Evil Injustice and the Struggle for Freedom and Martyrdom

Dominance and rebellion rule the minds of men.

Shankar was at that crossroad where men go to sell their soul to Shaitan. This crossroad exists of course in the minds of men and nowhere else in reality. It is a strange place where men must refuse to recognize themselves. It is a dark and lonely place.

What had led Shankar there? He had wandered far in search of the purpose of his life. A man has two things to learn. First, that he is good, and then that good cannot exist without evil. Living is an art and life is a circus. We are actors. What’s the purpose of this show? For the sake of knowing just this much Shankar was willing to sell his soul to Shaitan. The king of all evils, Shaitan would surely know the answers to his questions. A statue maker, Shankar, disappointed with the mundane life at his town crafted a statue of Shaitan and quietly began worshipping it. Other people were unaware of his devotion to the ruler of all the evils. They went to factories, went to estates. They were commoners. They worked for other people. That was the purpose of their lives, to serve others.

“Shankar? Shankar…” Jarnail came to the statue workshop owned by Shankar. Many tools had been scattered on the floor. Shankar had gone out. Few men had ganged up against an innocent man and killed him. The incident had occurred just down the lane. Shankar had gone there to console the man’s family.

Jarnail was an activist of sorts, he went around the town making people aware of a struggle. Things used to bother him a lot. He considered the world his enemy. He was eager to find Shankar. He went out and waited by the lamppost by the tailor’s shop. The adda of the dadas down the lane was bustling with life. Trees reached high in the sky, but shade was scarce. Winter had set a mystic haze over the grey buildings. The day had already set. City lights glued to the backs of cars and motorcycles, like ribbons, whizzed past this scenery. Lights, could ignore the troubled lives of men, had the power to tie the pace of their lives into a tight knot. Else it was difficult to wrap one’s head around how fast some people lived. No one had time for any of Jarnail’s “struggle” bullshit.

At a far slower pace, a factory worker and a mutual friend of Jarnail and Shankar came cycling down the road. Rajesh, pushing his thumb against the bell on the handlebar twice neared Jarnail. Tring-Tring.

“What’s brought you here, away from the rallies?” he asked getting off and parked the cycle next to him. Being an apolitical sort of guy even he was somewhat pleased that at least the town let such peaceful rallies go on. Jarnail whispered in soft tones, “The rallies are unhindered. I’ve come to take Shankar with me.”

“What makes you think he will waste his time going with you?”

“As if he’s up to any good anyways…” Jarnail taunted.

Rajesh’s colleagues at the factory had been discussing something disturbing. His mind kept going back to that same thing again and again. “Shankar’s friend was found murdered this morning. He’s gone to see him. The innocent man was trapped in a crossfire.”

“Why doesn’t Shankar stick with his useless statues. Who knows what kind of a world he brings to life behind those walls of his?”

“They are not useless” Rajesh retorted. “Everyone has use for statues. Anything can be turned into a statue if you have the right tools.”

“Pledge an allegiance to statues and become part of the whole disaster. You are no different from a statue anyway.”

“I am a statue? I’m more alive than you.” Rajesh wasn’t going to take it. He was becoming impatient. “You are one to judge everyone. Quite the preacher you have become, haven’t you, Jarnail?” Rajesh asked him.

“Who might remain unmoved when injustice crushes the souls of all men freely.”

“What do you know about injustice, you are a commoner, just like Shankar and I.”

“Show me the house of this man who was murdered” Jarnail told him.

Ending this bout of spite Rajesh carried Jarnail on his cycle down the lane where the death of an innocent man was being mourned. Even under the roof of such a house a group was gathered feeling more humiliation than grief.

Rajesh left the cycle leaning against a white wall outside the house. The wall had been surprisingly untouched by slogans or symbols. This was rare for the town. Some people were crying by the old iron gate. The weeds were growing unattended.

The night was spent there. By sunrise the dead man had been declared a victim with majority vote.

Rage was fuming in the minds of the people but power did not reside within them to deliver easy justice. Jarnail didn’t speak a word about rallies with Shankar because he knew this wasn’t the time. Slowly the crowd dispersed but a few men remained. They entered an abandoned room and occupied it, enrage, yearning for revenge.

