A Father’s Silence, A Son’s Awakening
It was February in Pune, when the winter had begun to loosen its grip but the mornings still carried a crisp chill. The bougainvillea outside Purohit’s home bloomed in shades of pink, its petals scattered across the verandah tiles like fragments of memory. Sixty-two year old Ramakant Purohit, a retired Sanskrit teacher from Fergusson College, had lived quietly in Sadashiv Peth with his son, Sandeep, ever since his wife Vidya had passed away fifteen years earlier. At twenty-five, Sandeep, was a rising youth leader in the popular national right‑wing political party. He wore crisp white kurta‑pyjamas, a saffron scarf draped across his shoulders, and spoke with fiery conviction about “preserving culture.” He believed religious rituals were sacred and unquestionable, and that they were the very backbone of society. He often declared that deviation from tradition was betrayal, and he carried a rigid intolerance toward those who challenged his religion or its norms. He believed his father s...