Category: Writing

The following is an extract from I Am Ahmedabad, a collection of short stories

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How does life matter when it can last or be lost owing to the nature of a mere hanging flesh of one’s body?
Surrounded by a berserk mob of 500 knife-brandishing men in the middle of an otherwise busy by lane of old Ahmedabad, he was crying inconsolably. And as the mob quickly moved away from him, it did not seem to matter much to him that he had not pulled up the trousers and underwear that was forcibly pulled down by the mob. He was frightened; he was disgusted; he was lonely and he was crying for death.

I still can’t believe how a 25 year-old, postgraduate Indian who had once dreamt of flying a fighter plane for the Indian Air Force could ever find himself lying in the middle of a road, naked, crying and not wanting to ever get up again.
As we learnt later, the same mob had come to my place – to kill my father and two brothers. Of course, they wanted to kill me too; by raping me. And they sure raped me. Repeatedly. Almost all of them. Till I started bleeding from all over and lost consciousness. They must have thought I had died.

But I did not. Maybe I was not destined to. Maybe I was destined to  live with that naked man who was crying a few streets from us.

“OK beta, I don’t mind your going for a … what do you call it … “

“Funky. Funky means … I mean it’s just funky”

(smiles) “OK. I don’t mind your going for a … funky … hair colour. But are you sure it won’t damage your hair?”

“This is London mom. They know how to do it. It is not some Pol of Ahmedabad”

Daughters always like foreign land more than sons. Maybe because unlike India and its homes, foreign lands give them their own sky to fly. Fortunately, I know that it is only hair colour. Our daughter is almost like us otherwise. Or let’s say that she is like her dad – passionate about science and also fond of writing diaries. I know no one should read anyone’s diaries but both daughter and father are so careless that you bump into their diaries almost everyday. Now of course she is in London for her PG. But she was here till an year ago. And while she was always fun to be with, she somehow, not sure how and why, had borrowed a bit of her father’s cynicism. I had first found that out through her diary:

“Today there were reports of communal clashes from Wadi area of Baroda. My Maasi lives there. Unlike my parents, she and her husband are not of different religions. So, is that good? Maybe; if you are spared by both communities. Maybe not – if both communities gun for you. So what is it about this bloody thing called religion?”

Back then, long after the mob had left him; and long after his tears had dried up, he could do nothing but sit at the same place and stare towards infinity. It was only when a police van came and almost beat him away from the place that he had started walking … aimlessly, towards our street.

Half of the mob had left our place. I think my father and brothers were already butchered by then. I’m not sure though. Amidst the laughter, religious chanting and brandishing of the knives and hockey sticks, I was being pulled into the street in front of the burning homes. I was crying and shouting helplessly. And then I saw him standing at a distance; like a zombie. I shouted towards him for help. Some men immediately turned towards him but did not care much for the shaken, frail young man standing in the corner.

For some time I tried to shake him out of his slumber, as criminals took turn to rape in the name of religion. But soon my voice was gone. What was left was a gaze towards him, reciprocated by that strange, frozen look of his. The longer the moment lasted, the less painful my ordeal became. Now that I can be a little lighter about things, I would say that his frozen presence was almost like a painkiller for my incessantly raped body and soul.

Not sure when my eyes had given up on life around, but when I finally did open my eyes again, he was sitting right at the place where he was standing all through my death. I was too tired and he was still frozen. Not sure how many times I came to life and went back into deep black for the next few hours. But his look towards me was still beyond life.
Finally, when my head finally started feeling the pain below, on the other side of my torn behind, I started crying all over again. For the first time, he looked concerned and scared. He looked around for help, only to find burnt down homes and their laughing memories staring back at him.

And then, gradually, his life came visiting him all over again. He started breaking down. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he looked around to check where life had brought him. With reality hitting him hard, he could not help but pull his hair while crying. And yet, he suddenly realised that I was lying there, in a pool of blood. Naked down till the last breath of my existence. Though crying was now beyond his control, he got very concerned and came rushing to me. He sat down near my face. He tried to speak but all he could do was cry.

It was my turn to give a frozen gaze. I’m not sure how long we were like that, before a police van approached us. But either it could not have been very long or it really was very long. The randomness of the memory sums up our life of that moment completely.

“Take them both to VS hospital. I have talked to the Dean and they will be admitted under his direct care”.

The inspector in-charge happened to be my elder brother’s friend. Someone who I thought would have wanted to marry me. But I came to this world a few years too late for him.

Anyway, it mattered little to us whether the police was friendly or not. Life had said goodbye long back for us to worry about its mere details.