The air was soon full of smoke from the bidis. Many suggestions were hurled into open view like venomous bombs. They were all scrapped. If anyone knew what Shankar had in mind it was Jarnail, both were men of few words but likeminded. Shankar admitted to Jarnail that he hadn’t a clue why he was there. The need for revenge seeped deep into the blood of everyone present there. But no one was willing to start riot. Hours passed. Nothing came up. Then there was a sudden knock at the door. This caused a disjointedness in the argument. Some even reached for their pistols under the hide of their thick woolen shawls. The game, everyone knew, was bound to be a bloody one. The moustache twirling continued.

Someone went to check the door. Few men had come from far once they learnt of a crime. They had guns with them, proper guns. This lynching had taken an ugly shape. A conflict was on its way. On not finding enough support at the rallies, crowds assembled at different locations throughout the town gathered outside the house.

In that room though, these were all men who observing the situation, felt that perhaps this was the time to take the reins of the revolution into their own hands. Sadly, their fingers were on triggers and they were aiming for the skull of the enemy. They had all lost someone or the other to this conflict. They had absolutely no sympathy for the enemy. They had come a long way in life to make peace with this war of ideologies. Survival was at the top of everyone’s minds. Some were believers in the ideology of peace, they tried calming the situation down. But they were now too close to the fire. Something worked. There was peace, if only for a moment. All those now gathered there went back to their own lives feeling useless and pathetic. Shankar was not someone who could easily calm down. Neither did he have peaceful company. He was now a worshipper of Shaitan. Usually, he would know the way out of situations like these, after all he was an artist. At this moment he only felt his heart beat fast. It was pulsating in his mind. It was not in chains.

Rajesh and Jarnail walked Shankar back to his workshop. The dadas had woken up too and the meeting was alive once again at the adda by the turning.

“Shankar, I know you are upset all this had to happen. I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a friend. The thought comes to my mind often when I think about you. Do not go back there. If a death can gather such a crowd… I do not wish to learn about its consequence” Rajesh said. Shankar was indeed troubled and he knew it too. He also knew that Rajesh meant well.

They bid each other a quiet farewell for now. Shankar went straight to that statue of Shaitan he had been worshipping and asked him why such evil ran with freedom. He looked up to the statue hoping good and evil could even each other out.

Jarnail tried peeking in but he could see nothing. Shankar had shut the door behind him. He didn’t want anyone seeing how doomed he was. He felt some peace sitting by Shaitan’s statue but that was that. It was just a statue. His faith was just a matter of imagination. Big horns, sharp tail, gouging eyes, burnt skin, pointy toes. All of this meant nothing in the end.

The silence was deafening and the mental definitions began to blur in his mind. A man troubled by his circumstances begins to brood in the darkness. Shankar had built this statue in the confines of this darkness. He felt sick and depressed.

With the little energy he had left in him Jarnail sat contemplating why he cannot accept the road ahead. It is scribbled under the intoxication of revenge. It is impossible to avenge man’s suffering.

The next day Jarnail came back to visit Shankar. He came bearing news that Rajesh was leaving the town forever. That was not the only reason he came all the way here. He too had found himself at that crossroad, looking to sell his soul. Maybe there were more than just a few who wanted to learn the purpose behind this eternal struggle. He didn’t know which way to go either. He could not face the world. The path before him was clear but he tried convincing himself that wrongdoings of men against fellow men could not be corrected.

Shankar was pleased to see Jarnail. Jarnail often called the world his enemy. Despite having thought of revolution, he never once succeeded at having visions of victory. Standing at the roads end with all this anger, he only ever felt greedy. Maybe he was finally grieving too and this greed was caused by the need for revenge. Is that what a man’s killer want? To surface above the rest as somehow superior, indifferent to revenge? Satisfied by the anatomy of a murder. “Why did they kill him, Shankar?”

Shankar didn’t take a second before words left his mouth like bullets. “Because man is only part man. Shaitan has his teeth deep into man. Our world burns. Shaitan does not burn even when the fire is fierce. He smiles through it. We remember the evil he caused and he turns his back on us. We cannot undo evil. The lives of men are full of moments when Shaitan comes to linger. He promises revenge and redemption in the guise of evil. He promises to pardon our wrongs. He blinds us. Shaitan’s eyes are so black, so damaged, his horns are so bloody that it has him drowning in madness. His mind plays tricks on him and he thinks it is God’s way that is causing him to stray from good. He wants to put an end to his misery. He wants to destroy this world we live in.”

