A FATEFUL MEMOIR by Sobhan Pramanik Part 2

6

A FATEFUL MEMOIR

(Based on incidents post Indira Gandhi’s assassination)

Sobhan Pramanik

Part 2

Situations had hardly improved in the village of Kishangarh. Hundreds of Sikhs across the nation were being killed by the common mob. They randomly broke into people’s house, if they were found Sikh, they were stabbed to death. The rage post Indira Gandhi’s assassination did provoke the government to employ protective measures by placing armed troops at places to mitigate the impact of the disastrous happenings, but even then things were far from being normal.

It was on one of the fear afflicted days that Mehran sat by the lake in the west of the village, just beside the Gurdwara that was burnt down the other day. Its water a shade of cobalt, reflecting the clear sky, noiselessly laps against the rocks on the sides. In the strong wind that blew across the lake, resounded Cheeru’s deep throated squawk from behind the deep green foliage of eucalyptus and neem that had stood with grace for decades by the west of Kishangarh providing shade to the visitors of the Gurdwara. She soon emerged through the dense branches, her velvet green feathers flapping against the current caught glints of the sun as she flew towards Mehran.
Cheeru perched on Mehran’s shoulder, her long pointed tail held loose down his back as she nudged against his ears. Her curved read beak parting and uniting to shrill squawks before Mehran took her in his lap and stroked the top of her head. His tip of fingers vanishing behind her adobe of silky feathers as Cheeru imitated calmness with her round eyes lazily brought down.

Mehran was then taken to skipping stones. His first few attempts took not more than a five leaps and he was disappointed with it. He longed to see his stones touch the other end of the shore before drowning. He let Cheeru sit up on a rock beside and having collected pieces of a broken clay pot from amid the charred remains of the inflamed Gurdwara, he started to launch them spinning across the still waters. The ripples from the previous attempt had not even vanished that another landed flat on the surface and went leaping ahead to quiet some distance. The sound of pebbles drowning one after another with the water irregular with stretching ripples and Cheeru’s squawks for few more roasted gram seeds hung in the pensive breeze.

Agitated Mehran then took one hard throw at the water. The pebble leaving his fingers went leaping all the way across the lake and had just hit the other end that he broke into a wild jumping. His parrot reacting against his exuberance flew to a height and took circles over him before once again lowering herself onto one of the barren rocks tanning by the tranquil lake under the mild November sun.

“Stupid boy…” Called a feminine voice from the other end. Mehran though was ecstatic with crossing the lake in his skipping stone paused to pay a heed. On the other side stood a girl, her expressions steady and hands bent at the hips. Twin braids of her dense hairs, the ends of which in a red bun rested upon her clavicles. Her loosely clung blouse, the left sleeve of which has almost slipped down from the blade of her shoulder somehow lingered to the wetness of her skin. Black, creasy lehenga that billowed around her to the breeze had the tiny bells stitched to the linen, jingle in a metallic orchestration. Mehran was still to figure out the reason of her outward remark before his eyes fell on an earthen pitcher by her legs. Its bulged belly draining the water in a thick line from a hole as Mehran’s thrown pebble rests just by its sides. His playing had cost someone an earthen pot.

“Is this a place to keep earthen pitcher? You mad girl...” Mehran was never to bow to his mistake. He was taught in his Madrasa never to surrender before tough situations and he misunderstood it as never to surrender before anything in life, let alone mistakes.

Her deep set eyes further narrowed at Mehran before she spoke. “So you think this jheel is for your skipping stones session?”

“Yes” .Period. “Problem?” He reverted with sheer sternness tossing a few baked gram seeds at Cheeru’s claws. She in no time finished eating it and was busy sending shrill throated squawks of ecstasy through the foliage and over the lake, for the perfect amount of salt sprinkles the seeds had.          

  

“This isn’t the place to collect water.” Mehran ended.

“The whole of Kishangarh collects water from this jheel itself…”

“You want me to break the other one as well.” Mehran said spinning yet another piece of pebble between his fingers, his left hand adjusting his brown Taqyiah cap on his head. “If not…then please empty the place. I need to send this piece across as well…” He raised the pebble before her vision and imitated of aiming of it at the other pitcher held at her waist.

“Accha. Ek toh chori…aur uper se seena zori…”  

“You are wasting my time…” Mehran was in no mood to apologize as he instead drew his right arm back, aiming the pebble at the filled earthen pitcher at her waist.

