INDOPAK NUCLEAR WAR

INDOPAK NUCLEAR WAR

Three jets zoomed through sky in a  V- formation. After a couple of minutes   there was another triplet ,making that typical jet noise . Tilak said he has a feeling that it must be Pakistan air force .I was startled and then frightened but my father relieved me of fear by saying amidst peals of laughter

“ those scoundrels have been ****ed thrice and these days they are being @#$%ed  by taliban and america they neither have capacity or courage to do so. I doubt they have enough money left for air fuel’

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Amritsar had been the best place to live for a 13 year old boy like me ,I can say that as I had spent a couple of months in delhi and one month in Mumbai ,they were good for some ecstatic fun but I was contented here. My love for food is possibly my sole reason for saying so and that love has accounted for some in fact atleast 20 extra kilos.

We live in a ancestral house which was built by my great grandfather when he arrived from Gujranwala(Pakistan 1948). The house is four storey and my father and his three brothers reside in each storey .Our problem ,to put it philosophically as dad says is globalization, with advent of boom in real estate two younger brothers of my father are keen on buying a big vila each in posh suburbs while my father and his elder brother are more keen on staying in this ancestral house . No brother can sell his share  until a consensus emerges between all brothers owing to legal  hassles. Thus the current situation is that brothers are not on talking terms.

The heartening fact to whole episode however is that we children were never barred from talking to each other so we  played ,loved ,fought and our mothers did very much the same except for the fact that in their case the duration between  fight and reproach was considerably larger than ours.

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Jets had caused quite a mayhem in house everyone was discussing what could it be ,my father had already switched on the t.v but perhaps cable was faulty .He could do nothing but to curse the cable man ,I came in verandah to find that same was  the case with  other t.v s  I heard my nephew rita daughter of eldest uncle  living just above us urging us to come. Her television was indeed ok and quality was not HD type but just ok to see what was happening. We were shown scenes of Pakistani aitrcrafts leaving their airbases ,there were some 25-30 of them and all were waving happily towards camera while flying ,the transmission was supposedly from Pakistan since the narrator s voice was  heavily urdu laden, and the news reader wore a burka. She was telling us that pak army was now not ready to tolerate Indian sponsored terrorism in Baluchistan and sindh ,all investigations had ultimately led to the conclusion that there was always Indian hand in some way or other, the western allies had caused enough shame and now was the time to get back some lost prestige in eyes of our own people and world .

The mighty Pakistani army under blessings of the almighty was attacking five targets in western india including Delhi and Amritsar .Delhi would be nuclear bombed first followed by Amritsar.

No one  could remember what was she saying after that ,children went to their homes to report the news  ,we could still hear zooming of jets above us, i started packing my things in a state of panic ,starting with my laptop ,my ps 3 and then my cricket bat . I could gather from sounds outside that everyone was doing the same .my father , I suppose got insane by such events and ordered me my sister and my mother to sit calmly  in drawing room. once we sat he told us that India is not Afghanistan that any one can run over its cities dropping bombs ,he assured us that Indian air force would be routing whole of Pakistani within minutes and as far as use of nukes is concerned pakis know that if ever they use such a weapon on India ,India would make sure that all of their cities are wiped out. We all respected his views but the point made by hovering jets was stronger than his.

My uncle was calling everyone to come up, I was shocked to see a umbrella like explosion very similar to Hiroshima on TV ,the burka clad pakistani announcer was going on and on about heroics of Pakistani air force, she claimed that Delhi had been destroyed by a nuke.   Voice clarity was good but the video reception was poor so I saw collapsing video of qutub minar ,my sole girl friend used  to live in that area but what could I do now.

All my uncles and aunts were suddenly in a frenzy to run ,there was consensus to run with whatever one could ,my father was even then not agitated but his lack of agitation was probably more due to despondency. He addressed us in a calm voice “listen, nuclear bombs do not destroy just a part of city ,they destroy areas as far as 100 to 200 km ,no one among us has a racer car,even that would do in streets of old Amritsar  , in this mayhem we can hardly expect to get any transport ,and by foot we can maximum cover a km.” it seemed all energy had been grained from us we could nt even move everyone sat wherever he was.

