The Release

“I can’t take it anymore.” I want to put an end to it all”.

Even through the phone she could hear the pain and desperation in his voice.

“But you can’t, it’s against nature”

“I don’t care, It’s too much to bear”.

He slammed down the phone and sat looking at the pills for a long moment. Finally he picked them up and swallowed them quickly.

Then he leaned back, closed his eyes and waited for the release.

After a while he opened his eyes and smiled. The painkillers sure made his migraine go away in a jiffy.

Naturopathy be damned!

This Drabble was written in response to this week's  Write Tribe Prompt.

A Drabble, for the uninitiated is a short story of exactly 100 words. 

(Pic credit http://www.morguefile.com)

A leaf from History .....

I quickened my pace as the golden dome of the great Gurudwara came into view, glittering in the late afternoon sun. I weaved my way through the crowded lanes, skirting the pedestrians, cyclists and tongas with practiced ease. The city was more crowded than usual, bustling with people who had come to take part in the annual Baisakhi mela. The air was festive, the excitement palpable.

But my mind was not on the festivities. We had nothing to celebrate I felt. Punjab was burning. The last few days had seen violent protests after a few revolutionaries were arrested. The government had retaliated by making mass arrests and  prohibiting all gatherings. Now the city lay quiet, but beneath that thin veneer of forced calm, revolt simmered.
In a flagrant defiance of our rulers, the local leaders had called for a protest gathering in an empty ground near the Gurudwara. That is where I was headed.

The speeches had started by the time I reached the place.  It took me some time to get in through the narrow cramped entrance. Once inside, I realized that the ground was actually quite huge, the size of a small football field.  But in spite of its size I felt claustrophobic, may be because it was hemmed in all sides by houses and was packed with people. Most of them were local shopkeepers and traders, who had closed their shops early to come here. I could see a lot of students – they were the most enthusiastic, shouting slogans along with the speaker. There were also many outsiders from the surrounding villages. Farmers mostly, with their sun blackened faces and colorful turbans, out to enjoy the Mela after months of back breaking toil in their fields. The windows of the surrounding houses were framed with people, mostly women who did not or I suppose were not allowed to come down to hear the speeches. People stood on rooftops and I envied them standing there on wide open spaces while I stood here in the heat and dust, being jostled by the crowds.
I joined some students cheering lustily. But after some time I realized I could barely hear the speakers. Still, I was reluctant to leave the place as it was closest to the entrance and I wanted to leave quickly once the meeting was over. I was not looking forward to getting stuck in that cramped space with so many people trying to go out together.Then the man in front of me hoisted his small child up on his shoulders, blocking my view further. Giving up, I threaded my way to the other side where the crowd was thinner. Although now I only had a side view of the speakers I could hear them clearly. Durga Das, editor of the  newspaper ‘Waqt’, was speaking. He was a great orator and I listened spellbound, all discomfort forgotten.

I heard the sound of the soldiers’ boots on the brick ground even before I saw them. They marched in and stood just inside the entrance staring straight ahead as if waiting for a command from the man standing next to them. I felt a little uneasy but not unduly concerned. As usual they would fire in the air to disperse the crowd or lathi charge us. A few lathis on the back was a small price to pay for in our fight for freedom. 

We all stood there - peasants, students, traders, children and women all united in our defiance.

Then in the blink of an eye all hell broke loose.

The first thing I heard was something that sounded like the crack of thunder. Then I heard screams and realized that the soldiers were firing at us. For a few seconds I stood rooted in dazed disbelief and then I ran towards the nearest exit only to realize that it was already crammed with people trying to get out. The only other way out was to jump over one of the boundary walls and I ran blindly towards the nearest one. Frenzied, panicked People ran helter skelter, desperately trying to find an exit out of that closed space. The air was filled with the cacophony of rifle shots, screams and of bullet hitting flesh and walls. Somehow I expected the soldiers to stop firing once the crowd had dispersed, but they fired nonstop and methodically, aiming at the spots densest with people. Even as I ran, I could see people jerk and fall, limp as rag dolls as the bullets hit them. Through the corner of my eyes, I saw some women fall into the well that was near the speaker’s podium. I was not sure if they got pushed in due to the stampede or if they jumped in to escape the bullets.

