Conscience....

"Ahhh....Oh God.. My head hurts...need to puke..fast...."
Hurried steps to the bathroom and the door shuts with a slam. Sounds of vomit and then heavy panting. Silence.

Sound of running water. A prolonged silence. Muffled sounds of the shower.

I felt terribly dizzy. Everything seemed to be happening super fast today. As if the earth had doubled its speed taking the entire human race with its swing.

I took a swig of water from the bottle by the bed. Unable to hold it anymore, I ran over to the balcony and retched it out. I was dreadfully sick. "This is the worst hangover..." I sat down on the couch like an effete self professed innocent person; it was the weakness which made me hold on to my sitting position for a long time.

Another silence. The sound of the shower still continues in the background.

"Not really .. It always happens like this.." I retorted my psyche.

But it was nt that, which i dreaded. Something really awful had happened last night, something which never should have happened. It stuck me like a thump in my throat, my face began to become really hot, so much that i could feel my eyes burning. A tear drop falls on my palm, I quickly close my eyes and rub my hand against the sofa cover.

A question mark dangled over me like a sword.

"How do i answer myself..., give me an answer, God.." I thumped my fist against the sofa.

"Just how could I...." I tried to remember the last thing the previous night, a seemingly futile attempt. I just remembered the party, the dance after it and the Green Apple vodka shots. I looked at the cell lying on the ground.

"No, I can't call anybody now..."

My shoulders sagged from the enormous pressure . The ignominy of my loss, the loss of sanctity, virtues and rationale weighed down heavily on me. An event which had no reason. It was beyond all human reach, a burden that i had to carry an entire life.
The inheritance of loss.

Suddenly i felt really tiny, inexistent and denuded before the entire universe. I required shelter to hide my sinned being, an asylum where i could hide for all continuum, but could nt find any.

"I fucked up, okay... I fucked it all up..." I pressed my forehead hard against the seat cushion.

I wanted to cry. It was partly the searing headache, refusing me a coherent, rational flow of thoughts.

I was still buried in the sea of fibres of the cushion, when the sound of shower stopped. The door clicked open slowly making that familiar creaking noise. Sound of hushed footsteps.

I could not bring myself to open my eyes. I was just too weak for a confrontation right now. I felt asphyxiated, the calamities of emotions strangulating my very self. I felt innately filthy. For a moment, I wanted to run and jump out of the balcony, be pronounced dead the very next minute. I could feel the cushion dampen with my tears and moisten my cheeks with it.

Light hands on my shoulder. I stood up mechanically; still sobbing, with my face buried in the cushion. A strong reassuring hug.

I could nt hold it any longer. I cried out bitterly, letting go of the cushion and burying my reddened face in his chest. My head rocked rhythmically against his thumping heart as i sobbed piercingly, till i went short of breath. I looked up into his dark eyes.

It was a bachelor's party at the pub, almost the entire team was there. I had lost all counts of the vodka shots.But, I remembered how I picked up a fight with another person and conked out. I did nt even remember his name. But, he looked strikingly familiar. Perhaps he was from the same organisation.

He kissed my forehead reassuringly. We held each other for what seemed like a never ending moment, until we could not stay like this any longer and broke off.

His eyes turned red, "Yesterday was a mistake. Nothing of this really happened.Events like this are common in this profession. Forget about me and all of this like a bad dream. I am a married person..."

"Don't take it too hard on you boy...", he said, as he reached for the door knob.

I stood on the balcony silent and spellbound by the turn of events, my eyes transfixed on the morning sun as the door opened with the familiar creak and slammed with a bang.

It was a new day. I had to get ready for my profession.

Half an Hour.. (dedicated to a special someone!!)

Beep Beep.
One message received.

"..should take more.. like half an hour.."

He grimaced.

