Spoils of …

The family was eating their dinner together.

It was a custom that all family members eat food together. But the dad kept looking at the empty seat in front of him. The usual clatter during their diners and lunches was absent. His wife and daughter were eating the food in silence, sobbing silently.

He kept going back to the day of the riots, the day his son was arrested. Just 15 years of age, he was there in the midst of it all, throwing stones at the cops. Someone had told him that people from other religion were torturing people from his cast, which had sparked a fire in his young belly. – A fire which should have been used for society betterment was now being used to nurture hatred.

The father cursed himself for allowing this to happen.After all, it was his task to protect his children from such negative elements of the society. It didn’t occur, nor did it matter to him, that he spent more than 14 hours per day away from his house, working hard to put food on the table. It was, he thought, his duty to shield his kids.

He slowly put the morsel of food down. Prayed silently to God, for forgiveness and left the table.

Although the son was arrested, the family died that day.

All falsely, in the name of religion.