Love Changes Heart

Chiana didn't consider going to a higher institutions when he left secondary school at age 15. This was because he had a burning desire to make it big, financially by hook or crook means. He immediately joined a group of fraudsters to swindle people for a living.

His father who had earlier on noticed this vaulting ambition in him tried to stop him by calling him to order but, Chiana thought his father was being conservative, and not the ambitious type.

"You're too forceful to get things. You need to slow down and follow the normal steps", his father had advised.

"Don't worry about me father. I need to be somewhere in life soon," he responded.

"Life is not that way my son..." The father didn't complete his statement as Chiana was already walking out.

So, Chiana went to live the life of a fraudster in the main town. Every now and then, he was on a hide and seek game with the police.

He loved his mother, and was regular sending her gifts and money. The father was strict in his principle of having nothing to do with his son's type of wealth so, he warned his wife not to mix Chiana's money with the money for the upkeep of the family. The wife was careful to obey this rule but greed didn't allow her to say no to Chiana's gift.

One day, Chiana was involved in a big fraud that reached the table of Inspector General (IG) of police. As Chiana was so elusive that the police hadn't been able to arrest him, the IG sent a team of policemen from the headquarters to arrest him, using any possible means. In fact, he gave order to the team, to search for him at every nooks and crannies up to the village. They should arrest either his father or mother if they couldn't get him.

The police stormed Chiana's village one afternoon. There was uneasy calm and apprehension, more so as police presence wasn't a common sight in the village.

When they could not find him, they said they must go with either his father or mother. They waited outside the house while the two parents were inside deciding who would go with them.

"Because I've been receiving gifts and money from Chiana, morally I'm supposed to bear this cross", the wife confessed. "But..."

"But what?" Snapped the husband. "You should have washed your hands off this boy's loot."

The wife broke down in tears and regretted her involvement in Chiana's wealth. Her weeping was so deep that it melted the husband's heart who was thinking the wife had to go with the police.

Having considered the bigger shame of him staying back while his wife, a weaker vessel would go the police station, including his love for her, he dressed up and went with the police.

When Chiana got the wind that his father had been arrested, he came out from his hiding and gave himself up voluntarily to the police.

The police then released his father and charged Chiana to court where he was sentenced to two years in prison with hard labour..

In the prison, he was sober and humble. By the time his prison term ended, he had become a changed person for good.

On getting home, he begged his father for forgiveness. He said he knew it was his father's love for the mother and family that made him to go with the police. He said his reflection on that sacrificial love broke his heart and compelled him to surrender to the police. Besides, he shouldn't be the cause of the family's problems.

"From now on, I've changed and am going with your advice, father", he promised. "I'll take life easy."

Chiana from then became a good citizen.