Had it not been today, the templatised message would read as, "Half an hour.., not more than that, i promise..please baby!!, catch ya.. "

The half an hour wait, for her college to end, to reach ccd, to finish her last minute talks with teachers, to do all the chores, take the scooty before she could reach the table where they always met. It was only a 10 mins ride, had it not been for all those. And then, on other days, she would reach out, hold his hands and mutter sweet nothings. He understood that such chores are pretty normal for a academically serious student, after all, she was one of the most consistent and elite students at the mass communications college; and he, a dull and easy going engineering student with no aims or ambitions. Often they would talk about her plans after college; pretty often it would be she who would be doing the talking and he would be listening figuring out algorithmic ways to come up with a fool proof plan for her!!.. well done engineering, kahi to kaam aayi!! But, today was different.

"Damn, its just 5 mins gone". He looked at his watch. Maybe a cappucino would help let the time run. Its always the idle moments which make you feel that time is irritatingly incessant. He glanced at the ccd newsletter. "Bah!. crap seems to be in the air..". His mind wondered again. The "half an hour"s that had made his life take a new turn in the past few weeks. He met her at the first significant "half an hour"in his otherwise black and white umpteen "half an hour"s of 3 years in college.

"Heya!, do you know where can i find Nipyune?" ,an awkward south indianish accent, a pair of curious black kohl lined eyes, turquoise bangles and a blue salwar; it was the Garbha night.

"Well .. yea, nipun seems to be surrounded by the dance hungry crowd..should be back shortly", he muttered back.

"Hmm.. I am Shibani"

"Nikhil"

"I am representing my college for the University Ed Board, needed some grass on the Navratri.."

"Oh.. i guess then you might as well wait here for the entire executive committee to be back...Pepsi, if you may?"

"sure.. thanks"..

It seemed yesterday. The overtly normal talk which then became a scandalous line up of smsing all night, and then turned into uncounted "half an hour"s of talking about the usual humdrums of life. And then, it happened. Before he knew it, he was actually in a relationship. Talk about destiny, life seemed to be a big conspiracy about two people meeting out of nowhere. Life seemed to be on the seventh heaven. He did not have a big gang of friends, nor any interest in learning how darlington ampifiers behaved when the emitter was grounded!!. Life seemed to revolve around the 1km walk to the lover's point(atleast thats wat was the colloqial name), the ccd and the movie theatre. So far so good.

"Shews, 10 more mins.. Goddamn man... ". They say, an idle mind is a devil,s workshop. Never knew devil's workshop could be so blank. Outside, it had begun to drizzle; might turn into a hefty downpour. He glanced anxiously outside. "C'mon man, let it not be a downpour..maybe i should ask her to go home directly..but i need to meet her.." The shortcut to ccd from her college involved crossing a gravel downhill road which used to get real slippery during rains. It normally would be prudent to go back home, before the monsoons cause any further damage; but not today. He called her. No response.

5 mins left. Another call, no response. Another one, no answer. Next one, phone temporarily unreachable. "Wat the heck, get the phone ringing.." he uttered annoyingly. It had begun to rain heavily, the monsoons seemed to take its toll on anyone vulnerable to getting wet. Another call, no answer. "Maybe i should call priya, she should know where this oafhead might be.."

"Hello, hi.. NIkhil here, any idea where SHibu could be...?"

"Heyy, Nyx.. hw re you..., Shibu just left the college in a hurry..Could' nt really talk.. People were going helter skelter, to find some rain shade..."

"oh!..ok.. no probs..thanks anyways.. bye"


"Darn it!!!.." He looked at his watch again. 5:45. She should have been there by now. He called her again. Still no response. "might as well sit here for another few mins..." Normally, she would have definitely called him up before leaving college. But, today was different. Another cappucino, a must.

