I don’t know him (அவனை எனக்குத் தெரியாது) by Theivigan Panchalingam

 

This is an English translation of “அவனை எனக்குத் தெரியாது”, a poignant short story written by Australia based Srilankan writer Theivigan Panchalingam. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.

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                                            I DON’T KNOW HIM

This is an English translation of “அவனை எனக்குத் தெரியாது”, a poignant short story written by Australia based Srilankan writer Theivigan Panchalingam. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.

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 Some consistories had requested the people to ring the bells in churches spread all over Australia at about six in the evening on the day Arul Kumaran was to be executed and offer their prayers for his soul to rest in peace.

2

Thavaranjini was wailing inconsolably, hammering the iron gates of the jail with her hands. She bawled helplessly and struggled to drag herself out even after the permitted time to meet Arul Kumaran was over. The words, ‘This will be the last meeting,’ got broiled again and again in her helpless, louder wails that rose up from her heart. The embers of that broil fell off as hapless, wretched groans. “They are going to kill my son. Let them all perish.”. Her screams, laden with the profound misery of motherhood, hit the prison walls that stood with all their indifference and receded into oblivion without any response. The prison guards dragged her out and threw her away.

Akila, who was standing near her, also tried to reason out with the officials but in vain. Thavaranjini’s husband, Karalasingam, was standing helpless, wiping his tired, reddened eyes with his shirt collar. He paced fast to Thavaranjini, hearing Akila’s feeble request to hold her mother from falling. He brought her out carefully, arm-supporting her, with her one hand encircling his neck.  Thavaranjini was completely worn out, with no traces of energy left in her body.

As they reached the entrance of the prison complex, where stood a big arch made of iron engraved with block letters “Kerobokan Prison” on both sides, the prison guard opened a small wicket gate to let them out. They came out of the prison complex.

No sooner had they come out than a group of media persons carrying their paraphernalia—cameras, video and audio recorders, and microphones—surrounded Thavaranjini’s family, nearly laying a siege around the three.

“Is it certain that Arul Kumaran would be executed tomorrow?”

“What did Arul Kumaran say to you last?”

“What did Arul Kumaran eat last?”

“Has the government of Australia given any last-hour assurance to save him from the death sentence?”

Thavaranjini covered her face with the hem of her sari with one hand and strode fast holding the collar of her husband Karalasingam with another and whimpered aloud through her veil, “No…No… Please…leave us alone…please…please.”

The journalists were intelligent enough that they could pull them out separately for quizzing. Some of them targeted Akila with some specific queries. The rest of them held out their microphones closer, nestling against Karalasingam’s neckline. The news-hungry mob of journalists now surrounded their car as well, stuck out their microphones and recorders into the car through its glass windows, and doggedly repeated the same questions they had asked a while ago. The driver closed all the glass windows. He grew tense seeing the unruly behaviour of journalists dashing against the car from all directions. As he tried exhausting all his tricks to take out the car from the crowd somehow, the cameramen were struggling to capture the faces of Thavaranjini’s family members from all possible angles to publish them in their media. Akila covered her face with the hem of her mother’s sari. Thavaranjini seemed to have buried her face into her sobs. Karalasingam was sitting stiff, devoured by the gloom of losing his son.

3

The dew drops were falling off through the leaves. After their training sessions were over, all the trainees were asleep in that long shed roofed with a blue tarpaulin whose edges were tightly pulled and tied to pickets. I glanced at Balan lying near me. He had gone into a deep slumber without even realising his mouth was slobbering in its corner. My eyes grew wide open, astonished at what I saw in the training ground while slowly getting up without disturbing his sleep.

After we slept the previous night, Velavan Master’s trainees might have arranged those rifles in order. They were kept erect neatly in rows in a long corridor of the leaves-thatched shed near the training ground. The body quivered as if the sun entered into it at seeing them. I ran in, woke Balan up, and narrated what I saw. He came out swiftly and glanced at those rifles.

Shining in wooden hues in their middles and bottoms, those dark iron weapons seemed to be waiting for us with temerity. We smiled at each other. I stroked my left elbow instinctively. It had been an arduous training of running, jumping, crawling, and somersaulting that lasted through several weeks along with Kottan. We just lived in utter despise, thinking Kottan was responsible for all our callous skins and scars. We found solace in all our chatters that the rifle would save us from all perils the moment we could clasp it in our hands.

An old wound in the rough elbow was found dried up. Everyone rose.

