Rape of an Abandoned House; (English); Author: DeepakBudki; Translator; Jawahar Lal Bhat

Rape of an Abandoned House:

Short Story; Author: Deepak Budki

Translator: Jawahar Lal Bhat.

A steel box, a suitcase, and a bedroll - that was all they carried with them at the time of leaving their house in the thick darkness of the night. They were six souls in all - he, his wife, their two small children, and his old and infirm parents. For the first time, he felt his parents like a burden on him.

“Mom, where are we going in this dark horrible night?” His seven-year-old innocent daughter asked her mother in a spluttering voice.

“To hell....can’t you remain quiet?”  Her mother lost her nerve.

That rebuke was enough to shut the mouth of her little daughter. Nobody was aware of where they are going. When life and honor are at stake, destinations do not matter. To be safe and out of danger is what counts under such turbulent circumstances.

With trembling hands, his wife bolted the door with an old archaic chain like fastener slid over a U-type fixed hook of the main door and then secured it with a heavy lock. She pulled the lock number of times to ensure it was securely fixed and after complete satisfaction, they all walked away. Soon the family was lost in the darkness of the night. No one knew what was in store for them and what was their destination.

Locks do not ensure the security of abandoned houses. Anyone can break them. Actually, it is the neighbors who by keeping a constant vigil unconsciously ensure the security and safety of a house when its inmates are away. The situation, however, was different in this case. Whether neighbors would keep such a vigil was doubtful as they were themselves under the constant watch of extremists and any deviant behavior could cost them their life and property. Even if they found someone breaking the lock, they would simply close their window as if nothing had happened. Prudence and wisdom demanded one to be careful not to take cudgels with those who wielded the power of the gun.  

For days and months, the lock remained hanging on the door untouched. With passing time, however, there seemed a bleak prospect of inmates of the house returning. Passers-by looked at the lock with strange greedy eyes, wishing the lock and the gate opened on their own so that they had free access.

After some time an unknown person took advantage of the darkness of the night and broke open the lock skillfully without the slightest sound. Later on, everyone who saw the door opened heaved a sigh of relief and absolved himself of the crime because he had not participated in unlocking the door. People are strange, they believe it is a heinous crime to force a virgin into prostitution but it is no crime to have sex with a prostitute already initiated into the profession by someone else.

After the incident, the main gate of the house stayed ajar like a brothel welcoming one and all. Open lock, still hanging in the door hook, reminded of an aristocratic prostitute of olden days, the twaif, whose nose ring, the nath, had not been completely removed by her first customer as was customary and therefore still remained half hanging in her nose.

The person who had broken the lock was a dreaded terrorist who sought refuge in the house while running away under the hot pursuit of security forces. The lifeless house gave him shelter for the whole night. Immediately after entering the house, he threw his AK47 rifle contemptuously on the sofa as if throwing away the burden of his encumbered life. Simultaneously he threw his own weighty body on the nearby bed and within a few moments fell asleep. At about midnight he felt very hungry as he could not further resist the pangs of intense hunger. So he sat up. His AK47 rifle on the opposite sofa could neither quell his hunger nor quench his thirst. Picking up courage, he lighted a cigarette, and with the help of its dim light went into the kitchen looking for some water to drink. Apparently, the kitchen looked all empty. After some search, he found an earthen pot placed in a corner half-filled with water. He removed the lid and tilted the pot to pour out the water in his cupped hand and drank from it directly. His search did not stop there but he continued searching for something to eat by opening each and every almirah helped by lighted match sticks since switching on the electric bulb would have been dangerous and life-threatening. Finding his effort go waste he burst out, “These bastards have left nothing behind!”

By chance, he caught sight of a small mandir-like puja corner in which some idols and pictures of different Gods laden with dust were lying. In front of the pictures, a heap of leftover cold ashes of Dhoop and incense sticks was noticeable besides a few home-made sweet pancakes called 'Roth' by locals. They were actually the offerings made to the Goddess on 'Pun' the festival celebrated with high sanctity by Kashmiri Pandits. While performing puja their family priest had narrated a story about the importance of the festival to reinforce their belief in divine love and blessings. All members of the family had heard him with rapt attention and utmost devotion. The story goes thus:

“The festival has been celebrated for thousands of years. The occasion coincided with the harvesting of cotton crops in Kashmir during the autumn season in the olden days. Long ago there was a king in Kashmir who happened to be an atheist and an egotist. He enjoyed abundance and prosperity in his kingdom which made him proud and conceited. He was often overwhelmed by fits of strange anger. On the contrary, his wife was a pious, humble, and religious lady who performed her religious duties regularly and punctually. The king often scolded her for her beliefs but she bore it patiently. She used to celebrate Pun festival every year with great austerity and devotion. The King, however, did not like this forcing the queen to perform puja away from the gaze of her husband. On one such occasion, she properly cleaned her Puja room with great dexterity and baked pancakes, the Roths, herself with freshly ground wheat, pure ghee, and sugar during the whole night preceding. She was readying things with a heart filled with devotion and fervor in order to consecrate the pancakes to the Goddess. While waiting for the priest, the Rajya Purohit, the king suddenly entered her puja room with his boots on and in his usual fit of anger shouted at her besides desecrating the offerings prepared by her with great labor and austerity. The queen looked at him with great shock and surprise but did not utter a word. Being a typical Hindu wife she prayed to the Goddess to pardon her husband for the grave defilement committed by him.

Nevertheless, destiny had tricked the King. He faced troubles one after the other. In no time his soldiers mutinied under an enemy within the kingdom who laid siege on his throne and deprived him of his crown. He and his wife somehow saved themselves by running away in disguise and taking refuge in a neighboring country where he worked as a manual laborer. Forced to live a life of penury and want, both lived under wretched conditions. His wife took up the job of a maidservant in nearby households. Time marched on. One day she noticed preparations going on for celebration of the auspicious Pun ceremony in the house where she worked as a maid. She remembered her own past glory and a stream of tears flowed down from her eyes. She decided to perform the ceremony herself in a humble way and seek forgiveness from the Goddess for the wrongs committed by her husband. She had no money or means to do it but her determination showed her the way. She passed by a grain store in the evening where she found grains of wheat scatted all around. She picked them one by one until she collected a few handfuls.  She ground the grains in her home and with great remorse and penitence baked five small Roths and offered them with the deepest reverence and tearful eyes to the Mother Goddess reciting some hymns she remembered.

Within a few days, a strange miracle followed. The people back in his country came to know that the erstwhile king had been wrongly implicated in a conspiracy by his evil enemies who had usurped his throne. They revolted and called him back to the palace but he was nowhere to be seen. After many searches, they were able to find him working as a laborer in the neighboring country, carried him back with honor and dignity, and restored his crown. In a few days, everything changed. He was back as the majestic king with his queen sitting beside him. But now he was not the same arrogant and haughty self. From that day onwards the queen celebrated Pun festival every year with much more austerity and devotion and the metamorphosed king also took an active part in the same.” 

The denial of the existence of God cost the king his kingdom but here the story was totally different. Everyone in this household was deeply religious and adhered to all the fine principles of religiosity and human values yet they were punished into exile which was tragic. They had recently performed the Pun Ceremony with great dedication and consecrated it to the goddess with ultimate sincerity.

What a travesty of fate! The Roths offered to the Mother Goddess satiated the hunger of a rabid and fanatical terrorist who never felt any remorse in killing human beings by scores, young and old, men and women, and instead felt a high sense of pride in performing such dastardly acts. After filling his belly with the stale pancakes he fell asleep only to get up early in the morning. He hurriedly gathered his belongings and tried to search for some booty by opening iron trunks, wooden boxes, cupboards, and other storage items leftover in the house. He was keen on some handy moveable valuables like cash or gold jewelry but could find none to his dismay. Sharp came out a number of swear words from his foul mouth before he fled from the place. The expletives echoed in the house for a long time.

The security forces got information about the hiding of the ferocious terrorists only the next day. The whole area was cordoned off immediately by armed men in uniform with all their guns pointing towards the helpless house. Their suspicion was strengthened when they saw the lock on the main door broken and hanging in the loop. Instantly hundreds of bullets were fired randomly at the house from all directions to scare the militant out of the rat hole. Loud announcements were also made asking him to surrender but found no response. After some time 4-5 security men entered the house with great caution and conducted a thorough search whereafter they reported back to their commander that there was no one in hiding in the house. Meanwhile, the house had suffered heavy battering which had resulted in numerous holes in its walls. It had no option but to watch such desecration quietly and silently. The helpless house had no means to express its anguish and pain. On the other hand, the security men gave out expressions of both anger and surprise.

“Sir, nobody is inside!” One of the soldiers reported to his immediate commander.

“The bastard must be hiding somewhere. Search thoroughly and be careful lest he escapes!” The commander ordered in a harsher tone.

The soldiers went in again doubly energized, broke open each and every iron box, wooden box, cupboard, and closet, mercilessly throwing around all papers, files, children's books, gents' clothes, ladies' saris, shoes, and decorations. The scattered items looked like internal viscera thrown out of a slaughtered animal by a butcher. Soon the rooms were littered with items of clothing of men, women, and children besides the study material of children and their sportswear. Though the soldiers did not spare the upholstery even and hit the beds and items of furniture with their batons yet no trace of any terrorist was found anywhere. Hitting the items with batons and saying some invectives calmed down their nerves. Having satisfied themselves that there was no terrorist hiding in the house and he must have escaped the police moved out leaving the doors and windows of the house open.