Two months back, he had been selected in a prestigious foreign internship for a year; a lucky break for a not-so-lucky student. It was a tempting offer beyond which his entire life flow could change. An exchange semester at a world renowned university and then the opportunity to get placed abroad. It was a tumultous moment. On one hand, he had an opportunity of rejuvenating his otherwise dull life, on the other his relationship was at stake. No relationship could stand the test of "long distance", that too when you yourself are'nt sure of return before atleast a year. And this is where, it all started. It started with appreciation and promises of togetherness, longer hours of gtalking, googling long distance , making long term plans of keeping together, trusting each other and banking on each other's strengths to keep up. After all, what seemed to be the crux of a relationship was mutual trust and communication. For a moment, it seemed that balancing one's academic and personal matters was always a possiblity, which most people wilfully ignore. For a moment, the longing between the both had increased significantly to the extent that classes seemed a sheer waste, spending the maximum time in the company of each other seemed prudent. Another 5 mins had passed by. It was still raining heavily. The cup was half empty.

The relationship had gone through the "introduction to long distance" phase pretty smoothly. But soon enough, he got busy in applications and emails to proffessors, getting recommendations and conversations with the concerned people at the University, getting documents for visa and booking tickets to visit the concerned consulate in Delhi. The beginning of the end, he sadly thought. In the midst of all this, his personal life had taken the backseat. He began to wilfully ignore her, always on the pretext of "other important work", "tiredness" and similar lines. These pretexts are momentary, they always tumble down as quickly as they can be conjured. Conversations, took the form of verbal fights and soon enough they were yelling at each other on the phone. Meetings became formal and quiet and then irregular to the extent of "occasional". It was two weeks back, when they had a fight none like others. She was furious and he trying to defend himself. They yelled at each other at the top of their lungs and slammed the phone down and said things so hurtful that they knew they could never take it back.

“GOTO HELL!”

“You first!” he shouted back.

“Why did you lie to me about Preeti?”

“About what?”

“Don’t play stupid Nik, you know what. I saw the way you acting around her at the party!”

“What the hell? We are in this exchange shit together. You have known her for over six months.”

“I saw the way she was hittin on to you!”

“Hittin on me? Here we go again with that shit. We were outside the disc talking about work! We are in this together remember? Hello?”

“Don’t try to hide your cheating ass with her behind the “we were talking about France” lie. It didn’t look like that talk from where I was standing. Priya saw the way you two were talking and how close she was standing to you! She was the one who pointed that shit out to me!!!”

“Who? Priya? What? Is she supposed to be your spy? Do you have spies all over the place keeping tabs?”

“I know what I saw..A drunk Preeti and she was clearly tryin to take her chances. Why don’t you just tell me the truth? I watched the way you were looking at her all the time. What was it? Her skimpiness? or her half drunkedness?”

“You are blowin’ things way out of proportion Shibu. I can’t believe this. We have been together for more than an year now and here we are fighting again about some girl you think I’m gettin’ with or gonna get with on the other side.”

“So what are you sayin, you two been hookin’ up behind my back? Is that what you’re trying to tell me now? Sounds like the truth is finally coming out of your lying mouth you son of a bitch!!!!”

“What the hell now? You think that’s what I’m sayin’?

“Yeah that’s what I’m sayin.”

“Look this is nonsense. You’re making something out of nothing”

"Just put the phone down, dont need your stupid shit to make my life any better.."

"Yeah, that sounds fine, know what its just 14 days and you wont hear from me again...and the clock ticks for good.."

"Yeah, that's exactly the one last favour i wanted. Good! you outspoke me..and i dont have to go through this shit once you leave...and know what, I really don’t want to see you again…"

[grunt]. Click. He banged the phone down.

".. this rain doesnt even seem to slow down...". It was 6 in the evening, and still no signs of her. He had his flight tomorrow mornin, and it was important that he met her. It was his last meeting with her today. She needed to reach home by 7 and this monsoon was cutting whatever precious time they had left. He wanted her to know that he still loved her the same way and this was not what he wanted. He closed his eyes momentarily despaired and pained.

“Hi Nyx… How have you been..?” a shivery, heavily drenched voice uttered behind his back.

Another significant half an hour had passed.

Untitled.....