“Should I feel unfortunate Shaitan laid its path before me and I cross ways with him?”

“Don’t you get what I mean? You can’t stop it from walking alongside you, whichever path you may choose. Do you feel better knowing that he is Shaitan, the torchbearer of evil, and not you?”

Jarnail’s eyes turned away in disgust. “How can you live like this? So blind to the suffering of our fellow men.”

“At least I’m not causing the world more pain” Shankar said. The two men felt a sudden disconnect between them. It was at this point their roads diverged.

“Do you ever think about the end?” Shankar asked Jarnail. “Do you ever imagine what you will achieve from this struggle?”

“Freedom” Jarnail answered.

“Will this struggle for freedom ever end?” Shankar asked coldly. “I’m not afraid of the end.” Jarnail had uncertainty written all over his face. “For me, the fight has only just begun.” Shankar was curious so he asked, “I know I should involve myself in this mess, but what if I just don’t care, will that make me a coward?”

“You cannot remain indifferent to the struggle. There is no life without it. Has the indifference to the suffering of others brought you any peace? Can you ever forget how unequal and unfair this world is? You can’t. Every day you are reminded of it, aren’t you?” Jarnail was beginning to become angry again. “If all those people who were killed in a flash were still alive would you not ask them whether they died a just death, whether they deserved the end that was given to their lives?”

“I would walk past them as if everything was alright knowing well enough that life as I see it is flawed and corrupt” Shankar said.

“Now that you know that we are living in a free for all, know well that they are coming for you? You know we stand united” said Jarnail. Shankar fell back in his chair and almost surrendered. “What should I do?” he asked feeling exhausted with all this thought.

“Nothing yet, when the time comes, we’ll tell you what to do.”

He was serious. Something big was going to take place. “Leave and never come back if you need saving. This land will always remain a battle ground between good and evil. Shaitan moves through us, invisible, making home in every mind it passes. The enemy too has made friends with him. Though we may be many, but the sides in this battle are only two. Shaitan is having yet another laugh turning us against one another. It will stop at nothing less than our pain and death.”

They knew that in a battle between good and evil the good always wins.

Shankar was still strictly opposed to violence. To calm the minds of these unsettled gentlemen Rajesh came on his cycle once again announcing his arrival with the bell.

There was scarcely anyone who was a supporter of peaceful protest more than Rajesh and that is why Shankar was glad he was near. But what was Rajesh doing here? Afterall he was leaving forever.

This time he was looking for a place to hide. “Jarnail, they followed me here”, his voice trembled as they let him inside. There was no escaping a force that was told to deal a deathly blow to the insurgency. “All your co-conspirators were arrested. Some were shot on sight.”

“This is the eradication we had been so wary of. Men have been turned against men. Don’t be scared, they came looking for a fight and that is what we will give them. Fighting till the last breath is the only option we have got.”

“They see you as a criminal”, Shankar said. “Your freedom, for them, is a flag which must be uprooted. Your life has no meaning, no purpose. They think they are crusaders, that they are doing God’s work.”

Which God could freely run such a slaughterhouse if not a servant of man?

“Freedom has been seized from us by them with misplaced power. We only ever call for a people’s revolution. They line us up and put bullets in the backs of our heads. They drive pleasure out of it.” Jarnail added. After a few minutes a group of officers came knocking at the door. Everyone thought this was it. There were calls to those inside to surrender.

It was so loud it felt like it would throw the door to the ground. Shankar pushed Jarnail into the room where he kept the statue of the Shaitan. He couldn’t stop wondering whether the officers will arrest Jarnail or kill him if they caught him. The knocking became more impatient. Rajesh reached for the door but before he could open it a round of bullets were fired from the roof of the building opposite Shankar’s workshop and the officers fell on the floor with a thud. When Rajesh opened the door, he saw that they were all dead.

 For some time nothing moved. In stillness Shankar came forward and felt that things would never go back to being normal. The gunfire was still echoing, but in the distance the echo faded away finding only abyss.

Jarnail stormed out at once and went near the martyrs to pick up their guns. He was not away from martyrdom himself.