From that day onwards, the house was open to all. After the sunset people started sneaking into the house one after the other. They entered stealthily and took away with them whatever they could lay their hands upon. In the first cache valuables like TV, Radio, cooking utensils, crockery, and clothes were removed followed by chairs, tables, beds with bedding materials. Soon the whole house emptied. It gave an appearance of a young maiden gang-raped by goondas who had thrown her blood-soaked body on the road. It is true that such bodies strive to be alive only to be targeted time and again. The greedy and lascivious neither spare the shrouds of the dead nor their unresponsive flesh.

Though there was nothing left in the house yet a neighbor eyed its wooden doors and windows which were made of costly Cedar and Fir. So he along with his sons sneaked into the house at midnight and dismantled all the doors and windows one by one with adeptness and skill whereafter they were carried away before sun rays hit the house again. They also put the house on fire such that no one could even guess that the house had already been stripped of its wooden doors and windows. It reminded of experienced gang rapists disposing of the dead body of the victim by consigning it to fire.

On seeing the flames go up suddenly in their vicinity, the neighbors showed concern fearing that fire may engulf their own houses. Awareness that fire is contagious prompted them to take remedial measures immediately, they came out with buckets of water, splashing it on the flames in order to douse the fire. Their worry was limited to their own houses, rest did not matter. The flames engulfed the house completely and it remained smoldering all through the day till hardly any traces of its structure remained except some stone-built walls at the base turned grey, scattered bricks turned jet black, half-burnt pillars of wood, and the corrugated galvanized iron sheets which had covered the roof besides heaps of ash and wet charcoal.

Apparently, nothing was left of the house. However, some people in the neighborhood still held hopes to find something valuable in the debris. They were not ready to believe that everything had been reduced to ashes and nothing was left.

An elderly lady caught sight of some corrugated galvanized iron sheets, dented and darkened by falling, smoke, and fire, which had earlier formed the roof of the house and were now partly covered by the debris. She called her two stout youthful sons and ordered them to take each sheet out of the debris one by one so that they can be used to roof the cow-shed in their courtyard. She stood there instructing and monitoring the operation till all the sheets had been pulled out and carried safely to their house nearby. After satisfying herself that nothing was left, the lady went straight to her house, had usual ablutions, and then offered prayers to the almighty in her room in order her claim to paradise is not jeopardized.

Another neighbor managed to dig out leftover bricks and stones which he intended to use for his toilet in the compound. He also dismantled standing walls with hammers and pickaxes and collected all the available material until no traces of usable stones or bricks were left. After some days a widow passed by the burnt house. She saw some half-burnt pieces of wood and charcoal. Her face glowed. She remembered the hardships of the previous year and thought of approaching winter, so she single-handedly collected all the charcoal and the half-burnt wood, put them in jute sacks, and took them to her own house. That night she slept in ease as sufficient arrangement for the winter days had been made.

Now only a big heap of the rubble had remained of the huge house, so the children of the locality turned it into a playground for cricket. Every day after the school hours children armed with bats and wickets would gather and play cricket here till long after sunset.

One day four urchins came with their local sports kit to play cricket at the site. One of them began hammering stumps into the debris hardened by the constant footfalls of children playing there. Despite constantly hitting the stump hard with a stone, one of them could not be driven deep into the ground as something hard was coming in its way. He pulled the stump out, opened the hole a little wider, and looked deep into it. He saw something shining inside the hole which was stopping further digging of the stump. Meanwhile, the other three boys had gathered around him and each one of them looked closely into the hole to ascertain what was the object. One of them felt it was an ornament of gold that had been buried but didn’t exclaim lest others claim a share of it. In fact, every one of them thought on the same lines but didn’t divulge to one another.

Soon digging commenced. One of them began digging with a stump while another ran to his home and fetched a better digging instrument. The digging continued until the thing was almost visible and ready to be extracted. The first boy put his hand into the hole but before he could do so another boy shouted in local lingo, "Adus...Adus", meaning thereby that I am a half shareholder of whatever you recover from beneath the ground.

Others also got the cue and didn't want to be left behind, so each one of them too shouted.

"Adus...Adus!"

The boy who had put his hand into the wide hole pulled something out. It was the same brass lock that had guarded the main door of the house for long. Suddenly all the faces drooped in despair. Without thinking much all of them went to a junk shop in the Bazar to sell their find. They got four rupees and distributed it among themselves. With one rupee each, they felt contented and went happily to their respective homes.     

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