Arson

Harleen sits on her terrace, sipping tea and admiring the setting sun, peeping through a blanket of clouds, like a child denying to go to bed. Harleen loves evenings like this. Lousy. Carefree. Her husband, Amrinder, is busy at work and all chores done. She can now just sit and be at peace with herself.

   She let the tea spread over her tongue and gulped it slowly, feeling as it passes through her throat into the stomach, elegantly warming everything it touches. She was lost philosophizing the taste of tea when she saw a big dark cloud emerging from the ground a few streets away from her. She went to the edge of the terrace and peeped closer. A house was burning. A house was burning!

   She ran downstairs to call the fire station. But no one picked. She tried again. Same outcome. She attempted a third time. Again failed. Maybe she should go and try to help herself. Not maybe. She ought to do it.

   She crossed the living room and was about to climb stairs to bring her ‘Chunari’ when someone knocked on the door.

   The knocking gets intense each passing second. And by the time she opens it, it was less of knocking and more of kicking. Harleen opens the door and a man enters. He closed the door behind him and fall all curtains. She was stunned but not disturbed him. She knew him. He was Mahesh, their driver. 

   Mahesh’s left hand was bleeding. The cloth wrapped around to stop blood was completely wet in it. He was shaking and breathing half-breathes. Visible perspiration all over his face.

“Malkin,” he said. “We don’t have much time to spare. We ought to leave this house as soon as possible.” He handed her a polythene bag. “There is a saree and bangles. Please wear them.”

Visible confusion shines on Harleen’s face.

“Please trust me,” Mahesh begged. “And please be fast.”

There was no doubt about trusting Mahesh. He has been their drive for as long as they’ve been married. And he has served them with as much honesty as a servant could be. Yet she stands there, motionless.

“But what happened?” She finally said.

Mahesh knew there was no way to move her without explaining her situation. So he began:

   At 11:00 a.m. All India Radio aired the bodyguards who shot Indira Gandhi were Sikhs. By noon it was everywhere around the town. People gathered to take revenge. Not from the bodyguards. But from the Sikhs. They have been roaming since looting shops, burning houses, killing people, raping women.

“People out there are mad,” Mahesh cried. “And I can’t see you or Malik getting destroyed in that madness”

Now, Harleen was shaking. “But what about...” she choked. Terror seized her nerves. She sat down where stands.

“Malik could not be safer than where he is. He got friends,” he paused dramatically to make sure she hears everything he’s about to say, “And servants, who are ready to give their life for him and his family.”

   Harleen nodded. She was overwhelmed. She had never felt such affection for Mahesh. She took polythene from Mahesh and went upstairs.

   She had a hard time wearing a saree. She wore green bangles and a green saree with a tree spreading its branches printed on it. The saree touches earth and veils hardly cover her head let alone face. She tried to call Amrinder from the bedroom's telephone. But the line was still dead. Harleen kept her jewelry and cash in a bag and went downstairs. She trembled twice but managed not to fall.

   Downstairs Mahesh was running around the house collecting all the photos of Harleen and Amrinder and piling them on a bedsheet. When he was done, he burned every photo and flushed them. He was near the entrance when Harleen came down. She looks like a Hindu except for vermilion on her head and Mangal Sutra on her neck. Which Mahesh gave her. The Mangal Sutra looked expensive. She denied but Mahesh convinced her. She wonders from where he brought it. It couldn’t be of his wife. He was not married.

   Mahesh scouted her to the car, turned the engine on, and drove. Harleen watched her house passing by taking all the happiness with it. On his way to Amrinder’s house, Mahesh has checked every route and has come up with the safest route possible. Where either there was no violence or it had taken long ago.

   They passed silent streets, streets with no survivors, burned houses, looted shops, destroyed vehicles, crying children, and raped women. HArleen closed her eyes, but couldn’t close her ears. Couldn’t shut the cries, groans, and pleas.

   When she was a kid, she heard a story from the epic Mahabharata. When the Pandavas lost themselves and Draupadi in the game of chaupar, Dushasan, the second of Kaurava, dragged her into the gambling hall. He pulled Draupadi’s saree and tried to disrobe her. Then Lord Krishna came to her rescue and protected her and her esteem.

   All of these women would also have been rescued if their God was also Lord Krishna.

   She wants to close her eyes and lay down. But the movement she moves, the saree drops from her blouse, exposing her cleavage. Every time Mukesh adjusted the rear mirror, she felt her reflection was in it.

   How could she think so bad about the man who is risking his life for her? Or what if he’s not? What if it was all planned? He faked everything just to take her away from the watch of her neighbors. Would she be a Draupadi without Krishna?

   But what is the sense? She knows she cannot do anything. She has surrendered herself to fate. But the debate about the intentions of Mahesh started a chain of thoughts that was sufficient to keep her busy for the rest of the journey.