Rajesh’s yell stopped him in the act, “Stop! Go now Jarnail. I never want to see your face again.” He turned to Shankar and added, “Tell him to take this curse elsewhere.” Shankar knew Rajesh was hurt. He knew they were all merely pawns. “These men wouldn’t blink once before gunning you down. They came here with an agenda. There was death scripted into our lives today. Aren’t you feeling lucky it wasn’t you?”

Shankar spoke finally. “I no longer know who is an enemy and who is a friend.”

“I will not see lives go to waste. I will not rest till my people are disarmed and these forces come to a halt, till our plea for peace is heard, till the day we can live without fear. That is no dream of mine, that is my future. Enough suffering – enough suffering.” Rajesh went chanting these words out into the open. The fighters of the force open fired on him from behind the mist covering the trees. There was some firing from the building opposite the workshop in return. Rajesh lay covered in blood. His dream of freedom ended a dream. The firing went on for a few hours till both sides retreated to their base. 

 

Yamuna

 

Yamuna

I do not say that I know what it means to live in poverty. A poor world, as it is seen by the rest of the world, has no room in it for love, in fact it is suffering from some kind of spiritual poverty. I do not wish to confuse a loveless world with life spent in poverty.

Veiled with grief, the air all around had become tense.

Both Simran and Amar were divorced, at least from each other’s shadows. There, in a corner of the small store of an old dusty mud house, suffocated by the stinking smell of kerosene and decaying love, Simran was standing all alone, thinking what would happen if she did not visit her mother’s last rites. Amar was seated next to his mother, the old woman had the look of shock in her eyes. Her glasses hid her emotion well. A sound approached the house bringing life to this motionless air.

It is the moneylender perhaps, thought Simran, and began to rush outside that dark corner. With a loan she could surely go to see the remains of her mother finding their release into the vast grey, of the smokey Yamuna.

Darting through,  she found no one there. With strength enough for one last effort to persuade her husband to take her there somehow she receded back into the house. The stacks of hay were laid to waste and the cow dung clung onto the walls like magnet. If she failed now, this was it. Her mother will disappear forever, perhaps. She is hesitant, she goes still.

Amar is so utterly consumed, preoccupied with worries spread by the world. Mother Maitri invites her, lamenting the loss.

“Can nothing be done now? I just want to see her one last time. I will walk if I have to. I will sell more rope on the way if I have to” Simran says to her husband.

“If I had six more feet of rope left with me I’d hang myself with it just to see the end of this all” Amar claims.

Simran’s heart crash landed. Arrested, she breathed a little heavy. Measuring her words nervously she said, “Did you speak with the moneylender? There is a bus at 3.”

The sun was still only rising from east. Morning was still an infant compared to the day yet to come. Amar had become delusional over the years. Every passing second mounted on him the pressure to play the role of the breadwinner, time was fleeing.

Recognizing Simran’s pain too well, the old woman said shiveringly, “There is still some time dear.” The effort was to bring the uneasiness to a rest. As seconds split the clock, her echo faded away and she became nothing more than background noise. The tension between the husband and the wife climbed to a boiling point. What was at stake?

Like it often is where matters of love are at hand, everything.

They hadn’t looked into each other’s eyes since the news of this death had broken. Imagine, they didn’t have enough even to visit a dead mother. Two things were eating them. The bus would cost them five hundred. They hadn’t even that much with them! They would need at least two more to provide for any rituals. Five to get back home. If they could borrow just enough to buy tickets for going, once they were there they could borrow some more there. Amar cannot imagine taking on any more debt than what he already owes.

The drought was declared after much of the suffering and scarcity had passed. People had gotten used to it long before any help came their way. Sate intervention came in sweeping like a vicious storm of dust leaving people blinded with illusions. From then onward silence is the song of the people. Nobody knows what to do except to die a little every day. Many people have died. Many parents saw their children die. The river has receded many kilometers, but it still flows weakly.

Those with sticks have beaten these people hopeless and established monopoly over even water. The wells were already divided along caste lines, but they have all run dry irrespective of caste. Men die of thirst.