The running session that day was more enthusiastic than usual. Balan was hopping, running elatedly. Velavan Master then arrived in and announced something specific about rifles. We received it in our hands one after another. When it was given to our hands after making entry of its numbers, we felt its nippiness sending a shiver through our body like a bullet. 

When we came back to our shed after lunch, we found Balan cleaning every part of the rifle so attentively with a piece of cloth in white and yellow. I watched him cleaning it very closely, intently. He would wipe it vigorously and then blow on its butt and keenly observe it, squinting one of his eyes as if to verify whether any dust particle was still sticking to it and escaping his close scrutiny. He would then clean it again, rubbing vigorously. If he got a glance of me enjoying all his manoeuvres through his corner eyes, he would just give out a silent grin, curling his lips. Gradually I began to feel that a component of my life had got severed from me and started living in that iron body.

R-56. It wasn’t a new rifle. It must be a military rifle captured in one of the camp attacks. Yet, it had been captured from someone, forcefully. We didn’t know how many men would have died or been blown up before it fell into our hands. But it was very certain that it had come to us at the cost of deaths. Those who fight on the field would only know not only their freedom but also that their weapon comes at the cost of laying down their lives. I began to feel the waning worth of my existence since the day the rifle became a part of my life.

I had learnt to converse privately with my rifle when there were no trainings or conflicts around. I started sharing my experiences of reading books with my rifle. After cleaning it thoroughly, if I started reading along with my rifle, it would only last through some odd pages, paragraphs, and sometimes a couple of sentences. We could only enjoy that much luxury of time. Balan would also listen to me lying near.

When a stray bullet takes away my life, piercing my body tomorrow, this rifle might fall into the hands of the enemy. He might shoot me once again with this rifle to ensure I am dead and then take this rifle to his camp. Worse, when my body lies dead in an uninhabited land, this rifle might cry for me lying near to my body. Its iron parts might shed tears listening to a story I recite that time.

I believed that the rifle had a life in its body. Balan too, like me, strongly believed that he had an inseparable life with his rifle.

4

That day was my birthday. I was stationed at Balamottai forward post to watch the movements of the army. We were hiding in a bunker along with an M-16 Colt Commando assault rifle captured in the previous conflict. We were enormously attached to that American-made rifle. Apart from it being a captured weapon in a fight, it had been a very precious weapon that anyone could barely boast of. An exquisite happiness of holding such a weapon kept blooming in us.

We were aware that the enemy would know every sound of our steps. Balan, as usual, was very attentive and careful, more than me, in my safety. He might have felt that he must do something eccentric that night. He got up exactly at twelve midnight, wished me happy birthday, went out with the M-16, and fired a full round of bullets into the sky. The bullets were shot into the sky, streaking like fireworks, and disappeared. He then looked back and told me proudly, “Look here, ordinary people would burst Chinese-made crackers for their birthdays. But I have burst American bullets for your birthday.” An indescribable ecstasy in his eyes!

Balan was shot dead by an enemy sniper in the conflict that occurred the next morning. He fell down dead right in front of my eyes. His body didn’t have any movement. The sniper must have sharpened his eyes through his rifle’s aperture, looking for another kill who would come out of his hideout to carry the dead body. I thought of jumping onto where Balan was lying dead to pull him to my side. A bitter liquid started secreting on my tongue; a deep burning sensation crept into my chest and stomach. My whole body grew immobile as if frozen while seeing Balan lying dead.

Balan’s death had sown in me a sort of massive emptiness. The last smile he threw at me the previous night was still floating in my heart. My love for rifles had also left me since that day, and of course, the life in the liberation movement too.

5

On one of those routine days of staying under a similar tarpaulin provided by the benevolent United Nations in an Indonesian refugee camp after having been fully uprooted from both war and my motherland, I had met Vaishali, a legal assistant working there. When she came there as a translator for a meeting with an official from the UN, I struck up a conversation with her. To my utter shock, she brought a cake on my birthday, though our acquaintance with each other was nothing beyond some odd telephonic conversations and occasional meetings. I had been happy the whole day. It was the day I felt fully pleased in a foreign land. Suddenly I rose from the bed just before going to sleep and deeply delved into thoughts. When I realised that my mind had been fully occupied with the thoughts of Vaishali, blissfully oblivious of the death anniversary of Balan that day, I grew intimidated. I was sweating slightly. The next morning, I understood my heart was fully occupied with Vaishali again.  

