God's Justice
by Renuka Sharma
(Kalyan, Maharashtra, India)
“Oh ! It is so much fun bullying my school mates”, Rohan said to himself. He enjoyed troubling everyone in school and loved watching his victims in tears.
Rohan had a buddy Shubham who helped him spread his terror, more so he canvassed his tyrant friend’s ways just because he always got a share of Rohan’s loot of chocolates and tiffins from the fellow students. Teachers tried to mend Rohan’s ways, but in vain. He took all punishments as his achievements and felt he was a macho to endure all the pain. Shubham always sided with him whenever he did wrong to others.
Neha was very happy that day because it was her Birthday. She had brought a huge packet of sweets to be distributed in her class.
“I’ve got some gifts too, for all my friends”, she announced in her class, “and I’ll distribute it only during our recess”, she continued.
All her friends were excited about the sweets and gifts. They had not even imagined what could go wrong when Rohan and Shubham were up to their pranks.
As the class teacher Miss Pooja took the roll calls, Neha went to offer her the sweets from her packet. As she opened the packet, she was shocked to see that more than half of it was empty. She was in tears. Miss Pooja hugged her and the whole class sang ‘Happy Birthday Song’ for her, but nothing could bring smile to her face.
She was in a hurry to check the gifts now for she feared that those must have been stolen too. As lunch recess began, she started opening her packets of the gifts she had brought. To her horror, she found that those beautiful gifts were smashed badly. She had brought compass boxes as gifts for her friends. She at once understood who was behind all that. Just before the class had begun that day, she had a tiff with Rohan and Shubham as she had refused to open the box of sweets to them and they had threatened her. She immediately went to the Headmistress to report about what had happened with her. The Headmistress Mrs.Rana assured her that the culprit would be brought to book at the earliest.
The bullying of students by Rohan kept on increasing. His parents were summoned to school. They apologized on their son’s behavior. The teacher asked them to seek help from counselors regarding their son’s attitude.
It was a school picnic that Saturday. All the students were very happy and in playful mood. All of them had planned to have lots of fun with their friends and teachers in a holiday resort. Rohan was, as usual, thinking some wicked plans to bully his classmates because that was his best hobby. Little did he know what punishment God had planned for him!
After reaching the resort at around eight O clock in the morning, all the students started having their breakfast, famished as they were, after singing and dancing while on a bus journey of nearly two hours. Restless and naughty as Rohan had always been, he hurriedly ate his breakfast and dragged Shubham along with him, to think of some pranks to be played on others. They both loitered near the swimming pool meant to be used by grown ups only. The children swimming pool was on the other side.
Rohan always loved doing whatever was prohibited. He coaxed Shubham to jump into the pool to which Shubham refused. He said that he dreaded to do so because he did not know how to swim.
"Don’t worry” said Rohan, “you’ll learn once you are in the water”. Saying this, he pushed Shubham into the pool.
Shubham was not prepared and he struggled with water, throwing his hands and feet frantically. Rohan started giggling at his condition and extended his hand pretending to take him out. Shubham managed to catch hold of his hand but before he could come out, Rohan was pulled in. Even Rohan did not know how to swim and he panicked. He started gasping for breath. He understood that he would be drowned. Just then some people saw the two little boys struggling with water and at once came to their rescue .They jumped into the pool and pulled both the boys out of the pool.
In the meantime, the whole school picnic group reached there. Shubham had not lost his senses but Rohan had fainted. Both of them had swallowed a great amount of water.
Neha’s father Mr. Shukla, a doctor by profession, had his clinic quite close to the resort. He at once reached there as he was informed by the supervisor of the school. He gave proper treatment to evacuate all the swallowed water. Parents of both the boys reached the resort too. After a few minutes, Rohan regained consciousness. He was ashamed of his deed and realized his mistake. He could have lost his life besides killing his best friend. He was full of remorse when he found that he came back to senses because of Dr.Shukla’s efforts. He apologized for all his wrong doings so far. He and Shubham promised to behave well with everybody. God had given them a second lease of life and they vowed to be friendly and co-operative with everyone.
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