Yes, it made no difference to us both that the police took us for people of the same religion. That the police took us two people who were ‘together’ and that we were put in the same special room of VS Hospital.

God could not have given us a special room amidst a glut of bleeding bodies. It was something human. Something selfish for the love of a fellow human being. As I said, something human.

And that’s why I was scared for him. My elder brother’s friend, the police inspector, might have got tempted to throw him out of the ward and towards the blood-thirsty hyenas of our community. Sacrificing one for your friend would have been human too.

I may have been lifeless but the thought of another death did manage to make my heart beat a little more. With him looking absolutely beyond sense of the moment, there didn’t seem much left in his soul at that moment; but I didn’t want his body to die. I don’t know why.

I still don’t know why and how I could feel for him so much even at the peak of my destruct. Maybe it was because he was the only one with me during my death. Or maybe because he was the only man crying at the dance of destruct. I really don’t know why I had given him a name that was not his.

That saved him from the police inspector, but it might have put him in danger of being ‘short-listed’ by the goons moving inside the hospital, checking the names of the patients.

But as I later found out, I was being unfair to the policeman.

“I know his name is not what you had told me. In any case, to be safe, I neither wrote your true name nor his. I have put money, my card and clothes for you two in the polythene bag. I’m sending you to a friend’s place in Mumbai … “

“And him?”

Taken aback initially, he gets back to his policeman self – “I’ll drop him to the address mentioned in his wallet?”

A very perceptible silence followed that. Before he spoke again: “But our people have burned down his locality”.

At the risk of sounding evil, it almost made me happy!
“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“So, why are you thinking so much about him? He’s not the only sufferer in the city.”

“He was the only one who suffered with me last night”

A long silence engulfed the place again.

“So, what do you want me to do?”

Living with new names and the consequent forged degrees – all honest except the names – in one’s own city can be quite an experience. New names meant new look too, in a new locality, with a new relation. Within three months, we two were about to give up and get back to our respective hells. But I found out that I was pregnant. No, it wasn’t his. We were barely in a state to live like that. It must have been of one or everyone of those satans of that night.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to have the baby” – I was sure.

He never spoke much. And he didn’t on that occasion too. His look clearly disapproved of my desire. But he was too nice a person to have stopped a lady from having her wish. Or maybe he just did not feel confident enough to stop me. For, till then, we were man and wife only for the society. And survival was the only thing that appealed to the hearts.
Eight months later, we were blessed with a baby girl. And her mere arrival turned him and me into man and wife.

Forever.

We still pray in our own ways. It’s just that the pictures on the walls talk differently with the guests. And as I go through our family album – missing my daughter as I am – I wonder if I would have ever lived this well if I had not spoken on behalf of him to the police inspector. I guess not.

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The following is an extract from I Am Ahmedabad, a collection of short stories

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Ashwin and Ratna were both married for close to eight years. Though their kids were young, they were just old enough to allow the parents a bit more time than a few years ago.

36 year-old Ashwin was a self-employed person, with interest in IT-related consumer white goods. A masters degree holder, he was actually one of Ahmedabad’s biggest franchisee partner of a global IT giant. And yet, his dream was to have an IT firm of his own. With his education, go-getting attitude and a very impressive 6-feet tall, athlete’s personality, Ashwin seemed to making the right inroads into all the places that mattered – financial institutions, dealers market and big corporate clients looking for  more economical solutions for their IT requirements.

31 year-old Ratna, on the other hand, was just a simple commerce graduate. But it never really bothered the ever-smiling girl with a fair skin and flowing waist-length hair. She was more than happy with her husband – and the family life – and never really showed much interest in pursuing a career outside home. Her dream was to be one of the most successful ‘home managers’ of her times. A dream that she had more or less managed to achieve.

That day, Ratna had dozed off while watching the TV when suddenly the doorbell rang.

3:30 PM. Since her son was not expected to be back from his school till 5:00 PM, she knew that it would be Ashwin to make full use of the time.

After getting up from the sofa, she immediately rushed towards the mirror and brought into order her hair and Sari. It had always been like that for both of them. Even after so many years.

She went to the door and opened with a naughty smile. Ashwin, with a laptop carrier hanging from his shoulder, had an even bigger smile. He tried to immediately hug Ratna, but she stopped him before he could even move. The expression on Ratna’s face was a mix of a stern headmistress and an embarrassed lover.

Even though it was a society of independent bungalows beyond the 200-ft Sardar Patel Ring Road, with little or no visual access to other people’s doors because of the trees lining the inner streets, Ashwin and Ratna were always careful of expressing anything at the door.