   At 8:00 p.m. they reached their destiny. It was a hut near a well. Fenced all around. Two cuboidal rooms near the hut -- one toilet and the other a bathroom. Mahesh and Harleen went inside. He gave her a glass of water and while she drank, he gave a short tour of the place. Kitchen, earthen pots, refreshments, grains. All can be seen from where they stand. HE drank water and when he felt she looked comfortable he left.

   Harleen lay down near the wall and closed her eyes. The silence of the place was suffocating her. Dropping drop, crunching grass, whistling air, everything reminds her of the faces she saw, voices she heard.

   She stood and sat. Her legs pulled to her chest, back resting on the wall. So much has happened in such a little time. She gets homeless, she witnessed death and the horror it causes, she doesn't know how or ever her husband is, she is staying at her driver’s house and has to know idea how long she will have to stay.

   Her head aches. So she stood and searched the house for something. Disappointed, she went near the stove and picked a piece of wood charcoal. She came back to her place and as a child, she started scribbling on the floor.

   Since she was a child whenever she felt alone or depressed, she writes. Poems, short stories, letters(she calls them “Letters to Myself”), or anything that comes to her mind. And so she sat again to right, in the hope this might help her control her head.

   

At around 1:00 a.m. Mahesh came back. His body was worn out. HEad sunk in disappointment. He stood at the entrance, afraid to move into his own house.

Harleen was done writing and was trying to draw. When she saw Mahesh, she jumped up and ran outside. She searched around the house twice but found no sign of Amrinder. She came back in. Eyes filled with fresh water. Her energy drained. She sat down near the entrance and wept. Mahesh sat near her and wept.

“I went to the factory,” he began. “But it was looted. Then I checked home. It took me an hour to find it. And when I did, I didn't want to believe this was it. It was completely burned. But I am certain it was your house. Because outside the house, I found this.” He took out a Kirpaan from his kurta.

HArleen held it in her both hands, clenched it to her chest, and wailed. Her eyes were red, but the tears were not ready to stop. Mahesh hesitated but found the courage to hold her hand. She didn’t resist. He let her cry. When only sobs were left he said, “I asked neighbors, they said they didn’t see anyone in.”

Behind the red swollen eyes, Mahesh saw the birth of hope. “I think,” he continued, “that Malik is still out there, searching for you. So it is our job also to continue searching for him.”

She wiped her eyes and nose with the edge of her saree and nodded. When she seemed to sense he moved his hands back.

“Now Malkin,” Mahesh said, gazing at the floor, “Will you be kind enough to tell me what you have done with the floor?”

She crawled to the scribbling and sat near it like an artist showcasing her art. “I have written a poem,” she said. She cleared her throat and began:

I survived,

Thousands died,

And hundreds cried.

Many killed, some kills,

Others enjoyed the reels.

But few helped some lives,

And so, I survives.

I survived,

Mankind's atrocities.

Leave all behind, life is necessity.

Left Pride, left home,

Left alone to roam,

The streets are my home.

I survived,

Proud are those who survive fights,

Flights like golden knights.

But I fight night, every night.

Sleep - I want.

Blink - didn’t even get that.

I survived,

That’s a lie.

Alive, yet felt die.

Gone what was my,

What is left is a cry.

I suffer,

With every breath I take,

Don’t know how far will I make,

But I will live to see,

Is it really rotten -- our judiciary?

Hope fades away and tears again rule her eyes. Mahesh felt a pain in the chest. He ran out to the well.

He sat near well, took out his wallet, took out a folded paper, kept the wallet aside, and unfolded the paper. It was one half of a picture. Picture of Harleen and Amrinder. Harleen was there. Amrinder not. He admired the picture and as his daily routine, began talking to it:

It was my luckiest day. Today, out of the blue I decided to the factory. Workers there were already furious and just wanted revenge. They had already planned the attack on Malik. The hell with Malik. Amrinder. Amrinder! I just led them to execution. No doubt he was a tough fellow. Many fall before he falls. HE attacked me with his knife and almost tore my handoff. But the pain was nothing compared to the pleasure of kicking him to his death.

Then the cunts from the factory wanted to go home and have fun with his wife. Like I was ever going to let this happen. And luckily, they saw you years ago and neither remember your face nor your address. So I took them to the house a few streets before yours. I saw the house burning. But I went away before they did anything to the people. It was not a tough thing to escape from between a mob blinded by anger and lust.

That’s when I came to your house. The first thing was to convince you to come which was not very difficult. The second thing was to destroy everything which has anything to do with you or Amrinder.

I was afraid that sometime later, you might want to go back home. So I went back, found those cunts again, and burned down that house. It gives me pure joy to see the house in which you have lived with that Amrinder turning to ashes.

I have cherished this photo of yours for years. It has been with me in my good and bad times. I have talked with it when I had nobody. But I don’t need it anymore. Now I have you. The golden touch you gave me proves it. I know it is not much, but it is a good start.

Mahesh lit a match stick and burned the photo. He picked up his wallet, dusted his clothes, and went inside.