Life Torn Into Shreds; English Short Story; Author: Deepak Budki; Translator: Jawahar Lal Bhat

Life Torn Into Shreds; English Short Story

  Author: Deepak Budki

 Translator: Jawahar Lal Bhat

It was the year 2000. I was posted back to Srinagar, Kashmir. After I joined and inhaled the familiar aroma of the Kashmir atmosphere, I experienced a feeling of familiarity as though I had been transferred only yesterday from this place to Vadodra. The intervening period of eight years seemed to have passed in a jiffy. The bond and love of one’s motherland are so strong that even the worst despicability cannot dissuade one’s concern for it. The familiarity of the land, its environs and the people around were so enthralling and reassuring that for a moment it wiped away all the reminiscences of the nightmare faced by our community in the late nineties that forced them to leave this place under the shadow of the gun.

During these years the valley suffered tremendously with disturbing conditions. The air missed its fragrance and the water its sweetness. The atmosphere was filled with the smell of canons and water with the acidic taste of gunpowder. The Mughal gardens were lying desolate with no men and women chit-chatting and no frolicsome children running around. The rice fields too were devoid of their melodious folk songs. The only things that were noticeable were abandoned roads, police posts on every turn of the road and people with fear looming on their faces. 

I went for a morning walk the next morning on the bund along the banks of river Jehlum and was shocked to see the once busy road frequented by foreign tourists wanting in its previous elegance and magnificence. Just a few people carrying some household needs were seen walking around. The houseboat owners alongside the river were craving tourists. Their nights were spent desperately waiting for customers and their days dozing off unendingly. The tall poplar trees, lined up along the banks of the river, were witnessing the scene silently and sharing the sorrow of these houseboat owners while the numerous birds perched on different trees were continuously chirping and twittering as if mourning for something lost. It seemed they didn’t like such bereaved mornings. The human faces that used to glow like fresh Kashmir apples had over a period turned jaundiced.      

I felt a sense of severe tragedy in my mind. Strange sinister thoughts occurred to me one after another raising various apprehensions eager to find the answer. I thought, after leaving the valley, the displaced Kashmiri Pandits of whom I was part and parcel, were somehow passing their days at least without the fear of guns and dread of death. Serially another thought flashed, what about the people living here all these years?  How would they have dealt with the shadow of death they faced every moment?

Suddenly my eyes fell on a familiar-looking man walking ahead of me. Being a known face I soon recollected that he was the owner of a cloth shop in the city’s famous wholesale market near our residence called Maharaj Ganj. It was the main trading centre of Srinagar where most of the traders were Khatris, who were Punjabi-speaking Hindus. The market had through the ages retained its wholesale character and did bustling business in spite of many other markets that had come up in other parts of the city.

The man was wearing a light blue Kurta Pajama torn at a few places. He also wore a waistcoat over his Kurta and a woollen cap on his head. Layers of dust and dirt had accumulated on his body and clothes which suggested that he had not bathed for many days. A long khadi shoulder bag was hanging on his left shoulder filled with rice grains. He frequently took out handfuls of rice from the bag and spread it over the smooth raised cement wall of the bund in order to feed birds. The sight of grains attracted lots of sparrows, pigeons and crows which darted down from the sky to feed on them. For a while, he would look at these birds curiously and then walk further and repeat the same process. I immediately figured out that some tragedy must have shattered him to this condition. I went near him a couple of times and moved my head up and down in a way so as to say namaste to him but he didn’t recognize me nor did he take any notice of my greetings and remained busy with his job. I thought he may have forgotten faces with time but soon it occurred to me that eight years was not such a long time to bring on such a shift.

He continuously ignored me but I kept on observing all his movements. Looking at his actions I concluded that he may have lost his mental balance. Was he afflicted with prosopagnosia or did he purposefully find it safe not to recognize them? Or, was he doing so lest he may come across among them a face which had shattered and ruined his whole world. He often recollected how he had brought up and nurtured that selfsame face but had never imagined that the seed he was sowing would one day yield bitter fruit.

One day three boys suddenly appeared before him from nowhere. A school-going boy, wearing a long loose cloak, which they call pheran in local parlance, besides covering and hiding his head with a black muffler in a way that only his eyes were visible. He had a revolver in his right hand which too was hidden under the pheran. A real draconian face to confront! The boy was accompanied by two more boys with identical get up. At that time Lala Karam Chand was in his shop tallying some entries in his account books. Due to the eruption of large-scale disturbances in the city those days, there was rarely a customer seen in his shop, so he spent his time checking accounts of the year gone by aimed at reducing the number of debtors. The employees in the shop too absented themselves frequently on one pretext or the other. They would offer flimsy excuses of search operations in their area that kept them awake throughout the night or curfew and restriction of movements at various places en route. Considering the sensitivity of the time he did not raise any objections to their absence. Nowadays either he or his sons were seen in the shop.

