Cold-Stone-Hearted-Woman

  It was a very small elegant beautiful hut on the side of a single road which can fit only one vehicle with four wheels. Vehi-cles often shared two side wheels whey they overtook or when their path crossed in a journey. The small beautiful hut on the sides of this small road housed a lovely couple with two sons and three canine family members. It was a poor but lovely family. The lady of the house was a very talkative woman but was also a very kind, caring and supportive wife for a crippled, bold, humble and well mannered husband. The man of the house, husband of a kind hearted talkative noisy woman, father of two young bright active and intelligent sons, was a government school watchman. The house was a makeshift arrangement for this modest family and it was lo-cated just outside the school gate and besides this main road which was moderately busy.

   This humble family adopted 3 canines (you may call them dog but don't dare to do so in front of any of this family mem-bers) namely PETER, RAM and MULLA.. These three canines have not only occupied a major portion of their hut but also a major portion of their heart. These three canines in return paid back their love by assisting the man of the family during night shift in his duty as security guard of government school. In addition the family owned two Panthers (motor cycle brand with peculiar sleek de-sign and noise) which were their commuting vehicles. People can easily identify from the sound that someone from Guard’s family is on wheels, such was the uniqueness of the Panther’s sound. The whole family travels on panther in all possible combination, hus-band and wife, husband and kids, father and son, son and mother, father and canine, son and canine as riders and pillion riders re-spectively but the rider was always someone who had a verifiable driving license. Humans from the family as riders and the canines (PETER, RAM and MULLA) as pillion riders was such a adorable scene for the villagers to admire and talk about.

   In addition to being a helping hand and a additional walking leg to the guard, RAM, PETER and MULLA were great friends of the lady of the house. At times they are her stress busters. She yells at them, orders them, hugs them, feeds them, talks to them on her lonely days. They were always competing for her love and attention. She had been a very rational lady and always shared one-sixth of love and affection to those who lived in that humble but beautiful hut. She has always been a warm lady with kind heart in contrast to her noise talkative outlook which often deceives anyone his is meeting her for the first time. People always have this opinion about her—talkative, noisy cold hearted woman. People have been harsh and mean to her because of this miscon-ception. She never cared and was not even aware of it. All she cared was dividing her love and attention into one-sixth and distribut-ing it equally to the co-habitants of her palace.

   On a beautiful Sunday, the man of the house, the Guard of the school, got his weekly off and wanted to take his family for an outing. Husband and eldest son on one Panther, wife—the lady of the house and youngest son on another panther, with the village people noticing them by unique Panther’s noise left for a family outing leaving their canine family members at home. They decided to go for a movie in nearby town. Their sons wanted to watch the movie for two reasons, one because all their friends have already watched the movie and boasting about it in school, secondly their most admired and favorite teacher who is like a mentor to them talked highly of that movie saying that this particular movie teaches young people about love and compassion. It was a good movie and the family enjoyed the movie as well as the whole outing trip. On the way back home they had a nice chat with each other and the significant part of that chat went like this;

Eldest son: Nice movie and good to know about Love and Compassion.

Father : Good that you guys enjoyed the movie and the trip.

Youngest son: Yeah, good movie. But don't you guys think we should also have love and compassion in our house too?

Mother: What made you to ask such question? We always have love and compassion at our house.

Younger son: Do you think so? Then why do people in our village call you “noisy-cold-hearted-lady”?

Mother: Who say such things to you about me? (She was really shocked to hear such things from her son)

Younger son: People in the village and my friends at school.

   By then they were approaching their destination—Their Home. From distance they can see their house and RAM, PETER and MULLA. On seeing them the three canines got exited and started barking with matching decibels of the two Panthers. The three started running towards them on the road as the family was nearing the house on their Panthers. The lady of the house was shouting at the canines for two reasons. One, obviously she was upset about her younger son’s comment earlier, second she was worried about the safety of the canines on the road because of approaching vehicle at high speed. They were meters away from their house when the horror suddenly happened in front of their eyes. As she feared the drunken rookie on a speeding lorry hit and ran, leaving RAM, PETER and MULLA lying on pool of blood. The three canines were fighting for life on the side of the road near the hut.

   The visibly shocked family parked their noisy Panther on the side of the road and ran towards their severely wounded ca-nines . The Guard and his both sons held RAM, PETER and MULLA respectively on their lap and were worried and crying with the lady of the house no-where around them. Within minutes people gathered around them and everyone noticed the lady of the house emerging out of the hut with water in a small vessel. To everyone's surprise and with her family members watching she poured water on RAM, PETER and MULLA and within minutes the three died of chocking in water and blood. Everyone gathered around them were hell shocked and were murmuring—cold-stone-hearted woman. The younger son looking straight at the eyes of her mother said angrily “ See, you are really a cold-stone-hearted woman” and ran away crying in to their house, with his elder brother tailing him to the house in an effort to console him.

   She too was saddened by what happened but only she knew there was no chance for them to save RAM, PETER and MULLA and only thing she can do is not let them suffer in pain. By pouring water on them she made them suffer less. She looked at her husband for comfort not opinion from him. Her compassionate crippled husband with his limping leg approached her, under-standing his wife’s intention behind the act gave her a comfortable hug and took her to their hut. The gathered crowd dispersed with murmur and gossip. Later, the Guard with the help of his lady and sons buried RAM, PETER and MULLA adjacent to their hut.

   None of them had dinner that night. The younger son was still angry at his mother, went to sleep early along with his brother. The man of the house, the Guard noticed his lady weeping in the corner of the house. He approached her and consoled her by saying “you did the right thing by pouring water on RAM, PETER and MULLA as they were severely wounded and no way any-one could have saved them. Since you were close to RAM, PETER and MULLA, you couldn't see them suffer like that and you smothered them by pouring water”. She was very happy to know that her husband understood her true intentions but was still wor-ried and weeping. She said “Now, I have proved that I am actually a cold-stone-hearted woman to our sons. They will never love me again” and she started crying. Her husband hugged her again and said “from tomorrow when your love and affection for them in-creases from 1/6th to 1/3rd, they will understand that you are a lovely person and it is the opinionated society and gossiping people who are stone-hearted and cold, not you”. On hearing this she felt very relieved and went to sleep after sending her husband for night shift at the school gate.

   The limping Guard never felt he was crippled in his life because of such a kind lady in his life. Today sitting at the school gate alone at night with tears in his eyes, he felt crippled without RAM, PETER and MULLA by his side.