The annoying sound of the deep snort of crushed nose candy stirred her from the slumber to find her in the wooden surroundings of the smoky dark flooring of the room. It was damp and musky. As if the wood was protected by a sea of moss. Her kohl lined eyes opened slowly, eyelids fluttering dizzily to the distant ray of light above her. She quietly whimpered to the pounding headache; the hangover had to leave its marks. A barely audible fearful cry, fearful of being assaulted if heard. Another day had dawned. The stench of decomposing defecation, of rotting bodies and dirt hit her like an anvil dropping on her and she quickly got up holding the thin dirty tarpaulin sheet to cover her otherwise nearly naked salt eaten body. Around her were eyes, concupiscent, evil and cruel, dirty, dust laden and intoxicated. To her, faces were all the same. Same old dirt but different faces! But nothing unusual, for her it meant one more day of survival in the cellar. They had been on the seas since a week, lost all count of time in the tropical humid air, living on dry fruits and glucose powder to keep them alive. Their mission- to lay siege and take hostage on enemy country, inflict as many casualties as possible. And her mission - to kill the enemy of her country, the divine retribution for the one who had brought down that destruction in her family, who made her an orphan right in front of her eyes, who showed her what bestiality meant and who transformed her to what she was today, that’s what she was told, that’s what the institute professed to all cadres like her. She scarcely remembered all of that past. She remembered just the training institute, the near death survival training and her motive, the picture of that fair bright-eyed person with the golden hair on the moth eaten newspaper. That picture was inscribed in the frozen hive of her mind, that face with a slight scar on the right cheek, the lips contorting as if there was a statement to be made, a perfect nose and kind yet mysterious eyes. She could never miss that face, now that she saw him in the TV before leaving. She gently took out the newspaper from that crumpled bag and looked at that black and white photograph in the shimmering light. The letters in the background were hardly of any importance, they were illegible. She folded it back and took a deep snort of the remaining coke on the floor and looked up into the funnel of light poring mercilessly on her.

…the pebbled, mucked up road twisted at the group of bamboo trees and turned right near the lake to enter into the thick growth of broom shrubs beneath the ever flowering red bougainvilleas. It was the most beautiful part that the road cut through, twisting and twining between the apple groves ending at the very doors of a small solitary thatched hut. 2 boys with their oversized pants tied at the waist playing sticks at the front yard while a small girl of around 4 years wearing a soiled frock chasing the pigeons away. The father seemed to carry a heavy bunch of tree branches in his arm and mother seemed to pick up the clothes that were strewn on the ground for drying. There was golden hay lying all across the ground and beside the bamboo gate there were flame-red chilies of the size of her thumb kept for drying Mother used to say that father worked for the government. There was a strange machine with an upright black pole which talked by itself and made strange illegible sounds. Father used to talk to it and wouldn’t allow anybody to come inside when he was talking…

Nearly 5 months had gone by, since she was living in the outskirts of a remote village. All the arms were stashed in the cellar below the wooden footing and all communication was through radio transponders. The villagers were simpletons, kind and unaware of the impending militia within their very own village. She was hardly bothered with any of this. She was a killing machine, made for a purpose; a messiah, to wreak vengeance on the person who had put her at peril, to claim justice for the lives of those “oblivious” family members and to claim honor by giving her life for the nation. Every day and night that she spent on the foreign soil, she dreamt of the institute; she remembered the blood boiling speeches of the institute, the stories of the acts of bestiality and cruelty that they had committed in the name of war, the plight of the homeless orphans like her and their brethren who had been killed before their very eyes and ultimately the terror which this nation had wreaked on them; her life was a very small price to pay, the best that she could do. And she waited for the day, calmly and patiently. That night she dreamt.