I reached the boundary wall and tried to make my way up. People were clambering over each other to climb over it. A man next to me was trying to push his wife up but she kept sliding back. I felt bullets ricochet next to me in the wall as I desperately scrambled to find a foothold in the bricks. Finally I managed to climb over and without a second thought, jumped to the other side.  

I ran mindlessly, stopping only when I was out of breath. Panting, I looked down at my feet and realized I had lost my shoes somewhere and my hands and feet were bleeding and raw. My eyes widened in shock as I saw the blood splattered on my clothes. It was a few moments before I realized that it was not my own.

 I started running again, dashing through the now deserted lanes, staying in the shadow of the houses and stopping only once I had reached the safety of my rooms.

By nightfall the city resembled a ghost town. A curfew was imposed with shoot at sight orders. None of us would have dared to venture out anyways. Because of the curfew, the injured couldn’t reach the hospital and the relatives of the dead couldn’t come to claim the bodies. For days, the air reeked with the stench of human flesh and vultures circled overhead.

Behind closed doors all of Amritsar mourned silently, while the Gods in their Golden Temple remained a mute spectator to the horror that would later be known as ‘The Massacre of Jallianwallah Bagh’.

Note:

This is a true story. My grandfather was at Jallianwallah bagh that day, and he actually lived to tell the tale. He was 19, a student in Amritsar and fired up by patriotism just like any other youth of that time.
He recounted the incident to us many times and I have tried my best to reproduce it here as he told it.I had always wanted to visit Jallianwallah Bagh with him but couldn’t do so before he passed away. He took my mother and her sisters there though, and showed them where he stood and the wall he jumped over to escape.
The fact that he changed his position a few minutes before General Dyer and his troops entered the complex and opened fire was instrumental in saving his life. For had he stood where he was, he would have been among the first to be killed.

A story for Shaivalini

My brother and his family visited us from New Zealand in Decemeber and I spent a blissfull month with them in Chandigarh.More about that later, but here is a story I wrote for my 10 year old niece Shaivalini. Shaivalini loves to read and paint and she also writes stories. She is a very creative and imaginative child and I wanted to gift her a story written by myself because I know how much she appreciates creative writing.