“You need more chanasCheeru…?” He queried looking at his parrot and dropped few more gram seeds at her claws. She squawked yet again thanking Mehran and went back to pecking them with the beak. All the while the girl at the other end stood watching his idiocy. Anger lurking in her eyes. Had the Jheel waters wouldn’t have been separating them, she would have ran up and smashed that other pitcher on Mehran’s head and laughed her agitation out as he would have went berserk with a swollen skull or even a bleeding one. 

But nothing much could be done when you are just lucky. It was Mehran’s day after all.

“So you aren’t leaving?”

“No” Period. “Break this and my mother will break you.” She responded.

“Okay. Game” He replied and with it sprung out of his fingers a piece of stone. It went spinning against the air, gradually slowing and then taking a final dip around her waist, it struck the pot just below its neck.

A faint tap could be heard as the concrete piece hit against the baked clay. A piece of it fell back inside, leaving a somewhat square hole for the water to come gushing out. Cold, clear water of the wide jheel in a soft murmur kept leaking to the ground. It went down wetting her bare belly and her billowing lehenga.

Mehran then sprung yet another piece of stone. This time slightly bigger in dimensions and it struck right at the mid of the pitcher, emptying it within seconds. Her lehenga stuck to her lowers, perfectly sculptured her slender legs. The hem of it had the water dripping in heavy beads, adding to the puddle at her feet. Across her face a blank expression. Cells short of emotions, looked pale against Mehran’s idiocy as the sun kept beating down, reflecting off her silky ribbons in her hair.

“I will screw you. Just wait here…” She turned on her heels to run towards the village. Hem of her wet lehenga whipping against her ankles as she ran calling for her mother.

“Yes…yes…go. Go tell your mother…” He replied. This time popping a handful of gram seeds in his own mouth.

******

Moments Later…

“Where is that boy?” Said a stout woman, tucking the drape of her saree in her waist. Her hands dark, like the ones who spend long hours by furnaces as thick silver bangles rolled up and down the length. Skin of her face droopy and eyes fanned by meek grey lashes. Beneath the veil of her saree atop her head was visible her receding hairline.

“He was just here…” her daughter replied frantically looking across the lake.

“How dare he breaks our pitcher? Beti, you should have just caught hold of him before calling me. Today I would have taught him a lesson.” She said with pressed lips, breathing heavily in anger. Tip of her nostrils rise and shrink in succession.

They waited for few minutes looking for Mehran. Their hands raised atop their forehead against the sun’s glaze and looked way beyond the lake, only to catch sight of the burnt Gurdwara resting in ashes and the patrolling of the army men along the roads, the government have employed to control the massacre the Anti-Sikh riot have created after assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Not having found Mehran, they started to walk back. The woman asking his daughter not to come again to this lake to fill water.

*****

With Cheeru softly perched on his shoulders, Mehran saw them recede to the village from one of the high branches of the Neem tree by the lake. He sat their all the while hiding behind the dense branches, as they both waited for him beneath to teach him a lesson. Gently working his jaws over the baked gram seeds there dawned a shy smile of his lips.

…For the sight of her wet feet that airily moved along the dusty road leading to the village of Kishangarh, of the clinking of her tiny bells stitched to her lehenga and the wild swing of her braids when she angrily said, “Ek toh chori…aur uper se seena zori…”, he knew will make him come to play skipping stones at this very lake for the days to come…

To be continued....

Authored By - Sobhan Pramanik     
                                    

Next Part - Part 3

Previous Part - Part 1

A FATEFUL MEMOIR by Sobhan Pramanik Part 1

5

A FATEFUL MEMOIR

(Based on incidents post Indira Gandhi’s assassination)

Sobhan Pramanik

Part 1

2^nd November 1984

Little Mehran sat frightened behind the thick Sal trunk, the flat top of which still wet with the morning trade. Pieces of flesh lying in puddles of blood and long, flat knives, the edges of which yellow with the fat tissues occupy the surface. The woody brown texture of the trunk slightly dark with the soaking of the goat blood through the crevasses made by the steel chopper, every time it came down on it through the meat.
At the foot of the chopping platform, the bark of which have gradually come off with time, lays the head of a goat. Its eyes rolled out in a lifeless gaze, blackish tongue smeared in dried sputum hangs through the jaws and the back of the neck, pale pink with blood drained out.

