SUICIDE  OF A SECULAR TREE
Death has got several faces. The most gruesome being the death of innocent children. Such faces make you ashamed of being human. Another horrific experience in my line of duty, narrated in the language of a tree.

SUICIDE  OF A SECULAR TREE

The keyed up talk of one of the speaker, excited with the close proximity he had with Mahatma Gandhi, while, with much difficulty he could jump over a high wall near the prayer hall, got the longest clap. It was the only memorable speech for it's vivid narration of the adventure he took to met ‘the saint of ahimsa’ at the massive prayer hall In Delhi. All others who spoke on that day, some in Telugu and some in Hindi were not impressive. There were, of course, differences between the adherents of each religions on how vigorously should the call of ‘Do or Die” by Mahatma Gandhiji to his countrymen for achievement of the freedom while asking the British to “Quit India” after the failure of the Cripps Mission proposals in 1942 should be implemented. They, the Muslims and the Hindus had in their hands the tri color flags which they at times waved in some frenzy emotions unknown to me that time. But their slogans were in unison” Bharath Mata ki jai”. I did not remember, any one from the Muslim community discussing anything out of the Lahore session held a few months ago in which they had adopted the Pakistan resolution. I found them all in white Khadi clothes, chanting rhymes of freedom struggle and ahimsa.

Now that, iam sure you might be thinking, how could I, without eyes and ears listen to all the vocalizations and weighed up it as a jury? Ok wait! Let me tell you my children, we too can laugh and cry with all the abandon and innocence of a child. We also talk, so do we hear but remember, we share our language only to those who love us. And yet, there is one action which we are always envious about you is the speed at which you walk and run. We can move but we can’t travel. Our legs are deep buried inside the mother earth. There is no other way could we stand.

Today, as I recall that 65 –year-old function held in front of the Panjesha mosque, my mind is flooding with several such exciting incidents happened in my Bainsa village.  Several political meetings were organized in an open area just behind the mosque, where members of all religion equally participated and discussed the plight of freedom fighters dying in “Cellular jail” in Kala Pani and how those hapless prisoners ended up being caught by a cruel jailor,  while trying to escape by jumping into the ocean to participate in the struggle again.

Then came, the 15^th August 1947, the most joyful day in my life. Oh..How can I explain to you my dear children, the ecstasy I lived those moments? It still gives me Goosebumps on my fragile body. The whole village was decorated with tri-color. Small children danced in front of me, in my shade, in tunes of ‘Vande Matharam’ with their tiny hands swung in unison. Many of them had their fathers away in Delhi to attend the historical ‘declaration of freedom’ by the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Will those days bliss me again? Those days, I remember, together we danced with many of my friends. Most of them perished at the cost of development.  We gave them our lives, space and body to make their life. My good old friends used to say at times, “God created us in a flash of his divine brush dipped in green”.  .  Lost in the bliss of his graceful design, the almighty forget to give us what he gave to his other creations; hands, legs, eyes and ears. We knew that we are not the lesser children of him. God made us to give, only give and taught us to not to take anything in return. So we give and thus, in mythology, we are often treated as God. Isn’t?.  

Those years, I asked all those who pass by, “Do you know who had baptized me? How can I be a Hindu and a Muslim at the same time? Am I an orphan?” Nobody answered. They cannot be blamed for that. They could not hear me either.  Some noble hearts, in those early years, nurtured me by giving water and protected me from stray cattle.  Or may be in other words, no evil hearts noticed me growing till I started giving them shade in those hot sunny afternoons.  It was in a “No Man’s land” where I was born and brought up. Recurrent   Governments labeled it as disputed land. “Common to all but not to anyone”. On either side of me stood a temple and a mosque, which I used to tell my friends with pride, till the early days of 1957, that I have been guarded by a Hindu and a Muslim god. It was on that year, I was terrified for the first time by a bloody riot in my village. Many children who had grown up in my lap died in that riot. I cried silently thereby joining several mothers in their grief.

Iam already old and my body and mind have now become too feeble to bear the pain and sufferings which iam being tormented into all these days without reason. My children have become intolerant and fanatical. They talk languages strange to me during my adolescence years.