Bina and the Bird
There was a little girl called Bina, who lived high up in the mountains in a house with a red roof. She lived with her grandpa and her grandma and had a dog called buddy and a goat called Tinker Bell as pets. In front of the house was a big vegetable garden in which grandpa grew corn and all sorts of vegetables. Behind the house were cherry and chestnut trees. In winter the mountains would be covered with snow and nothing would grow in the garden. But the chestnut trees would be full of chestnuts. In the cold winter evenings as the snow fell outside; Bina’s grandma would roast the chestnuts in the pine wood fire and Bina would sit munching those as she listened to stories from her grandfather. Most of grandpa’s stories were about the birds and animals that lived nearby.
Summer was when Bina had most fun. She would spend all her time in the garden playing with buddy. This was the time when the flowers would be in full bloom and the garden would be a riot of colors. Summer was also when the cherries in the cherry tree would ripen. Bina would spend hours sitting in the cherry tree eating the cherries. She was a strong and sturdy girl and could climb up the trees almost as well as the squirrels. Buddy loved to eat cherries too but he could not climb trees and he would mope around the tree feeling very sorry for himself till Bina climbed down. Sometimes Bina would throw the cherries down to him so that he could eat them too.
Bina could sit in her favorite cherry tree and daydream for hours. One of her favorite day dreams was that she is flying high up in the blue sky along with the birds, as free as them. She often wondered how beautiful the world would look from up there and how it would feel to play among the clouds.
Summer was also the time when the corn ripened. Bina’s grandma would put the corn out on the roof to dry. The birds that lived in the cherry and the chestnut trees loved to eat the corn and they would come flying down to eat it as soon as grandma had spread it out. It was Buddy’s job to shoo them away. Buddy didn’t like to eat the corn but he loved to run after the birds. But the birds were always too quick for him.
One day as usual Grandma spread out the corn to dry. Soon the roof was filled with birds trying to eat the corn. As soon as Buddy saw the birds he ran after them. But this time one of the birds was not quick enough for Buddy. A swipe of his paw hit the bird hard and the poor bird lay there on the roof chirping piteously. Bina shooed Buddy away before he could do further damage and ran inside with the bird cupped in her hands. When grandma examined the bird she found that half of its wing was broken. She wound it up tightly using a piece of bandage while the poor little bird lay there in Bina’s hands chirping feebly. Grandpa took an old shoe box and filled it with straw and cotton wool to make a bed for the bird. “There, the poor thing should be comfortable in this” he said.
Everyday Bina would get up in the morning and run to the cardboard box to see how the little bird was doing. After she came back from school, Bina would take the little bird out in the garden. She would talk to the bird telling it about her school, her friends and about her teacher Miss Lotty who wore thick spectacles and always gave a lot of homework.
Slowly the bird stop being afraid of Bina. It would perch on Bina’s shoulder chirping and singing to itself whenever Bina took it outside. One day grandma said “Look the wing is almost healed now; soon the bird should be able to fly.” And as if to prove grandma right, that afternoon when Bina took the bird outside it tried to get off her shoulder and fly about for a while. The poor bird wasn’t very successful at first. It could only give a few short flaps of its wings and then plop! It fell in the garden among the marigolds. Laughing Bina ran to pick it up.
But soon the little bird grew stronger and stronger and could fly round and round the garden without falling down. “It’s soon going to fly away to join its friends.” Said Grandpa happily. But Bina wasn’t happy. She had made friends with the bird and she didn’t want it to fly away. She wanted the bird to stay so that she could play with it and tell it stories. So Bina went to the market and bought a cage for her Bird. The cage was really big and had a lot of space for the bird to move about. It had a small perch on which the bird could sit and sing if it wanted and it also had a little bowl for food and water. Bina thought the bird would be very happy in its new home. “It’s so much better than the card board box” she thought. Bina hopped and skipped all the way home with the cage. As soon as she reached home she put the bird in its new cage. Look little birdie she said, “isn’t this a nice home. You have a perch to sit on and a pretty little bowl to eat out of”. Bina hung the cage with the bird inside in the balcony so that the bird could look at the other birds and trees outside and feel the fresh air.
But the bird didn’t seem too happy in its new home. It stopped singing and just sat in its cage looking sadly at the other birds flying by. How strange thought Bina, I wonder why the bird is not happy !
“I wonder why my little bird is so sad” said Bina to Grandpa. “I think it’s sad because you have locked it up in a cage. Now it can’t fly about the garden as it used to. ”Said Grandpa.
“But Grandpa, I’ve got it such a beautiful cage. Why does it need to go outside? I feed it all kind of yummy things and talk to it and sing to it all the time.”
“That’s because in the cage the bird can’t fly; it has no freedom. It can’t feel the wind in its wings nor can it race his friends up to the clouds and play with them”.
“You should let the bird go” said grandma. “See how unhappy it looks.”
But Bina didn’t want to let the bird go. “It’s my friend now I’ll miss it if it goes” Said Bina.
That night as Bina lay snuggled up next to her grandma she had a dream. She dreamt that she was a bird flying high up in the sky. Up and up she went till she could almost touch the sun and everything down below looked so small. She flitted in and out of the clouds playing with them. On and On Bina flew, enjoying her freedom and singing to herself.
She grew tired of playing and flew down to sit in her favorite cherry tree. Suddenly something dark fell on her. She tried to fly away but couldn’t. A bird catcher had caught her in his net. Soon the bird catcher took her home and put her in a cage. It was a big cage and the bird catcher gave her tasty things to eat but Bina was not happy. Her cage felt dark and cold and she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. She looked out longingly at the flowers and the trees, they were so near yet she couldn’t fly out to them. Suddenly Bina got up with a start. So this is how it feels to be caught in a cage. No wonder my poor bird is so unhappy she thought.
Next Morning Bina ran to the cage and took out her little bird. “I am sorry little birdie” she said, “now I understand how unhappy you must be in the cage”. She went to the window; lifted her hands and let the bird fly out. Up and up the bird flew, soaring high towards the sky, and with it Bina felt as if she was flying too!!