Vaishali hailed from Yazhpanam. A divorcee. She worked as a translator in the United Nations office in Indonesia and later learnt the laws related to immigrants and was now working as a legal assistant to the refugees. People in the camp gossiped that she had married an Indonesian government employee a second time and later got divorced from him. I was inclined to believe that my indifference not to get involved in her personal affairs might be the reason for her affection towards me.

One day Vaishali told me under the shade of an egg fruit tree standing in front of the refugee camp, in a lowered voice, “How long would it take to leave this camp for getting into another country? Without knowing when its furtive means would open up, please don’t ever get settled down under another tarpaulin somewhere. The Indonesian government is recruiting suitable persons for its Narcotics Control Bureau. If you join there after you are freed from here, you can earn a handsome amount of money and get an opportunity to work closely with the government. So, it is wiser to try it now.”

I could understand that her words sounded like an invisible concern coming out of her untold love for me.

Vaishali was so familiar with the local culture that she would be able to assess the time of a tree bearing an unripe fruit and the methods of getting it ripe the next day. She was fully aware of my life. If she could suggest a way to go forward, there would neither be check posts nor any snipers on my way, I strongly believed. My proficiency in the Indonesian language, which I could acquire during my two-year stay in the refugee camp, proved an important asset.

After being freed from the refugee camp, I was lodging in a room in front of Vaishali’s residence. She thought that I had preferred staying away from her. She might have thought that I shouldn’t be under the impression that I had taken a residence for the sake of my love. A heavy rain that lashed the vicinity on the day I was staying in her house caused severe seepage in my room, making rainwater fall into my room like waterfalls, leaving my only cot badly damaged. After that, I went to bed with her that night and slept there. 

The next day the sky looked spotlessly clean and beautiful. Vaishali downloaded the relevant documents to apply for narcotics prevention training under the Indonesian Immigration Department and carefully filled in the details and got them attested by authorities wherever required. Other than personally attending the training, she did complete all the requirements of the application.

The classes began at a training centre of the Immigration Department in Sukubota situated a little distance away from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. There, I became friendly with Kattona, a man with buck teeth and a never-dying smile on everything. He was born, brought up in Indonesia, and had even tasted life in incarceration there. His nose with a tiny curve at its tip resembled Balan’s nose. He would burst out laughing for everything. It seemed that he would give out a laugh first before crying.

It was only after the start of training that I could understand that the job was in no way better than catching stray dogs on the streets—catching drug peddlers with no sign of mercy. Our work involved catching people with narcotics, stuffing them into vehicles, and throwing them into prisons by charging them under various draconian laws of the land. Going by the conservative estimate given by that upright, iron-bodied Indonesian officer who had taken our classes for a week, I presumed that half of Indonesia’s population must have been thrown into perdition.

One day, after lunch hours, Kattona, while puffing on his cigarette, advised me, “Even if you arrest someone and throw him into jail, he would somehow manage his release by way of bribing some officials. So, instead of wasting time resenting the laws and spoiling health, one should think of only his salary and his household chores.” Though his words fell off as an innuendo amidst his trademark smiles, I could appreciate the compelling truth behind it.

He took out a photograph of three women from his pocket, showed it to me, and smiled till his dented nose became red.

“Are all three your daughters?” I asked him, surprised.

“Cheee…The one in the middle is my wife.” Now his face blushed redder.

In the sixth week, we were exposed to shooting with firearms on Bamukka Island, situated very near to Jakarta. I never imagined that the classes would graduate into a full-fledged arms training. That iron-bodied tutor told us specific tasks would be allotted to the trainees on the basis of their performance. I informed Vaishali of everything. I was scared at the possibility of them digging out my past that dragged me till Balamottai.

“No one would come to apprehend you on the basis of your skills in shooting. It is almost like a government job. Salary will be more. Don’t waste your time anymore.” Vaishali assuaged my fears in her usual style and put a full stop to my anxiety.

At times, Vaishali could gauge my moods very effectively when I was troubled with my past, which was laden with my life with guns. She would take the role of a doctor with assuaging words to dismantle the heaviness of my thoughts. Her words would carry plenty of finer aspects that I had never experienced in my life. The thoughts that were pulled apart in her presence would come again and hover over my head as low-lying clouds.

Kattona once said that the Indonesian Special Forces were using Italian-made Beretta guns, and the guns for other ordinary police forces were locally manufactured in Indonesia.

