
Dr.Rajesh Talwar and Dr.Nupur Talwar, Aarushi’s parents, did not kill her.
In telling us so, Sen makes few things very evident to the reader: how flawed
our judicial system is, how there is a heartless, cold bureaucracy that thrives
at our premier investigating agency, the CBI, and how lawyers, and their often
flaky strategies, can ruin a good chance for a client. Sen does not make an
explicit summary of these points. This is what you glean through reading his
unputdownable book. But above all that is evident, there is also the implicit Life
lesson that one picks up – anything, absolutely anything, can happen in Life;
and all you can do is face Life and deal with it.
Sen quotes from Dr.Rajesh Talwar’s
journal entries on the immediate few days/weeks the couple spent in Dasna jail
after their conviction on 25 November 2013. I reproduce some of the quotes as
they are:
3 Dec 2013: Still can’t understand how this happened to us.
If only I would have gotten up….I could not even save my dear Aaru. Very
difficult to live without her.
9 Dec 2013: Miss Aaru so much and that time and our Life.
People talk about their children and what they are doing. They come and meet
them in jail. But for us, nothing.
10 Dec 2013: Met Nupur in the afternoon. It’s really strange
what Life has dealt us. But this is what it is.
18 Dec 2013: This is the 25th year of our marriage
and we will celebrate 25 years on the 19th of January (2014). Could
anybody imagine where we would be on our 25th anniversary? No Aaru,
no house, no clinic, no money and sitting in jail for something we haven’t
done.
Dr.Talwar’s journal entries gives us a
peek into how we think through a cathartic time in Life. When
you read “Aarushi” you will realize how the Talwars have been done in by Life.
Yes, we can blame the investigators, the judicial system, the witnesses who
were influenced or coerced and whoever else we want to; we can even blame the
Talwars for sleeping through the most dramatic and gruesome night of their
Life. But ultimately this is the design for the Talwars’ Life: No Aarushi, no
house, no clinic, no money and sitting in jail for something they haven’t done.
They simply can’t escape it.
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