Mustafa, the grant old man and the priest of the Panjesha mosque, who died recently, was my mentor. He used to come to me almost every day with his children and later, his grandchildren and explained to them that it was in the year of 1937, I was born in this village. Scratching his soft white beard, he made them listen, “My sweet children, do you know, during those days there were no Hindus and Muslims. The whole nation in the name of one religion, “Indians”, paraded behind a great man “Mahatma Gandhi” in search of freedom from the hands of British”.  After paying few more accolades to those great freedom fighters he would leave quietly with his head down.

Mustafa was my close friend too. He used to share all his worries with me. The rising abhorrence between Hindus and Muslims in his village was his main concern. Till his last days when he got really sick and bed ridden, he used to take his daily afternoon nap under my shade. I took it as my privilege to endow him with a cool breeze whenever he came by.

After the death of Mustafa, his children and grand children left the village and migrated to Mumbai where they settled down to become rich merchants.  But the memoirs of Mustafa are still afresh in my mind so does the memoirs of the riot in 1957. Several died before me. I tasted blood for the first time.  Daggers and swords were flaunted on religious premises, to be circulated to hands of blood. My children turned ghosts of death.  Head count executions and counter executions were demonstrated in streets without reason.  I remember that day; one of my children was running for his life. Few were behind him. He climbed on me. I tried a helping hand to him. He was screaming as he knew that he is going to die. He could see the face of death. He could not climb as he was tired. They pulled him down and cut his throat in a single swing of a sword. He died on my lap. It had, however, been seriously frantic for a month over a dispute between Hindus and Muslims, just for issues silly enough to make a toddler’s head bow.

It took several days for my village to come back to normal. Scars of the wounds, the riot left on my village, never healed thereafter. Meetings were held under my shade several times. Sometimes Muslims, sometimes Hindus. They never said anything about harmony; instead they were talking about strategy. To revenge, to save themselves, to secure their property and to spread hatred. Hit lists were finalized and amended frequently. Mustafa always stood against all this. But no one ever gave an ear to him. I always had a respect towards him for his attitude. Young men had the final say those days. Many of them were seen first time in my village. History repeated eleven times as my children clashed in front of me. Worst of them was in 1996. I overheard from someone that such riots happened in other parts of the nation as well.

Twelve long years passed by without any turbulence. Peaceful days were again returning to my homeland. New developments entered my village. Some schools were opened and new teachers joined.  Religious meetings under my shade became a rarity. Instead, meetings of the village development committee were organized and new resolutions were taken.  Evenings were blissful and active. Many small children came to me and played under my shade. They belonged to both communities. They never discussed religion.  Yes, happy days were back again. The colorful dress of these small children gave immense pleasure to my otherwise aged eyes.  I offered them maximum gust to make them play under me as long as possible. I dislike them being taken away by their parents. They were too reluctant to go. Their cries bought tears in my eyes. But I spend every night with new hope that they will come back again the next day evening. I knew I have become old and have nothing more to hope for. Now a day I have no fear. My children and grand children are living here with harmony.

Arshalam, Numan and Thaba had recently came to my village. First time when they came to play under me, they sat on my lap and watched the other children playing. I heard Arshalam the eldest of the three who was six years old telling  others that they came to spend vacation with their grandparents who lives in my village. Mehabub khan was not alien to me. His meat shop offered fresh mutton to the villagers who are otherwise half-vegetarians. Numan and Thaba, his grand children, were too small to play with others. Numan was three years old and Thaba was two. They laughed as they watch others play. Their innocent smile and cute faces provide me much enchantment. They came to me almost every day and danced around me, wearing colorful dresses which their grandparents presented them for coming to their house during vacation.

But all this ecstasy came to an abrupt end as communal clashes erupted again in my village during a Hindu festival recently. Many shops and houses were devastated. Rioters pelted stones and started stabbing each other and when things went out of control, police opened fire, resulted in death of my three young children. Curfew was imposed as an uneasy calm prevailed in my village. My small grand children could not come to me. I thought and was sure, they might be crying in their houses for not been able to come and play.  It was mind piercing for me to miss my tiny children and their foundlings’.  But after all, everybody has to suffer for a wrong act of a few people.