We were divided into two groups on the basis of our performance in the training at the end of the seventh week. A part of them was allotted to work on the field in urban areas as Special Narcotics Control Bureau personnel. The officer wearing medals in different colours standing in front of the class called out to everyone by their names. I was eagerly watching his lips for my name to fall out of it.

My name didn’t come out of his mouth. I looked at Kattona. I saw him for the first time struggling to smile. Those who found their names on the list were led to another classroom. Three officers in dark uniforms entered as the last person on the list was leaving the class. They looked stiff-bodied, as if they were the siblings of my iron-bodied tutor. They seemed to have understood that we stood utterly confused. One of those officers, whose haggard right cheek bore five or six big scars as if stung by honeybees, began addressing us.

“We have decided to have you both in the specialised team that executes capital punishment on the basis of your performance in shooting training. We seek your opinion on this"—the officer spoke straightaway without mincing words. When he was done with his speech, I felt a stone get stuck in my throat.

“The Commander of the special force will explain to you the special allowances and concessions you are eligible for. I don’t expect you to reply immediately today itself,” he concluded his intimidating speech with a mild smile. Others standing there gave their customary speeches after him. I ran out of the hall, got a cigarette from Kattona, lit it, and picked up the phone to dial Vaishali.

Vaishali repeated her cool words again, with a couple of additional important words of advice.

“In life, we would come across such unexpected opportunities. Since you are not accustomed to such things, you get shocked at it. It is just a plain opportunity given to you for your skills. Other teams didn’t get it. Right? This is an opportunity destined for you, and it has come to you. Do I have to teach you how life with weapons would be?

My second cigarette was also over.

It was dreadful to think that the weapons could still pull me towards their swirls, though I had come a long distance away from them. Further, the thoughts of Balan still remained fresh in my memory, rendering me crippled not to come out of guilt I was wracked with. Those thoughts of despondency were trying to raise up in me again as bands of thick smoke.

After dinner, Vaishali and I went out for a stroll. She could assess the mental turmoil brewing in me. Before I began talking about it, she remarked, “You have grown rusty with rifles.”. I could feel her presence deep in me when she uttered those words suddenly. She spoke, looking straight into my eyes.

“We presume that we hold rights over many things in life. This society and the laws of this land invariably accept it and acknowledge it. But the truth is something else. Practicality is something different.” Some workers were filing the sand in the ditch dug for giving an outlet to the water tank kept in a corner of her house. We crossed the street and went to the other side.

“It includes husband, children, and friendship…everything.” - Resuming her talk from the point where she had left, she concluded with an amiable tone, “They might belong to us, but we can’t own them.”

She was walking silently. I understood that it was a silence to prompt me to introspect. Balan, rifles, and struggles—all came over my mind in sequence, one after another.

6

The commander of the execution squad and his team led us to Komodo Island. We were imparted an extremely secret training there. The training modules included exhaustive deliberations on procedures to bring the prisoners who were awarded death punishment by shooting as per Indonesian laws, how to send their dead bodies in coffins, and other tasks the team had to execute collectively. The trainer said that one should be mentally strong and poised to execute the punishments. He further explained various cruel methods of putting one to death that once existed under the reigns of ancient kings. Our government had devised methods that rendered the criminals to face death with minimum pain compared to those brutal ones of ancient times, he reasoned.

As a part of our training, a live telecast of the awarding of the death punishment given to a Filipino that month had been arranged. The criminal tied tightly to a pole from head to neck is shot simultaneously by nine members of the execution squad and dies as his head hangs in the front. The show got just over, leaving me reminiscing about it, no way second to any English movies, and a tiny part of an array of incidents that I had come across in my past. A tingling sensation caused by an old thorn jabbed my feet, flashed for a second in my mind, and disappeared. Then, they announced that they were going to take us to the real execution fields in Indonesia and show us the arrangements made there.

Later, we were led to Nusa Island, lying near Indonesia. We were given our uniforms. The military vehicles would pass through a small, narrow land strip made of gravel from the mainland to reach that island. Kattona told me that the villagers called that uninhabited island “The Island of Demons.”. The criminals carrying the death penalty for the heinous crimes they committed in Indonesia were incarcerated in a big prison complex there. Most of them were languishing, serving their terms in that prison for a long time. Others were brought there as criminals carrying death punishment. Sooner the date of execution is decided by the government, they would be led to “Vadimutram”—the place of execution—straight away from their sleep in the early mornings and would be delivered with summary execution.

