Brita Roy

Tragedy

4  

Brita Roy

Tragedy

My Name is Kullu

My Name is Kullu

6 mins
420


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Let me introduce myself. I am an Indian, from the State of Bihar. Six years back I came away to Kolkata, as my family was poverty- stricken with no earning. There had been devastating floods and with our crops having been destroyed, I decided to try my luck in Kolkata where I hoped I would get a job in a factory or perhaps my wife could get employment in a private house as a cook or maid.

But life in Kolkata was not as rosy as I had imagined. There was no roof under which we could take shelter, and no food to feed my hungry aged parents. So eventually we settled down under a Fly-Over. We collected scraps of wilted vegetables, discarded in the market and cooked our frugal meal. When for months we did not make any lee-way, I put up a tea-stall near a Cinema Hall and my wife started frying ‘Pakoras’ and served puffed rice with it.

Then my children were born and somehow we managed to keep our business going. At this time my father had expired for want of nutrition. My mother tagged along with us with two children to look after, one aged two and the other two months.


It was the twentieth of March in the year 2020. Late in the evening we heard a lot of commotion. People were running up and down. All of a sudden a team of Policemen were seen giving instructions and waving their batons. There was pandemonium all around. Shutters came down one after the other. All shops had been told to close down with immediate effect. There was clanging of steel and banging of doors. Lock-down had been announced by the government as Corona Virus was spreading. All transport had come to a stand-still and all buses trains and autos had stopped plying. One can imagine my predicament! How was I to walk down with two babies in my arms and the stove and cooking appliances for so many miles? My aged mother too would not be able to walk that distance. There was another problem. The hotel where we used to take our simple meal had pulled down its shutters and now there was no place from which we could buy food for ourselves or milk for the baby. It was at this time that the baby started crying, and it went on bawling as long as her little lungs permitted. As it was taking some time to wind up, the policemen peremptorily overturned the bowl of batter and heartlessly kicked the “chula,” and the glowing embers were scattered on the hard grass-less soil.


My wife was in tears. My mother was shaking with panic. My two children drowned the commotion and hullabaloo with their sky-piercing howling. Slowly we trudged on. There are no words to describe our hardship. Twice my eighty years old mother tripped and fell. Once she hit her head hard on the cemented edge of the pavement and blood gushed out like a fountain. But in no way I could attend to her, as my hands were tied down with two infants in my arms. I cursed the person who had given the order to shut –down without giving a prior notice or warning. Was curbing the pandemic more important than the lives of the helpless children of India, gasping and groaning under the weight of the draconian law? I felt the person could not have small hungry babies, with nowhere to go, to get at least some food. It was obvious that he had a running kitchen for his meals and not like us, who did not have the scope to get even clean water to quench our thirst. Those who had a warm bed in a well -furnished bedroom and did not have to walk miles with sore feet to be able to get a place to lie down, must have insensitively passed the law. To make matters worse, the police force had been instructed to arrest anyone violating the Lock-down laws. The policemen had chased us but being human, when they saw us in such a pitiable, heart-rending condition, out of compassion they pretended not to have seen us.


Both my babies, sobbing their heart out, like withered flowers, died limp in my arms. I could not give the hungry infants a drop of milk, as preventing the spread of Corona had assumed so much urgency! My mother lay bleeding on the pavement as there was no transport to take her to a hospital. Helplessly I saw her suffer and finally succumb. Those who had given the order for complete lock-down, could not have had aged parents bleeding to death on the streets! I cursed myself for being a son, who could not give water to my dying mother.

At this critical moment, my wife and I had no earning. As whole of Kolkata was shut down, there were no customers to buy the “pakoras”. We had lived day to day on the earnings of the day. Now there was no earning, so how were we going to survive? Those who had money stacked up in the banks to fall back on, must have given the order, callous and indifferent to the problems of the poor! Death from Corona would be negligible compared to the death of the millions without any earning.


We had absolutely nothing to eat for seven days. Then one day a well-dressed gentleman came and told us that he would give us food, if we followed him to his house. At this time the lock-down rules had been relaxed for two hours in the mornings. Weak and emaciated we could hardly walk. But the thought of food 

 acted as an incentive to follow him. When we reached the mansion, he asked me to stand outside whilst he would take my wife with him to hand over the food. I waited patiently for three- quarter of an hour but my wife did not come back. Then I started imagining all the evil things that could happen in a city like Kolkata. I asked the Security to which flat the gentleman had taken my wife. The man informed me Flat No. G2. Before he could say anything, or stop me, I rushed up. I banged at the door, but there was no response. Then from inside the flat I could hear the shrill wailing of a woman. I knew it was my wife. After seven day’s starvation, I do not know from where I got the Herculean strength to break the door open with a resounding biff. There was my wife, her tattered clothes ripped of her body, struggling in the vicious clutches of the beast, trying her best to ward off his advances. I became the Devil incarnate! With one bestial pounce I grabbed the man’s throat and squeezed it hard and pressed it so hard that his eyes bulged out, he started gasping for breath, and finally turned blue. I had killed the Vulture! At that moment the Security entered the flat. I stood like a hero in a battle, having won a trophy! Soon the place was crowded with the residents and police personnel. I was hand cuffed and taken to the Lock-up. That was the last I saw of my wife. Now four years have passed. Till date my case has not come up for hearing, and I am languishing in the jail.


I have heard that my wife has become deranged. She roams around the streets of Kolkata, naked, mumbling to herself, and sometimes calling out the names of her two babies.

From my experience of the Pandemic, I have become a hardened criminal. When I am freed I will go and throttle the throats of all those whomI hold responsible for my present situation!



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