ASHES BEAR WITNESS
Deeds are Forever
NABI Karim is a locality in Delhi. Ashok, a young man who worked as a labourer, lived there many years ago. One day, he was found dead near his house. According to the doctor’s report, he had died of a sudden heart failure. This incident was not reported to the police. The next day, Ashok’s body was taken to the banks of the Yamuna, where it was consigned to the flames. His ashes were then scattered in the river.
It seemed that matters had ended with this, and that if Ashok’s death had been the result of a criminal conspiracy, there was now no possibility of finding out the truth. But Ashok’s ashes made an astounding announcement, which no conventional sources were able to.
Ashok’s mother, Chameli Devi, suspected that her son had not died a natural death, but that a friend of his, Suresh, had killed him by giving him liquor laced with poison. And so, she lodged a case with the police.
God has made this world in such a way that as soon as a deed is done, it gets affixed to the ‘cosmic record’ and no one can ever rub it off thereafter.
The only way that the police could investigate the case was to get hold of Ashok’s ashes and examine them. The day Chameli Devi lodged her case with the police, a party of policemen arrived at the crematorium where Ashok’s body had been cremated. As luck would have it, no other corpse had been burned on the same platform after Ashok’s body, and so the police were able to gather some of his ashes. They sent these to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory for investigation. Six months later, the laboratory issued a report, certifying that Ashok had not died a natural death; but, rather, had been poisoned. Soon after this, Suresh, whom Chameli Devi had suspected of murdering her son, was arrested. In a report about this case, a daily newspaper commented:
Dead men tell no tales, but their ashes may.
People commit crimes and seek to hide the records of their deeds, thinking that they can wipe away the evidence of their actions. They do wrong, and, imagining that they are very clever and powerful, try to conceal their actions, believing that no one will ever come to know about them. But they forget that they do not live in a world of their own making, and that this world has been made by God. God has made this world in such a way that as soon as a deed is done, it gets affixed to the ‘cosmic record’ and no one can ever rub it off thereafter.
Every person is free to do what he wants, but he is certainly not free to rub off the marks of his deeds. If Man were truly aware of this inability of his, he would abstain from oppression and wrongful deeds.