Blood and death are very familiar to me. I have bathed in it happily. I have grown with a perception that life is nothing but one’s body. I share an intimate relationship with rifles. I had felt a streak of love only with Balan. I lost it in a brutal way. Now Vaishali has been filling in that gap. Without them, I would just be as inanimate as a rifle. My feelings never existed in me; rather, they existed outside. It seemed that I lived my life liking it that way.

So, the procedures built around this death punishment and the dark truths surrounding it just did look like festivities happening on the other side of the world.

7 

We, the squad delivering death, were called “Mobi Squad.”. The letters ‘Mobi 16’ were inscribed on my dark uniform. We were all given M-16 assault rifles for execution. American-made rifle. Shined in our hands. When I received it in my hands, I felt Balan was standing near, smiling at me. I turned back instinctively. Kattona was standing near. The uniforms have been made as tightly as possible, sticking to our frames and accommodating other essentials along with rifles. They had been made in such a manner that a deep sense of fear would be evoked in the minds of prisoners the moment they looked at us in uniforms. A gear fully covering the head, barring eyes and noses, had also been provided. Kattona could be identified only with the help of the digits he bore.

We came to know that a Nigerian national charged with the crime of possessing narcotics was to be executed that day we had gone to Nusa Island. When we were taken to that island in the early morning, we could comfortably infer that the entire task would be over shortly.

That Nigerian in the blue T-shirt and black pants was brought to the Vadimutram. Well-toned, muscular-bodied man. We couldn’t see how he looked minutes before he entered the gateway of his death. The officials with their faces fully covered were standing around him. They were scrupulously checking the arrangements with the sole aim of not allowing him to escape his death under any circumstances. After tying him to a pole, a pastor went near to him and recited some psalms. All the nine gunners collected their respective rifles that were kept in rows. They aligned their front foot with the white line drawn in front of the pole. One of them went near to the Nigerian and placed his finger in a circle drawn in white colour on his chest. All the laser beams streaking from their rifles focussed on that circle. In seconds, that officer returned to the white line where the squad was standing. Laser beams, looking static, were still focussed on Nigerian’s chest.

I had heard that the criminals to be executed would be given sedatives in order not to feel the pain of death. I could hear a mild moan unceasingly coming out of the Nigerian’s face mask. I first thought that it was the sound of the pastor singing psalms. His moans were clearly audible now. His last moans of misery for this world that floated around the air were coming out of him in intermittent bouts of heavy breath and whimpers.

During our training, we were taught that the bullets would be discharged only from three gunners as though all nine gunners would fire shots from their rifles. Both the shooters and the ones who kept the rifles ready wouldn’t be even aware of those rifles from which the bullets were to be fired. In a flash of a freaking sound, we found the Nigerian’s head covered in black cloth, leaning left, and hung immobile.

All the shooters were still standing on the white line without movement. The head of the firing squad went near to the executed Nigerian along with a doctor wearing a black overcoat. As soon as the doctor declared the Nigerian dead, the gunners came in queue, kept the rifles neatly where they had picked them, and entered the hall.

The thick black smoke rose up in me again.

‘Who’s this man? Why do I have to shoot him down? This place is neither meant for valiant actions with guns nor reading books. All they need is just a life tied to a pole. I just need to chest up with pride that I have served the laws of Indonesia the moment I see him lying dead. Perhaps my pride will be complemented with more money.

The hatred and bitterness for guns that sprang up in my heart at seeing Balan’s dead body had now started enervating my very soul. I couldn’t come out of the mess I created. Someone who had received military training would nevertheless treat his feeling just like a worm crawling on his body. He might sometimes find comfort with it, scratching the spots it crawled. But it loses its value beyond it. I remembered the voids that were filled in with my thoughts while walking along with Vaishali.

The head of our squad asked us to go to bed early in the evening for adequate rest since the prisoner who was to be executed the next day had already been brought to the island. They led us somewhere outside Nusa Island and housed us in a military base very near to the island. While everyone retired to their rooms, I went to mine, bathed, changed my dress, and dialled Vaishali. When I told her I would be able to return only after completing the assigned task, I realised she could catch the change in my tone.

“It’s nothing. We can discuss it after my coming.

“I guess you face no troubles,” she asked me again.

“No,” I told, tossing my body onto the cot.

It was seven’ o'clock when I woke up. Bathed again and went out. The meals were kept ready in the dining hall of the military base.