Mehran feels suffocated with the place stinking of blood and rotting flesh. He sits with his back against the wall, as anxiety in form of perspiration, in patches soak through his shirt on the back. Lack of oxygen strikes him with a fit of coughing that rocks his fragile body to and fro; his silhouette on the wall behind moving tad slower than him. He immediately covers his mouth by curling his palms over them, making sure he is not heard. Through the window overhead the humid afternoon breeze blows in, carrying clouds of charred smoke that further intoxicates the place. His sunk eyes now red with irritation, flutters behind haze of dark smoke. He tries to take a deep breath to revive as the veins on his forehead dilate and shrink almost in unison.

Suddenly there is a loud thumbing on the door. His grip over his mouth tightens. Pupils dilated than before. He holds back the coughing. The banging of the door intensifies; its bolts ringing sharp now. Mehran is almost holding up his breath. Slightest of noise could lead him to danger. Outside, the goats bleat out of panic. In the room hovers nothing more than the dark clouds of smoke blowing in from the window overhead and the undying smell of the dried blood and flesh, hovered over by swarm of flies. Streams of sweat crisscross at his chin as new beads of sweat roll down from his brows. He was about to turn unconscious that the banging ceased. He loosened his grip, as the intoxicated air made way to his lungs. In the darkness he then staggered towards the window, his feet stamping against strewn blood and guts of the slaughtered goats.

Against the blowing of the black smoke all that could be seen was the Gurdwara in the far west being set on fire. Its white domes slowly turning dark against the shaft of the flames as the pillars at the front, one-by-one collapse amid the crowd of frisking people. He then peers through the parting of the weary door of the shop, the hinges of which had been perforated by kingdom of termites. A group of infuriated men rapidly move around the place. A woman in burqa stirred something in a bowl kept over the chulhain the courtyard. There’s lean man in a dirty green shirt and black pyajama standing before her as he kicks at the chulha. The bowl goes running all the way down the courtyard, spilling half boiled grains of rice all over. He then gets hold of her hairs beneath the draping of burqa and brings down his clenched fists on her back. A desperate yelp left her mouth.

“Traitors you people are….” He spoke through his teeth and upturned the flaming chulha over her. Pieces of burning charcoal and wood went bouncing down her body as screams of agony helplessly escaped her throat.

Beneath the shade of the Jamun tree in the other end of the courtyard was a middle aged man leaning against stacks of fodder kept for the goats as other men crowd before him. His hands folded on his broad chest before them as he begs for plea.

“They are Muslim I think…the woman wears burqa” One of the encircling men called out.

“I don’t believe. Just check that motherfucker…” Replied almost instantly a heavily built man in a khadi shirt. His arms tanned against the beating of the sun as he pulls at the cords of the well to quench his thirst that sultry afternoon.

One of them then produced a dagger and made a wild slash at the pleading man. Its tip caught his kurta and tore it apart right till its hem, exposing his bare chest behind a threadbare vest. A slight nudge of his shoulder and then it dropped from his body onto the dusty earth below.

“Please….” He cried. His hands holding onto the strings of his pyajama as tears of shame run down his face and disappear in the mesh of his brown beard.

Soon two of the men held his hands, pressing it down against the stacks of fodder. The man stamping his legs hard on the earth made loose soil rise in clouds and disperse to the swaying of the Jamun tree. His eyes welling up and plea on his lips, now incessant.

The strings were pulled and with it the pyajama descended onto the earth, lying alongside his torn kurta like a mop. He was poked at his pecker with the dagger as others joined in a sheepish grin before the judgment was made.

“He is circumcised.” Period. A sullen wind drifted through the branches of the Jamun. “They are Muslim for sure.” The man concluded walking towards the well, stashing his dagger through the cloth tied around his waist.

It was when each of them left their house that suffocating Mehran unbolted the door of his father’s butcher shop and came out. Wetness of tear and perspiration playing havoc on his face that he ran towards his mother. She lay on the ground writhing in pain. Her face behind the translucent curtain of the burqa had developed blisters, her forehead sore and limbs burnt in patches.

He sat on the ground with his mind entangled amid series of consequences and a sense of fear thudding in his belly. A transistor radio from the veranda belted out news headlines about the mob being furious across the nation post Indira Gandhi’s assassination and demanded immediate execution of the accused Satwant Singh. Revolts have broken out everywhere and hundreds were being killed every day.

Mehran was clueless about the present conditions. An unfamiliar emergency ran through him. His dad, hangs his head low beneath the tree, his trembling hands reaching out to his pyajama. His mother shrieking in pain before him, the goats bleating out of panic and above the clear sky, in which hovered low the dark smoke rising from the flaming Gurdwara. 

To be continued...

                                        

Next Part - Part 2

Authored by - Sobhan Pramanik.