When the sun beats down come summer few environmentalists appear. They say something terrible is happening. The people detest them because they have their own supply of packaged water. Each member empties four bottles on average every day. They feel angry because their children don’t even have shoes. Blood cultivates the soil in the land of no water. Even the ants must be so thirsty they drink the blood before it thickens.

Simran weeps quietly looking up at the clock, the minute and the hour hand grinding with each other continuously have caused chaos. In no way are those tears dripping out of weakness. It is sorrow. She is aching body and soul. Watching her, Amar took pity on her and slid his hand into his pocket in despair. He offered her his handkerchief. Leaning forward she plucked it out of his hand.

The moneylender arrived calling out his name. He went outside in a hurry. Simran was immediately feeling slightly better.

“He will take you, don’t worry. He knows what you want. Now stop crying. Wipe away these tears” the old lady spoke once again.

“He is doing it just for me.” Stepping towards this mother-like figure before her, she realizes this is neither the body nor the soul of the mother she is looking for. Maitri lets herself rest back. Amar has left a void in the room behind him.

Eager words ready to spring to life from Simran’s mouth draw near her, backing up into the heavy grief, suffocating her, the lump in her throat strangling her voice. But, as the echo of the old woman’s voice disappears, Simran’s fixated eye balls begin searching for that motherly wisdom. ‘You will find peace when you hold the water of the holy river in your hands, watching the remains of your mother’s life, floating out of your grasp” mother Maitri affirms. “You ought to have found peace here, if it wasn’t for the curse that is drying our rivers, our wells.”

“Mother, the river flows. I have heard it is alive.”

“You are dutiful, girl. Amar…” she loses her way then speaks reassuringly, “He is helpless. Forgive him if you can.”

It is a lot for the young one. Her pulse is racing, she can feel the weight of her misery crushing her ribs. How do the women feel when the accountable man does not bring anything home even after trying very hard? They toil and take up the man’s world. What happens when the man denies her that opportunity? Anger boils over. Life evaporates slowly and the dance of the boiling water is grotesque.

Her mother-in-law tells her, “Whatever he does, he does it for you.”

“The moneylender is here. I must pack few clothes. We can still catch the bus” Simran hesitates.

“Take the Kachori.”

Simran breaks down into tears. The aged fingers take the young pair of hands in condolence. The two cross ways with their eyes.

Someone surely must have said something to break this tension but that gravity collapsed once footsteps approached. Amar entered the room with the borrowed money in one hand and lota in the other. Mother Maitri had left it by the Tulsi in the meagre courtyard outside their mud house. A gamucha around his neck keeping him from the venomous heat. Keeping the lota aside he wiped the sweat off his brows and said, “We don’t have time. Get up now if you want to go. You do want to go, don’t you?” Simran nodded but with fear. “Take only what is necessary. Go now, I am waiting.” She sprang up. Amar’s voice had hit like an arrow in her heart. “It will take time packing everything, calm down. What about you? You will go dressed like this? These are your clothes when you are visiting your in-laws?” Mother Maitri spoke.

He was irritated. His voice exploded and brought to light what had been troubling him really. The walls, that symbolically fell between permanence and evanescence, shuddered.

“What on earth does the moneylender think he has become! The cosmic cockroach! He is the reason our river has run dry. He dirtied it with every dip he took in it, the rotten soul.”

He had asked Amar to return the money on time. Amar did not take well to such distrust.

“I would have strangled him with a piece of rope if business wasn’t so utterly dead.” Simran could her such intimidating words in the store. She hurried and put everything they needed for the journey in one tiny bag.

He continued like that for some time, venting out his rage at the world in front of these two helpless women and then sat down once the rage had been washed ashore. They sighed a lot throughout his tantrum but let him have his moment. He was at least an honest man, not a cheat.

Finally, the old woman got up, shivering, clutching at her knees in pain, agonized. She retired to bed. From the fractured roof above a thin ray of sunlight had kept the bed illumined. Rolled under the bed was the old carpet Simran and Amar used to sleep on the floor next to their old mother.

Standing at her bedside they bid her a brief farewell and she gave them her blessings.

Upon crossing the dusty threshold of the mud house Amar turned his rather tired frame towards his wife and made a feeble sound, “Shall I take the lota too?” he asked. “It might save us when we are thirsty and there is water near or at least make a bath in the Yamuna more suitable. Many years have gone without a dip in the river.”

