A Soul confounds Yama (Part 1):

 Yamadharmaraj found himself in a bit of bother. Gone are the days when he could have leaned on to the shoulders of his erstwhile team-mate Chitragupta. Nowadays, it requires a prior appointment even to speak with him. Though he could approach Brahma, he knew what the outcome would be. Yet the issue confronting him, a lone politician's soul, was giving him nightmares and badly needed a Chitraguptan touch. 

He had to act fast as already considerable time has been spent by him, vainly searching for a solution. No doubt, it was a tricky problem but sending the ‘adamant soul' to its appropriate place was his duty and responsibility.

He directed his anger at the worn-out SOP volume, which he had searched line by line and word by word for an inspiration. Bleary eyed, he wished for the assistance of Chitragupta, who could conjure up a magical solution out of any one these pages. He wondered where in hell, oh no, where in heaven Chitragupta grabbed this trait.

He then turned his attention on the dossier of the adamant politician's soul. Though he had read it a number of times, each new reading hit him with a newer interpretation. Compelled to do his duty, he ordered the soul to be brought before him. Little did he realise then, that he would be taught a lesson in 'having the cake and eating it too'.

Yamadhramaraj riffled through the pages of SOP, mainly to establish the ground rules and let know who is in command. The politician’s soul sensed a trap and immediately raised an objection that prior reading of rules has not been allowed and shouted democracy has been murdered. Further to compound Yamadharmaraj’s difficulty, the soul levelled an accusation that his dossier has been collected violating privacy rules.  Sensing a further chance the soul threatened to go on a 'fast unto death', forgetting the fact that the politician has already breathed his last. 

This stumped Yamadhramaraj who never had come across such 'foreign' terms - democracy, privacy violation and fast unto death - scratched his head. Yamadhramaraj did not know how to respond. His worry-clouded mind failed to retort, “Yor are a dead matter now.” He surely missed the adroit Chitragupta, who would have readily replied and simply shown the soul its place.

He blamed himself, for irreparably messing up their working relationship. He knew that when the buck cannot be passed on, one has to pocket it and face the problem. At the present juncture, this wisdom did not offer any solution to deal with the problem. By hook or crook, he had to assign the politician's soul to its rightful place, as per cosmic law.

The second session did not end any better. He confronted the soul with the losses of lives and material, he had caused by way of organising agitations, bringing traffic to a standstill and intimidating commercial establishments. Without a pause, the politician's soul raised some funny sounding words, shouted, hopped over furnitures and overturned some of them, before exiting the chamber. Real worry started pulsating in Yamadharmaraj's mind, as to how he was going to manage this rebellious soul. He refrained from, though almost ready to press the panic button, requesting Chitragupta's help.

His authority under threat, Yamadharmaraj had forcibly brought the politician's soul, to get over with his sentencing and to dump it in the labyrinths of Yam Lok's hideous tunnels. He located the pages in the dossier listing the atrocities committed. He again underestimated the soul, after hearing the listed atrocities, who simply walked out shouting, "It is a black day for democracy and a plot to frame and defame me by vested unknown foreign influencers." Some more ‘foreign’ words started doing the rounds in Yam Lok.

Yamadharmaraj wanted to kick himself, hard and fast, for not mastering the art of convincing or negotiating (as a worst-case scenario) an unrelenting soul. Nightmares once again started to haunt him even during daytime. He fortified his resolve, by thinking that a flash flood can do only two things- destroy the bridge or recede under it. Finding himself at wits’ end and road’s end, he set out, at a trot, to the abode of Chitragupta, his trump card.