… there were men in green uniforms and harvest green colored berets with automatic rifles slung over their backs on that road, moving in a single file, alert and quick. They were much unlike her father, rugged, unshaven and cruel. The village people had informed about nearby villages getting razed to the ground, men and women being brutally killed by militants and called for immediate evacuation. But father had brushed away all such concerns of mother, their village was the closest to the border patrol; there was no way that any miscreant could ever lay hands on that village. She was near the bamboo bush looking for the rabbit, when they called her and asked for directions to the nearest house; they said that they were from the border patrol and that they were thirsty. She pointed out her house and ran over to the corn field by the bamboo bush. After a while, she spotted the fleecy white ears of the rabbit and approached it slowly and stealthily and quietly bent over to catch it. Sounds of gunshot! She looked behind her and saw smoke from the house. On a sudden instinct, she ran over from the fields shouting for mother and her brothers. The bamboo gate had been thrown away. There was an unearthly silence, as if each living organism had been a part and a witness to the ghastly spectacle. As she looked with tears drawn to her eyes, the house burnt brightly vomiting pitch black corpuscles of soot into the air. She knelt down in helplessness realizing her futility and cried bitterly. Her entire world had been dashed to smithereens. The world around her grew darker until it was pitch black as she closed her eyes and fell down unconscious …
… The sun was shining uncomfortably into her eyes as she weakly got up from the make shift bed by the thatch. It seemed to her like a big bad dream. There were lots like her, sleeping, crying; injured and healthy. An elderly woman came to her and stroked her head. She said that god had picked them as the chosen ones and the institute will protect them from all harm at any cost. The next month when hundreds of cadres of the ‘army of God’ were addressed by the guide, paper cuttings of newspapers were given to each of them. She was told about her parents and her siblings’ deaths. The person whose photo was on the cutting was the perpetrator of all sufferings and all innocent deaths would be duly avenged by the chosen ones. The speaker veiled behind a black colored cloth said, “hatred breeds hatred and we shall give them their share…”

People were thronging in thousands, fighting to get to the front, nailing and pushing, climbing on each other to get a view of the Minister. He had come to address all the villagers, promising them with aid and support. They were all kinds the young, the elderly, the teenagers; happy, sad, rowdy, serene, laughing, crying and so on and so forth. And there was she, at the second row of the line of people. She wore a sari and was draped in a bright decorative green shawl. She had put on her best make up and with her feminine build and feline looks, she looked the prettiest in the whole lot. She looked forward to his grand appearance and her final act. She was the agent of an event which would change the course of history; the executor of justice to bring down retribution and glorify her existence. Those days of endurance and penance when she had transcended all limits of the calamities of trauma and suffering, would be put to test today. He came down from the stage to greet the crowd. He was no different from the picture on the newspaper, just that he looked a tad older. As he joined his hands before the women in the front, their eyes met. It was a strange familiar meet, as if a stranded piece of the jigsaw puzzle had been put into place to make a complete meaning. She did not flinch or move. As she looked motionlessly, her right hand mechanically moved to activate the switch.

The wait...

Perceptive readers,


My life force dries by the hour. I feel my time draws near. My purpose is seemingly served, although i wonder if it really is. My master once said that it is at the verge of end of this life, that one reminisces his life. Life then becomes a moving reel of snapshots and remembrances of those snapshots, of all the decisions and their consequences, of all insinuations and ill will;rights and wrongs that gave birth to it, of all the people who were or weren't with you then and most of all the innately valuable experience that time gifted you through it. My master said that it is those snapshots that accompany you to the next world that made you what you were meant for.

I do not boast about my birth, because it was nt anything memorable. It was the birth of any other imperfect thing in an imperfect world. I opened my eyes to see myself with thousands and thousands of my brethren. They say that life is like a boxing match; the world bares the newcomer to its leviathan tentacles of adulteration, roaring that you make each move, kills you, but still lets you survive till the next round. Every round becomes a tangled mesh of cobwebs of a mixture of experiences that a milling crowd exudes till he finds a purpose. I had become a nubile yet inanimate thing at the hands of a mercenary; a mercenary whose litany of price tagging any item becomes highly neurotic. However, all this dementia ended soon when i found myself in the coarse hands of a middle aged person to be my master; sold off for a specific dower.

