The importance of saying NO!

By John Cheeran
Roughly four weeks ago a murder took place in Munnar, Kerala, India.
It was no ordinary murder.
A newly wed couple from Chennai (Madras) was honeymooning in Munnar, a town famous for hill resorts. It appeared at the time of murder that local thieves slit the throat of husband Anantharaman to steal money and wife’s jewels. At least that was what the distressed wife told the Kerala Police in the aftermath of the murder.
Things took an unpredictable turn the very next day. The police pieced together evidence and it emerged that wife had conspired together with her paramour and friend to kill her husband.
Wife prepared extensive plan for honeymoon to Kerala and gave details to her paramour, who is an auto driver in Chennai.
During the honeymoon wife kept constant touch with her paramour, SMSing him on the cell phone. Such deviousness, such meticulous planning finally came to naught with the loss of an innocent life.
The last I heard was that husband’s family is not keen to push the case since the conspirator wife comes from their own family.
Women can plot with astounding cunning. But they never show courage when it is called for. The woman in question in this episode apparently could not love her husband as she was against the marriage. But if she was really in love with her auto driver, why did she agree in the first place to marry Anantharaman?
Parental pressure? Bullshit. She was city-bred, worked at a call center and knew her world. A firm no from her to her father, or to the groom, would have ensured that marriage with Anantharaman did not take place.
But she let it happen, conspired and killed an innocent man. Who is at fault here?
Quite obviously, the wife. She did not have the gumption to say no to the marriage proposal her father brought but had the resolve to eliminate someone who trusted her absolutely.
It would be easy to wash away the guilt by blaming a culture and system that do not encourage saying No when the situation calls absolutely for nothing else.
I think saying NO is much better than saying YES and plotting tragedy for one and everyone.