Father said” I hoped we could live together as brothers ,sharing and helping each other as far as possible in this house where I can still feel presence of my father and grand father, come let me die a happy man , say  falsely that you love me, now I am dying and I don’t care about truth.

All brothers  suddenly were  too sentimental in a stupid way, stupid because just a day ago they were not ready to see each other s face. my youngest uncle was saying to father that reason for his trying to go and settle elsewhere was not disrespect towards forefathers but because my father did nt let him live freely  but now he was sorry for anything which would have hurt. Everyone was sorry for everything to everyone.

Thus my father had proved to everyone that now our end was inevitable, uncles were praying waheguru to forgive our sins then they started talking how they had spent their childhood in this house and now it would be ruined at least they had solace to die in their own house.

Son of youngest uncle tunnu was glued to tv even though whatever they were showing was repeat telecast, suddenly he cried see tilak bhaiya is  in tv. We saw that tilak was indeed on tv,he asked us whether we were dead by paki raids by now or not then he started laughing he said that only way to get us value life was to instill fear of death. These tv transmissions were taken from old Hollywood flicks and with a bit of tweaking into cable wires it was done. A burka clad girl appeared in frame but she removed her burka and greeted all of us,she even said sorry ,she was fiancée of tilak. As soon as my father had asked but what about jets hovering on Amritsar tilak quipped yes I can hear tauji asking about jets but don’t you people remember about that airshow in which tunnu wanted to go ,see the sky has been painted in tricolor we saw that indeed it was, he added that he was apprehensive that if anyone came out and saw the sky than whole plan would be failed but he had some hope in fear. His plan had succeeded and at least now people would value life.

Just in case you remember me

(A letter to husband from a wife who is leaving him ,though she does'nt want to, but she has to)

Just in case you remember me

Remember the idle evening sunrays  with golden hue in my hairs…when you explained why it was necessary for you to go 

Remember how my eyes smiled concealing nothing within….you could have seen my soul if you wished to

Remember my slanting tooth in an otherwise perfect set…you found it funny

Remember my half comic half seductive smile towards  you……I tried my level best to hold your attention

Remember my tears when in complete submission I uttered I love you…. with a finality only comparable to death

Remember my goosebumps on your first touch……I know you knew it from your sense of triumph that you were the first to  touch me

But most importantly do remember that I will be waiting for you but not forever

Because life is too short and too precious to be wasted on such fantasies like you

And dear I still love you but don’t want to be sorry for that for whole of my life

Collective Impotence

Anurag’s office timings were like any other office so when He used to reach bus stand it was the worst part of his daily routine due to excessive traffic of commuters like him and buses, no one wished to spend a single second more in that  place than what one was compelled to. But today it seemed was worse as He had to encounter a crowd and sensing the futility of trying to get past it , he stayed where He was .He like every other Indian had to know what  was going on whenever there was a crowd on road so He craned his neck to see.

 A young sales man type guy(off course with a tie on) was being severely beaten by a rather thin looking dark coloured man .This young man was at the receiving end of choicest abuses mainly referring to his mother and sister. Anurag  gathered from bystanders that this young man had accidently brushed motorbike of this local goon ,goon was resident of bus stand area and some kind of president of bus stand hawkers association. He was a self proclaimed liberator of so called poor porters like himself.Sales man was muscular and surely less than thirty but not adept to such physical confrontation, simply put he lacked the courage and probably was afraid of consequences as they say one never can be sure what these goon types are capable of.

Anurag  was dead sure that it was grave injustice towards that poor young man but all local shopkeepers  and pedestrians were mere bystanders and then what if the goon carried a weapon or had supporters nearby. It would be plain idiocy to challenge him in his area ,anyways Anurag had a family to look after. Just when He thought that why no one was calling police He saw a constable standing by a paan shop observing the proceedings around him in a rather nonchalant  manner as our great sages have advised to see everything but not be part of nothing. Anurag was preparing to leave after having a reality check from that great sage constable, probably trying to walk in his footsteps. Finally young man full of tears and bruises gave his wallet and watch to the goon and walked away struggling with his torn shirt ,his bike already confiscated by traffic police. crowd started dispersing deploring the state of lawlessness and goondaraj blaming the police and incumbent government .                           