I was brought to life and I bled at our union. Time and again i bled only to be refilled by the life force of the thoughts of a cerebral notion. His thoughts joined with mine, his life force united with mine and we gave a meaning to the solitary blankness of a paper. My master's thoughts became mine and we, the perpetrators to a culture; a brain child of intellect, rationale and thought provoking proses. His thoughts were the outburst of an angry young denizen. A vagabond in the society, tormented and traumatised by anguish over the death of his near and dear ones, bound by the shackles of apparent law and forced to succumb to its pleasures and gratifications. And I was his instrument of execution. He always said that peace is a compromise,a lull before a stronger storm arises and retribution which is due has to be demanded back. He believed that being equal meant to be equally strong as the adversary and for that the authority needed to be substantially impartial; he believed in equal opportunities of expression and in its power of mobilisation. After all, what use is sustenance in a meretricious society which indulges and professes itself in acts of vanity. His will to bring justice and retribution to his sect was meticulously driven by such convictions and he conveyed it unabashed. A prolific writer, he significantly contributed to articles and editorial columns in the local daily. His will lay in me. I was the instrument of his ideas. I gave expression to what he thought. Our union had ushered in a revolution alfresco. My master once said, an entire village can be engulfed by the flames of hatred of a single man. This was our revolution.

I say "our" because my life force emanated from our conjugation and this is what we gave rise to. The power of an idea whose time had come. My master made extensive plans of a coup d'etat, each and every detail that occured was recorded. Panoptic meetings, discussions, plans for execution; everything that one could possibly do was meticulously planned. He had lost the count of all time. It was within the confines of the four walls of the living room, that random thoughts of a dark mind turned to careful details. I was no more his instrument of expression. I became his weapon of subversion. Anger and resentment became our loyal guides. To mobilise and gather the 'others', he needed a medium to enkindle the fire within. He used the local magazine to publish those words, which should never had been said.

They say one has to give back what one owes to the system, or else face the consequences. They came in one day, brown and black and took him away. Thence i wait, lying half opened on the dusty table, in between the flutterin yellow moth eaten pages of a half opened diary, in the midst of a half written column. My body has been lined by layers and layers of dust, my nib reduced to a dry rust eaten beak. I wonder whether this is my end, end to my tryst with destiny, end to my life, soul and purpose? As I ebb away into oblivion, I crave for those coarse hands of my Master, my love. I wonder if he thinks about me, if he would come and take me away with him.

I wait fervently for my master, I long to die on those hands.

The Great Indian Dream

[hums of a seemingly incessant alarm…]
Kamil scathingly looked at the whining instrument of lore and switched it off. Groggily he muttered,“..shit!!.. its 6:30 am already..” He could have sworn that he had just closed his eyes for a moment the previous night. Outside, the day opened itself to the same mundane happenings. The sun was brightly poring into his eyes through the window and he could almost chant the distant mumble of the quotidian commute of the train. He had to take the office bus at 7:30, so that he could reach office by 8:15, just in time for the status call. Or else, face the cynical rebukes of the misanthropic Mr. Rao. Absentmindedly, he put on the slippers. The dog on the poster by his bed said, “The light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off due to budget cuts….”. “Yeah right!!” he maundered.

For Kamil, life of late had become an estranged ritual of philosophies, of setting milestones that seemed farther than miles and achievements that never seemed to materialize. At 24, when “normalcy” meant steady girlfriends, a steady source of income and masks and blinkers, Kamil had been fired from his previous organization and in desperation, had to join a call centre at half the pay. He was lucky that he got a day shift, but the work hours were humongous and required a great deal of patience handling the clients. Kamil was baffled; life didn’t hold any purpose for him. A degree in Mass Communication and not many jobs available; finally a job with decent pay, but then recession strikes and job cuts and then life at the call center. Not that he had the responsibility of supporting the family; both his parents were professors at the local college in his hometown, but the job status wasn’t exactly what he looked forward to. And of course, Kamil was a ‘stranger’ in the excruciating world of girlfriends and relationships.