They left that house somehow and stepped into the heatwave. They crossed every road creeping up the shadows of houses but there was meant to be no respite. Trees had died, animal carcasses lay everywhere. Their village was slowly getting pulled into the desert. Amar wondered once again where all the love resting within him had disappeared. He was sure it was absent from his life. He had once loved all this. There weren’t many trees, or animals but he loved it. He loved even the body of this woman who is next to him. Her person is still the same, yet he feels alienated from her. He didn’t share her grief, he acted out of compulsion. How can love come forward from such a dust storm? As they walked in the heat a dream came to him.

It was a flashback from the days of his childhood. He was resting by the dying river. The trees weren’t green but they stood tall however many there were. His elder brothers were playing gully-danda close to the old house where their grandmother used to go to work. He was thirsty. He went near them and asked them for the bottle of water they had kept with themselves. They shoved him aside and drank all the water between the two of them.

Simran heard him clucking mournfully and asked him if something was troubling him. He acted as if he had just woken up from sleep and shook his head. The journey went on like this on foot. From tiny windows people peered at them, uninterested, they passed through these narrow roads leaving a trail of golden sand behind. In a city of gold who might have wondered about a golden trail left behind by two ordinary people. The road ahead them reflected the sun like a mirror. Before them was a dazzling mirage that connoisseurs might have appreciated from a distance.

Amar was constantly on the look out for the moneylender in case he saw them leaving and think that they weren’t going to ever return his money. He was worried because the moneylender wouldn’t ask once and launch an assault on them to end their lives. His hands were oddly cold.

At the bus stop Amar produced one thousand rupees from his pocket counting it again and again. Soon a bus appeared over the horizon. The sun was red now and melting into the sky around it. The bus was a tiny pale black dot in front of the grand sun.

The bus braked before them. The investigative conductor stared in their direction. They got on. After thirty minutes of the journey the conducted called Amar to buy the tickets from him. “Five hundred” the conductor demanded. Rustling through the notes Amar gave him the money for the fare. They journey was long. He went back to his seat. Counting the money left with him he exchanged a nervous glace with the gentleman sitting next to him. The sun went down. Nighttime caught on fast. The lights inside the bus came on. The posters of Bollywood heroes and heroines gave the journey a colorful feeling.

The two had fallen asleep on each other’s shoulders. When woke up he checked his watch in a frenzy. It was one o’ clock. Outside he saw the bus was moving over a gigantic river crossing. They had crossed the dam. He jumped up at once because they were journeying in the wrong direction. Simran too woke up but hadn’t a clue what was going on. All the colorful lights were like shards of glass in her eyes, the tiredness on her face could not be hidden, her hair had come undone. Amar ran to the conductor. Bags kept in the aisle by the passengers slowed him down. He hurdled over them. “Stop! Stop at once!” he shouted. The driver totally ignored him. He pleaded but was told that the bus will now only stop when they reach the next stop. Amar was disappointed that he had spent whatever little money he had on getting on the wrong bus.

They had clearly come to reservoir side of the dam. Their destination was on the side where the dam had caused the most sever drought in a hundred years. The metallic frame of the bridge, illuminated with the light from the headlights, ran parallel on either side of the bus, and then immediately were no more. The river Yamuna had been crossed. The next stop the conductor had promised would come soon came after another hour of driving in the wrong direction. Simran and Amar left that bus as soon as it stopped. Then the little red lights in the rear of the bus disappeared into the dark.  Now they had to wait. Life was buzzing around the bus stop like moths around a flame. The right bus would come in two hours if they were lucky, they were told upon asking a stranger.

It wasn’t a small bus stop. It was in fact a depot. Around twenty buses were parked there. A few hawkers had occupied the immediate space and inside there was a restaurant.

Now they sat waiting. Both of them had a similar long face out of utter disbelief of their mistake. Simran knew there was no point blaming Amar. What was done was done. She was starving but she dare not have said anything about that. Whatever little food they had packed was already over. She wished she could think of something else and distract herself from this feeling of hunger. She too had a strange dream.