So, after the usual ritual of being restrained at the entrance, the two entered the house and slowly closed the door behind them. But that was going to be the only slow act of the late afternoon.

Ashwin immediately got hold of Ratna’s hands and folded them behind her with the ease of a big wrestler. Not that Ratna did not try to get her hands free. But not only was Ashwin more powerful but also that Ratna’s heart was more into what Ashwin was going to do next.

Gripping with his left hand both of Ratna’s hand by her wrists, behind her, Ashwin raised his hand and got hold of Ratna’s hand and at one instant both pulled her head behind and pushed her body on to him. As Ratna gave him a look of pain, Ashwin looked back with a wicked smile, both in his eyes and on his lips. When was good-looking evil ever easy to overlook that Ratna could have fought any longer? And, while still in pain, she smiled back at Ashwin. For Ashwin, this was a tiger taming his mate with sheer force. Oh so intoxicating!

An hour later:

Ratna was preparing tea in the kitchen for Ashwin, while he talked to someone on his phone and worked furiously on the laptop in the living room. Even from the distance, Ratna could feel that every passing moment, Ashwin’s tone was getting more agitated. Ratna quickly poured tea in two cups, took some namkeen in a plate and rushed towards Ashwin, who in the meantime was almost shouting at the other person. Ratna put the tray on the table and sat beside Ashwin. She took Ashwin’s right hand between her palms and patted it, almost like a mother trying to calm an agitated child.

Alas! The child was not going to get calm that evening. One of his deals had gone bad and it held the possibility of hurting the chances of his having his own IT Company.

Ashwin got up, apologised to Ratna, took his laptop and rushed out of home for work, again. He did not even wait to have tea that Ratna had prepared.

As Ratna got back in front of TV after closing the door behind Ashwin, she sat down thinking how much she did not want the modern day life of busy professionals. She was happy for her life and pitied the millions of people who spend their lives running between one client and the other. Ashwin too agreed with her philosophy. He used to think that for someone who never gave too much to formal college education, Ratna was always surprisingly learned. Or maybe it was because she was so learned that she did not give too much to college education. Ashwin, however, had dreams to run for. And dreams that made him run; day in day out. But for beautiful stolen moments like this afternoon’s, he might have gone crazy.

But he loved his pursuit; inspite of the effect it was having on his health and emotions. And she loved her peace; inspite of the fact that she never got much respect from the ‘educated and on-their-feet’ women of her bungalow scheme in Bopal. But Ratna was never the one who would fall for the mad race of the entire human race to become a clone of one another.

Anyway, as she put on some music on radio and went to the glass window with the cup of tea in her hand, the droplets on the glass couldn’t help but remember their first meeting on a rainy day in Bopal.

It was two years ago. Their children were both in the same school, in Bopal itself. Aditya was elder than Riya by one year and was in Class 1 while Riya was in Senior KG.

One day, it had suddenly started raining very heavily. And as everyone living in Bopal knows, the season that should be the most romantic one is generally the most torturous one for those living beyond the ring road. Streets get clogged, electricity often becomes erratic and life generally comes at a standstill during a heavy downpour.
Ratna was alone at home those days and she had got very worried about Riya. Since the area around her bungalows had got completely flooded, driving her car to the school did not seem a good idea. But it looked dangerous to even walk through that knee-deep water. Especially the idea of bringing Riya through it. While the school authorities had informed her of taking care of the children in the school till the rain lasted, Ratna looked unsure of things after that. Especially since the rain did not seem to be in any mood to stop that day.

Just then she got a call on her mobile phone. The number was not stored but it of course was of Ashwin.

“I’ve brought along two children. Do you think you can have a look and tell me if they are ours”, Ratna clearly remembered the words from Ashwin that had made her fall for good.

But what she had found even sweeter was the sight of Ashwin standing in the verandah of her bungalow with Aditya in one arm and Riya in the other. All the three were smiling and seemed high on life. While Aditya and Riya were giggling while doing pushing-each-other fight while being in Ashwin’s arms, Ashwin himself was smiling like a radiant Sun amidst the downpour.

It was one of the those Kodak moments that shaped Ratna’s following life.

It was the day that had brought them really close. It was after that day that Ashwin could gather further courage and Ratna could further lower her guard. Life was never the same for them after that. They learned to make maximum use of the moments available to them in today’s present life.

Still sipping tea and looking out of the window, Ratna took a deep breath as she lived back those moments. Just then, she saw Aditya and Riya coming towards her home along with Kavita – her very good friend and Ashwin’s wife.

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