An anxious smell of violence always hovered over my place. A strange sense of something horrible going to happen was disturbing my soul. I could not sleep for the last couple of days. Suddenly, I started to think that I have become old. I never cursed, for this cruel joke that they made on me, my Hindu or Muslim god till yesterday when my world came to an abrupt end.

Yesterday I cried a lot. Right through the night I cursed the so called god for not giving me a mouth and a pair of hands and legs.  Yes, I have neither of them. Otherwise I could have made an attempt to save Arshalam, Numan and Thaba from the hands of those butchers who mercilessly burned them alive after pouring kerosene oil on them. They were my grand children, my friends, my beloved ones. Oh my god, I could not even shed few drops of tears as homage to those little ones. God was never kind to me. Never.

I was awake with my inner eyes wide open to saw them coming. They were nine.  They crept around the village at just about midnight with knifes and kerosene bottles in their hands. It was too dark for me to identify them.  In their movements I could see death. In their sweat, I smelt revenge; in their eyes I felt terror. I saw them prowling towards the thatched house of Mehabub khan.  I could not make out, initially, what they were doing at these odd hours. Suddenly, to my sheer astonishment, I saw them encircling the house and pouring kerosene oil on it. One of them had bolted the house from outside.  “My god, what the hell are they doing.” With all my strength I pep inside the room and found Mehabub khan and his wife Saffiya were fast asleep. His three grand children were near him.  They were still having that cuteness in their face with no hatred to anything. They might be dreaming about playing under me with other children the next day. I could see them all. They had their small hands clasped each other as if they do not want them to be separated by any force in the universe.  The youngest of them, the two year old girl Thaba, was smiling in her sleep as if she was having a dream about getting a sweet toffee from her father who could not come to her grandfather’s house due to curfew. “OH GOD……! OH my mother earth please liberates my legs. Release me from you. My innocent children are going to die. Please ..please…!

I prayed my heart to god to give me mouth to scream, as I found one among them, put the house on fire.  Trembling vehemently, I made yet another attempt to release my legs but universal law turned up victorious again. Trees are not there to be shifted alive.  The almighty never heard me. When the flames finally started getting inside the room, the first to wake up was Mehabub Khan. He started screaming frantically and wakes up his grandchildren. His heart piercing wail shattered the serene atmosphere. Saffiya was next to get up and she fell unconscious after seeing the fire. Mehabub khan ran towards the door and found it locked from outside. His screams for help were liquefied in the air before reaching his neighbor’s house which was too far away. Only I could hear him. Small children were crying and running around the room as the fire slowly lurched towards them. They all stood at the corner of the room. Mehabub khan dragged Saffiya to the corner. The loud screams of Thaba and Numan were intolerable for me. I made a final attempt to scream. At least to scream.  But I could not. I tried my best to move forward but that too went on vain. I was drained. When the fire callously caught the new blue shirt, his father bought to Arshalam before his journey to the grandparent’s house, Mehabub khan madly tried to put it off. Small Thaba and Numan also came to help Mehabub khan as they could not see their brother Arshalam in flames. Arshalam was screaming in pain. But it was too late. They had no place to escape. The whole room was in flames by now. In an effort to save Arshalam, the clothes of Mehabub khan caught fire. The cries of Thaba and Numan gradually faded as they fell unconscious. Arshalam was already dead. Mehabub khan continued his effort till his last breath to save his grand children. Slowly the fire ate Numan and Thaba. For once, little Numan tried to get up but fell again and dead. Thaba died in her small pink fork her mother carefully stitched by her hands last week. Saffiya died while unconscious. All bodies were charred in few minutes. Their killers were hiding near a tube well and were drinking liquor. It was all over in no time. Five innocent lives lost. Among them were three tiny tots. An aura of death hovered over the sky of Bainsa. Even the nature was weeping. Birds did not get out of their cage. Stray dogs wail as if they saw the god of death.

I lost my sense since then. I don’t want to live. I took a pledge the way I could.  I will starve myself to death. I wish the villagers, after my death,  would take my aged body and make a monument near the entrance of the town in memory of those small children and inscribe in it “Here lays the soul of three small children who never said, “Hindu” “Muslim” “Sikh” or “Christian” “May their souls rest in peace. ….