Vengeance

I recently narrated a story to my friend about an “untouchable” teenage boy in a remote village of India, whose entire family was burnt to death by some upper-castes just because the boy’s father demanded to exercise his right to vote in the local elections. Devastated by the unjust loss of his grandparents, parents and two sisters, who were brutally murdered to warn the other “untouchables” that they had no rights whatsoever, the little boy was struck with vengeance. Receiving no help from the police, he spent his days and nights, overwhelmed with thoughts of attacking his family’s attackers. Well aware of the disproportionate power held by the upper-castes and a deep concern for his nephew’s life, the boy’s uncle decided to take him away from the village to a city far off, to search for work and to take the boy’s mind off of a tragedy that could not be undone; to salvage the remnants of the family.

“What happened next?”, my friend asked. “The boy and his uncle struggle to settle into the city life”, I said. “No, I mean what happened to the revenge?”, he pressed. “I haven’t finished reading the book yet. Though I doubt the boy will get his revenge.” I replied. “Surely he must avenge his family’s death. Else, what’s the point of the story?”, he said, sounding disappointed at my response. I smiled at his disappointment and said, “this isn’t one of those books, where the hero always gets his revenge. This is one of those books rooted deeply in reality. I think the author is aiming to depict a life in which the boy cannot avenge his family’s murder. What would such a life look like? A life of anger, torment and helplessness? Isn’t that what happens so often in real life?”

“Well if there’s no revenge, then the story will not be of interest to anyone” he said with a finality and changed the subject.

The brief conversation made me aware of just how uncomfortable it is for us to accept that justice isn’t always served. That sometimes we have to live with the fact that life is unfair. How could we accept that?

Yet we find ourselves, ever so often, in the midst of injustice. Instead of seeing it for what it is, we placate ourselves by ideas such as: injustice must be a result of our accumulated karmas from past lives or that unfair behaviour will be punished in the next life or the afterlife in hell.

I don’t have any of those outs unfortunately. I don’t believe in the past life, the next life or the afterlife. So how does a person like me live in an unjust, unfair world?

That night I lay awake, recounting the times injustice damaged my soul. I recounted my fights for justice. Some successful and some so miserably lost, that I may repress it, live with it, forget it but can I recover from it?