On entering the shop the youth took the revolver out of the pheran and instantly flashed it towards Lala Karam Chand in a dramatic fashion. However, his muffler dropped off his face suddenly and Lala recognized him but did not utter even a word. The youth blurted in a loud frightening voice, “Lala if you want the safety of yourself and your family hand over five lakh rupees immediately.”

Lala Karam Chand was astounded not because he was asked to pay five lakhs but because the demand had come from a person he had helped grow in life. Such incidents of extortion had become common in the city and other places around and were reported almost every other day. He was stunned because the ferocious young man was the son of one of his faithful employees who had served him for about thirty years. Lala recollected that on his birth he had distributed sweets among the staff as if a son had been born to him only. Later he himself arranged for his admission to a good school nearby and used to help him with money for the purchase of books and uniforms as the need arose. Now the same boy had returned from Pakistan a few days ago after getting trained in handling arms and ammunition. He had become the commander of Al-Badar, a terrorist organization operating in the valley. Lala Karam Chand recalled that the boy's father looked severely disturbed for the last several months but did not say anything to anybody. How could he? Had the security forces come to know of his son missing from the house, his house would have been besieged by them and the rest of the family would have to face police atrocities. Possibly, if Lala had got even a slight inkling of it, maybe he would have fired him out of his job. Anyway in spite of all that the situation Lala was facing presently appalled him to the core.

However, this incident raised many a question in his mind of which he was trying to find answers. “Did the boy's father know everything? Is he too involved in the conspiracy? Why did the young boy select him, particularly for the extortion?”

Lala was still deep in his thoughts when the youth with a pistol screamed at the top of his voice, “Lala, what are you thinking? Take out money or the consequence will be very bad for you.”

Lala was filled with extreme anxiety and fear. He laid open his cash chest before them. It was almost empty. In view of the circumstances, he would make cash deposits in the bank every day and keep a minimum balance in the chest for emergency use.

“These days there is hardly any business. You see for yourself that there’s hardly anything in the chest!”   

“Lala, we won’t accept any of your alibis. We want money, come what may. It is Monday today, day after tomorrow will be Wednesday when we will come again any time during the day to collect the amount and keep our money ready. Be warned, nobody should get air about it or you’ll lose the whole of your family.” So saying, they left the shop.

The next day Lala Karam Chand withdrew five lakh rupees from his bank and kept the cash in his chest for any eventuality. Since Wednesday was fixed as a routine for the realization and collection of payments from his debtors spread over different towns, so he instructed his sons to remain in the shop positively and pay five lakhs from the chest to whosoever comes to the shop demanding money without asking any questions. As a safety measure, he made them aware of the circumstances prompting such payment and gave some clues in order to identify the extortionists.

On Wednesday he kept visiting his customers in different towns for the whole day and stressed upon them to clear their outstanding debts. He had to bargain a lot but realized a little. The atmosphere all over had changed. Nobody was willing to part away with his cash in such circumstances. He could not return to his shop before dusk. While approaching his shop in the evening, he found a large crowd gathered in front of it from a distance. Feeling concerned he pushed himself through the crowd and got into the shop. To his horror, he found before him the dead bodies of both his sons laying on the floor drenched all over in blood. He could not believe his eyes and began looking around. His eyes instantly caught sight of the open and empty chest. He failed to understand the reason behind this ruthlessness. After all, he had not refused any payment to anyone. But he could not find any answer. Those who could have helped him know the truth had been silenced forever. 

The Police Inspector present there called for his attention and started questioning him notwithstanding what had befallen him, “Lala, where were you for the whole day?” 

Karam Chand replied in his drooping voice, “I had gone out of town for collection.”

“Lala, is this the occasion for collection of payments when the city is burning? Who will make your payments in this bedlam?”

“Sir, our business runs like that. If there’s no realization of funds, how’ll we pull on?”

He fell silent after that and suddenly turned motionless like a rock. He wanted to call out the names of his children but his voice was choked in his throat. He wanted to weep but his tears dried up in his eyes. He wanted to pull his hair but his hands had become heavy as lead. After some time the shrill voice of the Police Inspector again struck his ears, “Who must have done it? Do you suspect anybody?”