He  too cursed the goon with filthiest abuses He could think of, everyone had a simple equation in mind, vulgarity in curses and number of curses is inversely proportional to guilt of inaction or put in simple words – impotency. When everyone is impotent ,no one is impotent or rather at least wont be called so . Collective impotence nullifies individual impotence .  Mind playing tricks with the body and soul once again it seems.

A couple of months had passed and as nowadays such incidents are heard often especially in news channels , so slowly that incident faded in his  memory. Now He started to regard that incident as part and parcel of life and perhaps that was destiny of people like him. 

Ganesh chaturthi was nearing so there was great hustle bustle in market , anurag was somehow moving amidst crawling traffic  just when He was nearing a traffic signal went red and so a car suddenly stopped  he could not prevent his bike from brushing a bike while applying brakes. He was about to apologize but   suddenly He was horrified as the biker was none other than the fearsome goon of previous incident. He thundered” you think that this road belongs to your father ,what are you a babu sucking blood of innocent poor people, I will teach you who has power over here.” Then he slapped him  hard. Anurag was virtually paralyzed but somehow He managed to park his scooter by the roadside. Goon continued shivering in anger “ you people think you can manage everything , but I am king of bus stand no one can face me here ,police is in his pocket “ with this he surveyed the crowd which was surrounding them by now ,to  utter dismay of anurag  everyone tried to avoid his gaze.

Suddenly in a fit of anger he charged towards anurag ,He could visualize himself as the poor guy from previous incident as all events of that day flashed past his eye in a split second. This crowd like any other crowd was a impotent ,inactive ,mute crowd , he knew that most of them had sympathy  but He doubted that any of them had empathy and so their behavior nothing  unexpected. He felt his limbs had stopped functioning so He could nt even cover his face to prevent his kick but then  to his complete bewilderment He saw that goon had been pushed struggling to find his balance. There stood a middle aged man probably in his late forties thin but somewhat muscular . Goon was equally amazed at his behavior he  tried to reason with this man and told him that why he was trying to commit suicide for some stranger perhaps goon thought him to be a lunatic.

His savior did'nt look like one, he had a multi compartment metallic lunch box in one hand and a black leather file bag in other, probably he held some lowly position in some office. He said in a calm voice, to crowd in general pointing towards anurag “ who is there being beaten by a goon ,soul already beaten to death by boss or wife or children, devoid of all  hope and courage ,ready to surrender at slightest sound of whip-is that some fat bellied stranger –no,my friend no its your future. Whose fight is this--   his speech was cut by a powerful blow from the goon blood was dripping from his nose and he fell on ground . Anurag’s limbs had not started to function till now, he was trying to fight the feeling that it was his fight which had got this man involved .

He did nt had to suffer much as the man threw a disgraceful glance towards Anurag and his lunch box struck  the goon with inhuman speed ,in a flash this man was sitting on his chest and pounding the goon savagely. People had dropped their heads some old men were even trying  to fight their tears but such reversal instilled some amount of confidence in crowd ,young boys were first to lead the crowd and slowly all of them joined in giving a sound thrashing to goon. The constable who apparently was permanently stationed in paan shop was called and was forced to arrest him under public pressure ,when the goon abused constable and tried to make him remember about a certain amount paid as bribe  this constable too had  to prove his honesty by handling a  couple of lathi blows to  goon.some local shop keepers who were apparently frequently harassed by this goon promised the constable  to come if they were called for statements in court.

That man had vanished from the scene by then like thin air,in a way Anurag  felt  relieved by his absence because He doubted his own ability to even face him  or thank him . He knew how to thank him and He may lack that amount of courage required for that but somehow He knew that He would be able to muster it if situation so demands.

Events culminated  in a rather unexpected fashion when He read in newspaper that the constable was promoted because  he had staked his life while chasing and sinle handedly capturing the goon near outer ring road it turned out that the goon carried  reward of 5000/-  and was absconding .