“The prisoner who’s going to be executed tomorrow is an Australian.” Kattona brought his mouth very near to my ears and told in a hushed tone. Would the nationality of a man make any difference once I have decided to wield the gun to shoot? Among those nine rifles, there was no guarantee that the rounds would be fired from my rifle—a probability that assuaged my temporarily growing anxiety. I kept the plate washing it and stepped out of the dining hall.

The head of the squad asked us all to don our uniforms. The black Powell military van sped away towards Nusa Island at about half past ten.

8

People were crowding in front of the gravel strip leading to the island. Big electric lights backed by generators were throwing their bright lights onto the streets. The place was abuzz with sudden business activities—fruit shops on the platform and roadside eateries where one had to stand to eat—all that showed up there all of a sudden. If any foreigner got a death punishment in the ‘Island of Demons,’ the island would witness an enthusiastic crowd flocking to its gateway. These ‘new’ shops would remain open for at least two days to cater to the needs of the crowd. “These shopkeepers would see a good business during these days,” Kattona told.

Some boys with baskets of pineapples on their heads were found striding through the crowd, busy selling the fruits. Since entry to the “Island of Demons” was banned, a multitude of journalists were waiting very near to the gravel strip with their cameras fixed on tripods. Sooner our car neared the land strip, their cameras began flashing against us. The escort van speeding behind us gave out a loud siren and dispersed the crowd that surrounded us. Local policemen were also deployed there to control the mob. They were standing on both sides of the road, preventing the curious onlookers at bay and paving the way for us to march ahead. Opposite to the media men, some were standing under a tarpaulin resembling that of one given by the United Nations. We, somehow, managed to cross the barricade placed by the police across the land strip and entered the island.

Nusa military base and Vadimutram were fully illumined with floodlights like the previous night. The lights were so bright that they shone like day, enabling one to see even the tips of grass blades clearly. The squad leader read out the list and thus got my place confirmed among those nine men who had to go to the white line. Following it, a doctor came and checked our pulse, holding our wrists. He ensured we had normal blood pressure.

Exactly twenty minutes past midnight, we, all nine, were led to the white line. American-made M16 rifles were kept neatly in a row. When we reached the white line wielding our rifles, we found the condemned Australian whose head was fully covered with a mask tightly tied to a pole and kept ready to receive our bullets. Our squad leader checked our face masks once again to ensure that they didn’t obstruct our view.

A Christian pastor went to the prisoner tied to the pole and took a circle around him, singing some psalms. As he left the prisoner, our squad leader and the doctor took positions on our sides and stood near to us. I sharpened my ears to hear the prisoner, but no sound came from him.

When the reverse countdown from three to one gets over, we should have completed our task in the laser circle. It was very difficult to reconcile with the fact that my hands, which once carried weapons for the freedom of a country, were now carrying weapons for some other purpose in a different country. But where is the weapon that could save me from the drudgeries lying between weapons and life?

Thoughts came through, gushing again in the heart. A bitterness seemed to have stuck on my tongue. My jaws grew stiff, and heartbeats became faster. I could feel my face emitting hot air in the face mask.

“Thdmm…” a sharp bursting noise.

I felt a strong recoil of the rifle’s butt on my chest! I stood frozen that moment. Oh! My God!

9

My squad leader and the doctor went to the pole to ascertain the prisoner’s death. The assistants in Vadimutram came in a queue, untied the rope fastened with the pole, gently tilted it, and left with the dead body on a canvas stretcher.

When our Powell military van came out of the island through the narrow land strip, the supporters of the Indonesian Welfare Association who were in favour of the death penalty assembled in front of it, shrieked cheerfully, and burst crackers. The media took photos of our van from all directions, spinning their cameras in various angles. It just appeared that it was a dance of night in that street due to the relentless noises of vehicles.

I stood totally shocked when I saw a woman standing under the tarpaulin on the other side of the street come running towards our van, scoop out handfuls of sand from the ground, and throw it on our vehicle, cursing us in Tamil, “You, the ruined! You have killed my son! Your families would never prosper!”. The feeble Tamil curse, “You, the ruined! You have killed my son! Your families would never prosper!” kept ringing in my ears.

I kneeled down, my hands soaked in blood that hadn’t dried yet, glanced in the direction from where the hapless yells of that mother came, and prayed, “O! My land! My land! Please don’t curse me anymore.”.

Yet, her voice was still stalking me like an echo of despair. 

                                                                ***Ended***