“I know nothing. All that I can say is that two days before some armed young men came to my shop and demanded five lakh rupees from me. Since I did not have such a big amount of money with me so showed them the chest. They threatened to come again after a day. I took out cash from the bank yesterday and kept it in the chest. I had to go for the collection of funds today as a matter of routine as I couldn't afford to let the debts increase. Therefore I instructed my sons accordingly.”

“Why didn’t you inform the police? You have committed a crime by helping the extortionists.”

“How could I buy enmity with them? They had warned me not to inform the police otherwise they would kill my family and all? I thought it better to pay them five lahks such that my family is saved.”

“Police would have protected you from them.”

“How many can the police protect? Terror has spread all over. How can you protect each and every citizen? It is an all-out war that we are facing.”

"You see they have not only robbed you of money but also killed your two sons.”  

“It did not occur even in my thoughts. I had no clue about their intentions.”

After recording the statement of Karam Chand the police got busy with other circumstantial investigations. They took various photographs of the scene of the crime and finger impressions from various locations. Wherever they got a clue they took it in their possession.

Meanwhile, Karam Chand kept staring at the dead bodies of his children with stony eyes beside the walls of his shop and the open chest. After a couple of hours, he reached his home carrying the dead bodies. He looked like a soldier defeated on the battlefield who had returned to his home. On looking at the bodies of her sons, his wife gave out an anguished cry and immediately fell unconscious. She was brought back to her senses after a long time and thereafter she began weeping bitterly and mourned the loss of her children by pulling out her hair. Surprisingly Karam Chand still stood motionless like a stone. He neither talked to anyone nor shed tears as if his tears had dried up for all times to come. 

The following day he lit the biers of his children at the cremation ground with his trembling and unsteady hands and then observed last rites as per traditions and religious practices for the next thirteen days. This incident was an unforgettable tragic event in the life of Lala Karam Chand. He was floored by destiny from the heights of his prosperity and excitement like a tree felled by a woodcutter for use as firewood. On following days whenever he sat on the ground to eat food and his wife placed the plate in front of him, he would repeatedly ask her only one question, “Did Sonu and Babloo not come as yet from the shop to have their dinner? Will they be late today as well from the shop?”

“They will be coming. You have your dinner and go off to sleep, I’ll feed them myself later on," his wife would rapidly answer as she had become aware of his deteriorating mental condition. She prayed to God day and night that his normal mental condition is restored. Being a mother she was much more anguished than her husband yet she apparently showed calmness, and courage and displayed false felicities in front of everyone she met. Her internal agony pestered her day after day because it was impossible for her to find release from this suffering. Consequently, it all added up and after two months she suffered a severe heart attack and joined her children while Karam Chand was left alone in this world.

Many times I sought answers from myself as to why didn’t Lala Karam Chand move out of the valley to safer pastures along with other Kashmiri Pandits who migrated immediately on hearing the alarm bells. Initially many were killed in cold blood because they were Hindus and owed allegiance to India. Did Lala have stronger bonds of attachment to his motherland than all the rest or was it his excessive attachment to his material possessions that he risked his entire family? I was not able to find an answer to these questions but gradually I realized how difficult it might have been for him to leave his home and hearth with small children and nowhere to go. 

Ultimately one day Karam Chand sold his large house and shop for a pittance and deposited whatever he got in the bank so that he could somehow sustain himself with the little interest it would earn. Being alone now and aware that death may not be far away he was no more interested in generating or amassing wealth and living in extra comfort. He rented a room in the house of one of his friends in a comparatively safer area and passed his remaining days there.

However, after his world was rendered desolate he had befriended sparrows, crows and other tiny little birds and lived with them peacefully. He had developed a strange belief inside him that these winged creatures can hear him, understand his language and recognize his love. The fact remains that every day the birds too waited for him impatiently.

Every morning Lala Karam Chand carries on his shoulder a bagful of rice without fail. Totally unmindful of the world around him, he calls and invites these little friends of his with affectionate nicknames mixed with deep sighs and sobs. He firmly believes that among them are his wife and his two sons, reborn as birds, who wait for him to feed them. His belief that his wife and children have taken birth in the form of birds, in the endless cycle of life and death, is so intense that he walks ceaselessly on serpentine roads and open parks throwing a handful of grains with his palsied hands wherever he finds a few birds together. Many a time he feels so sure that a particular bird is his wife, elder son, or his younger son that he calls them by their cute nicknames, Arti, Sonu and Babloo, spreads before them a handful of grains and watches them eat the grains till they finish and fly away. 

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