The hebetudinous white bus screeched to a halt at the bus stop at 7:35. It was a 14 seater and there wasn’t enough space to hold 20. Nonetheless, one needs to adjust with the situations and Kamil sat down between his blabber mouthed colleagues Ron and Harish. “What a start to a day…”, he lamented to himself. Ron was the propagator of masaala news inside and outside the office. He always boasted of his sources and talked through his hat about the dilly dallies of the tell tale affairs inside the office. Short and stocky with child like features belied by extreme hirsuteness with a quintessential asinine smile at anytime of the day, Ron seemed to represent the gossip group of the nation. He began to tell how he had allegedly spotted Reshma, the HR head with Rao talking about further cuts in the team and claims of team downsizing. The topic went to the scarcity of jobs with “as usualness” to the order of the day, accompanied by the alleged affairs of girls in the office. “Damn man!!.. Heights of disillusionment..” Kamil angrily stuttered to himself.

The rickety old bus decelerated under the brakes and squawked to a halt at the narrow alley on the new market. This was a shortcut that the new driver had started to take, shortened the entire distance by atleast a km, but being a busy road with vendors and hawkers it took almost the same time. But today, it seemed different. In place of screaming vendors, there were screams of people running helter skelter in pandemonium. Kamil glared outside and saw a large group of people, smeared with orange and red, armed with flame torches and lathis and swords and wrapped in orange clothes in their head. They were shouting “Hey Ram, Sai Ram..maro kato….” The shops were in flames, the ones that seemed to have glass doors were smashed to smithereens and their contents spilled outside. The air smelt of putrid ash and charcoal. On the other side of the road, there were two Maruti 800s with their hoods on flame. There were the scorched remains of what seemed like a Hero Honda Splendor. The news had reported about possible disturbances in the new market area, with karsewaks proclaiming it a state holiday on the death of one of the leaders, else strikes and curfews would be imposed. But, destruction at this level was unexpected. The driver immediately stopped the vehicle and pelted outside. “Run run .. run. Get out of the vehicle…”All the employees immediately scampered out as the karsewaks started beating the bus with lathis and swords. Kamil ran to the shelter of a broken shop as the frenzied group chanted the Ram Dhun and poured petrol on the windows and top of the Mazda. The air immediately blackened with the soot, yellow and orange as the bus was set to flames. Kamil scuttled forward desperately making phone calls as the sirens of the Police became distinct.
The Police will make lathi charges, take whoever they find in custody and use the dispersal mechanisms of tear gas shells and water hoses. Public Violence had crossed all thresholds in the nation. Administering doses after doses of political gimmicks, inter party conflicts and the communal shroud as a buttress to every activity, public violence seemed like a repeated use which had acquired a tacit legitimacy over the years in the community. On one hand, when secularity preaches of oneness even in times of distress and the great Father of the Nation dreamt and preached against loosing one’s sense of judgment at any point of time, these means of political agendas had destroyed all sense of solving problems democratically. Democracy was at chaos burning itself at the pyre of Sati with delirious people chanting all around. Schisms of socio-cultural-linguistic mitosis, dividing itself again and again into smaller groups are an indication of this history hardened divide. The Great Indian Dream has simply become the Great Indian Divide.
Kamil looked around and saw leaders of parties had arrived on the spot, accompanied by half a dozen military personnel. In times of internal strife and turbulence like these, when the common man needed people who can handle disturbances, the government had succumbed to fissiparous and civil disharmony. Democracy was in shambles, stripped and assaulted time and again in the name of religion. But without proper institutions to support it and the civic culture which could safeguard it, Indian democracy has remained notional or nominal. In this situation it could be easily subverted by the communal movements and fascist forces. The political system has fallen prey to the maneuvering of the power politics. There are no effective civic organizations to watch over and guide the democratic process. In absence of democratic culture and values necessary for the healthy functioning of the democratic system, democracy had been reduced to mere mobocracy, representatives elected by mobs, driven by faith and feelings.
The taxi had been sent from his office, so that all the employees could return to their homes safely. Kamil saw his designated vehicle and sat inside along with two other colleagues. Somehow, he didn’t share the feelings of safety that his colleagues had started muttering. He looked at his soot blackened face in the rear view mirror of the car. He saw the face of a common man, a god fearing Indian and realized that the Great Indian Dream had fallen. He closed his eyes.