A young Bael tree was in the middle of nowhere. Someone randomly dropped an unmarked milestone in front of the it and people started worshipping the stone. For years, no one really cared about this spot. A few youngsters found the place behind the tree was shady and cleared the shrubs, planted cannabis and made it their hang out spot.
The villagers took notice of what the young men did and built an altar enclosing the tree, thatched a roof and replaced the milestone with a Linga. It was now a small temple with regular bhajans and rituals. People started pouring in for auspicious days. The temple now had a small working committee taking care of day-to-day activities and was interested in building a proper place of worship.
The temple committee took the onus to gather funds and brought in people from all walks of life to work on the project. Among this enthusiastic group of people was a boy in his early teens, Shiva. He quit school a year back and started working at a lathe to support his family. For the strong, devoted and hardworking boy he was, Shiva caught everyone’s eye.
The committee members asked him to rejoin school and were also willing to fund him for the studies. Shiva did not like going back to school, he was already earning and had the liberty to do things he wanted to. The temple project was complete, the youngsters shifted their spot, Shiva got into bad company.
He started peddling cannabis for a local gang. He went unnoticed since he was still a young boy. Things went south in the gang when some money got stolen. The gang had serious doubts on Shiva, beat him black and blue and left him to die. He was picked up by a police patrol from a ditch, admitted in the hospital and on his death bed Shiva gave away everyone from the gang in his statement to the police. Before breathing his last, he looked at his mother and said “Sorry ma! I wish I could have gone to the school a little longer”.