A Raw Score

a paperback by Shashi Krishna

Story #15 : Log Out

Dileep is one among the millions of orphans who have been brought into this God foresaken world and left to die in tears. But then there is hope. The only thing that has possibly kept this blue marble rotating for so many centuries. And that comes to little Dileep in the form of Seetamma - a kind childless widowed school teacher who adopts Dileep and gives him the care only a mother can. It was under the umbrella of her love and the affection her brother, Uncle Rachaiah, that Dileep found a ground to stand on. A ground that would soon see the untimely deaths of both his mother and uncle to leave him all by himself - orphaned once again - in a world that was filled with the bile of self serving demons and fiends of every sort. 

It is in this darkness of hopelessness, that he finds Murali. That one wonderful stranger who frequents his cyber cafe and instills a rare ray of respect in young Dileep's heart. it is in Murali that Dileep finds his much needed validation to be who he is. And it is through him, that Dileep, albeit silently, appreciates what he has in life. It is through him - as it happens that fateful day - that he learns how one should never judge a book by its cover. For what lies in between the lines of its story can be more potent and lethal than any poison in the universe.