They holy river was there, flowing in the shape of a vision. At the ghat of the river she saw her own mother, her clothes soaked, sticking to her skin, revealing the curves of her body. Her breasts could be seen and so her buttocks too, hidden merely by a thin silk she draped around her. Simran was still a child. She remembered she had seen her mother not with guilt or innocence, but as a woman. Bathing at the ghat, smiling. That was the day she too had become a woman. Such an appearance of her mother had drawn her to thoughts she found were unexplored by her. She felt a strange excitement within her. Her mother’s body caused her to see the spark of a flame.

This dream was the first time since learning of her mother’s passing away Simran did not feel struck with grief looking back at her mother’s life.

Amar caught hold of her hand, gently pulling it. “Let’s eat something, you must be hungry” he said. He guided her towards that restaurant in the middle of the bus stand. They ate and they quenched their thirst.

“I had something to say, Amar” said Simran. “We can go back.”

Amar was baffled by these words. “This was my mistake, I will correct it. Don’t worry about the money” he said.

“I’m tired. I have only one mother now and she is all alone. I must go to her. Nothing can bring back the dead.”

He had started to feel rather uneasy. “Stay here I will ask for help” he ordered her.” He counted how much money he had left with him once she was out of sight. Not a lot. Just enough in fact to get back home. He would have to borrow more if he was to get on the bus to his in-law’s house. He looked towards the stars and let a deeply seated sigh find release. Just the thought of borrowing more made him want to kill himself. It did not occur to him that he was causing discomfort to another. He was not quite ready to have that occur to him. Utter helplessness was rising, it was only a matter of time the sun too would have risen. At least some darkness would be cast away. For Amar, this was another one of those black nights. He was sleepless.

He had his wife in his mind. That saddened him, the image of a vulnerable woman sitting out here in the middle of nowhere. People around him had begun to become suspicious, but no one really cared. It was the dead of the night.

He creeped up behind a bus and began weeping. The cry turned into an uncontrollable sob. The feeling of failure was depressing him. Could he blame himself and not face the consequences? He was a wasp caught in a web after all. It was not for him to comprehend.

Opportunities were many. Everywhere he looked he could see things that were begging him to observe hope. But… It was the confusion. It was the not knowing which caused him to stick with inaction. All human beings feel that way, that is the struggle of life. Simran came looking for him and saw that he had been crying. That broke her heart. “Home is where your heart is” she said to him in a whisper. “My mother is dead. My relationship with her may never end but surely now it cannot be fully understood, for she is gone. I know nothing may bring her back or give her thoughts room to change. I know what she thought of me. I was her daughter. Her child. I could never become something else to her. I can tell you from your silence that you do not know what you have to do. We have enough to go back home don’t we? So what’s wrong? Why don’t we just go back… Things cannot always go our way. I was dying to step out of the house, but now I think I would like to go back. Our mother is waiting for us, she needs us. We simply cannot journey any further than this. I knew when I married you that I have come too far. I cannot live for what isn’t mine anymore and neither should you. You came all the way here just for me, didn’t you?”

“Yes” says Amar.

“Then that was love. Can you accept that it was love?”

“Do you still love me?”

“You did something for me because you thought it would be good for me, and good can only ever cause good things to happen. For that I love you. But the rest of this madness has to end now. It is not needed in the matter of love.”

“I have never felt this defeated.”

“Do you blame me for it?”

“No.”

“Then why distance yourself from your family?” Simran asks. “We are together. We will fight together no matter how tough circumstances might be.”

Amar did imagine briefly that he could make peace with himself on going back home. He too did not wish to wander without money. He was sick of thinking of life without it. Taking hint of his anxiety she moved closer to him and repeated, “Home is where your heart is. You are an honest man. Live within your means even if it means you have to lay your life, but at least first live. I may not be able to live without you. I have let you slip towards madness. I cannot anymore. You need me. Tell me what have you made of all this helplessness you feel. I need to know to be able to feel some peace.”

“We are poor people” he said. “We live only to survive. If I had forced you to forget your mother when you wished to be near her once again, I could maybe never understand who I was slowly becoming. I’ve picked up the pieces which have come my way. I have walked that road which life has illuminated for me.”

Then Simran cut his words off as if she was adding her half of the helplessness to put behind her own pain, her grief, everything and said, “Whenever you will glance back and look for the people you made happy in your lifetime, you will hear the echoes of my voice telling you that you were always a good and an honest man.” Aman never wanted to hear anything more than that.