My father told me about the demise of Prabhakar. I had just returned from a long trip. He was my neighbor and was my senior during my school days. A good human being Prabhakar was a civil servant and was working in other city. He was also a leader of some Employees Union. Father told me to visit his house. When I reached there, there was already a crowd waiting for the dead body. It will take some time for the dead body to reach. I decided to wait as I did not have any important work at home.
The house was full of people. Prabhakar’s family is big and well known in our area. He was the only son to his parents. I looked around and spotted Mani Shankar, one of prabhakar's uncles sitting. Mani Shankar was a retired Army officer. Other than visiting the military canteen & the pensioner’s club once in a month, his main past time was to question each and every irregularity and odds of the society and the system. He fought against red tape bureaucracy in all government departments. He had even filed several Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in court to regulate the system and its people. He did not believe in taking the help of middle men called “Advocates” in these proceedings. It was part of his policy and was an economical decision too. In this way he was famous in the locality. Visiting the court was his passion and routine too. There was a rumor making the rounds that he would visit the court even on Sundays and holidays too just to make sure that the court was really not working on those days.
