43
BAD NEWS
[The degradation of the virtues and the censorship of hypocrite puritans will mark the end of Kali Yuga. There will be no more kings. The wealth and crops will diminish. The cities and villages will be filled with groups of bandits. Water and fruits will be wanted. The people supposed to ensure the protection of the people will not protect them.]
-Puranas
PADMA:
We are in a ruined city near the water channel that carries water inside the wall.
I don’t know why but yesterday we were at in the middle of the city but last night Nirbhaya leader Jagapati ordered his troop to march.
I don’t know why? No one knows why he decided to march in the night?
We have no right to ask questions but some of inside his troop had raised questions but he told them that this area is not dangerous and here lightning doesn’t rule at night. He was right. This place is different. Before this city, we were in another city for fifteen days and their nights were a nightmare. Even we were inside any building and safe, it was hard to get sleep. The thunder and sounds of war of lightning in the sky didn’t allow us to sleep.
He is right about this place. We have travelled in the night and the place had no lightning storms.
All of us feel happy in this city – at least it gives us feel of in the wall. Feel of the home. No lightning in the sky and the sight of the water channel are something reminds me about home every time I breathe.
The journey ended before the down and now we are in a building that is nearest to the water channel.
As the first ray of the sun falls over the building, Alok uncle wakes me up. His daughter Jalpa is standing near him. She is ready for the day.
Jalpa is also sixteen and her body structure is the same as me except her curly hair. Due to it, she looks an inch taller than me. Her face is as long as her neck and she talks more. In the last fifteen days, we have become good friends.
In the last fifteen days, she has told me everything about her. She loves her mother more than she loves her father and his small brother Vinit is her life. She is missing him. She talks whole the day and mostly she talks about his brother, how naughty he is, how he quarrels with her and how stubborn he is. Fear is her character – she feels fear of everything. Even when Nirbhaya orders us to take food packets I see her legs trembling while standing in a queue.
Contrary to her, Akhil uncle is brave. My people are not allowed bravery so he never shows but I know he is brave. In the last city, I’ve seen him climbing on risky buildings to repair the roof. I’ve never seen the fear of Nirbhayas in his eyes.
I’ve got other friends too – a tall and blond girl named Nirama. I befriended with her during whitewash of a building in the last city. Then, I befriended Rupa another beautiful girl whose father is a blacksmith and Jay, a boy whose father is a rope maker in the wall. He is with his uncle – Dilip.
I want to know everyone with me but I could know only some of them as we didn’t get time during the daytime. The whole day spends in the work. I already know more than twenty people on this trip. I knew them before we came beyond the wall. I should know more than that as they are my people but I don’t know because, in the wall, I spend almost my daytime at the water channel.
I know five more teenagers because they are Students of Jagamal uncle. They are friends of Samrat and Atul.
They are – Dinesh, Aakash, Malati, Paresh, and Ratika.
“Everybody,” A Nirbhaya says, “outside the building, quick.”
I get up and wash my face. I go out the building with Akhil uncle and Jalpa. Outside the building is a ground packed with my people.
Nothing seems unusual. That’s the way we get breakfast packets. We are waiting for breakfast packets as usual before getting an order of the work but no breakfast pockets come. In fifteen minutes whispers rise in the crows – why no one is giving the order to work?
Why we don’t get the breakfast packets?
Are they out of food?
But suddenly we hear shouts and cries and sounds of something breaking the glass and metal hitting the metal. The sounds continue for almost fifteen minutes.
People start to make various assumptions, and then I see Nirbhaya leader Jagapati and three of his soldiers coming out from another door of the building.
The whispers stop as people show something unusual.
As they come near I saw blood on their clothes and wound on their hands and faces.
The fear passes through us. I see teenagers around me trembling. I feel my own feet shaking.
If they want to kill us, we are dead.
We can’t fight them back.
“Listen,” Jagapati stops some steps away from the crowd, his soldiers also follow him. “We have no time. Listen to me carefully.”
The crowd becomes silent. I feel deadly silence around and inside me. Jalpa is trembling beside me. She clutches my hand and presses it so hard that I feel pain in my fingers. Akhil uncle is looking at Jagapati.
“I’ve never expected this will happen. I’ve never.” He sighs, “They want to kill you. Kill you all.”
Murmurs rise in the crows. I see at uncle Akhil. His face is flat.
“I know you tend to believe what you always believed. You tend to think what you always though and you tend to expect what you always expected. So we believe you are Sunyas. You can’t do anything but this is wrong.” He looks over the crowd, “you are not Sunyas and that’s why they are coming to kill you.”
Some teenagers start to cry. Others start to make them calm. The ground is filled with noises.
“Listen, fear gives you nothing but the death,” Jagapati continues and the voices fall silent, “don’t allow fear to shut you down. You know why we are Nirbhayas?”
No one answers.
“We are Nirbhayas because fear can’t overweight us and so can be you if you can overpower your fear. Let your fear opens you up.” his voice grows louder, “some of you will be thinking someone will rescue us but nothing will happen like that. You have to rescue yourself.”
“Why they want to kill us?” I step ahead. All heads turn to me.
“They want to kill us as punishment. Inside the wall, people have started a rebellion and the Creator wants to show your people what he is capable to do. To stop the rebel he wants to kill you and send your bodies in the wall to your people. This time train is planned to carry only dead bodies as punishment of the rebellion.”
I feel my body trembling. I can’t remember how to breathe. I’m almost choking. My lungs are burning and so are my eyes.
Then I hear what I’ve never imagined hearing from the Nirbhaya leader. Jagalapti says, “I’m with you. I’m with the people in the wall but I can’t help you directly. My troop has thirty Nirbhayas and ten out of them were loyal to the Creator so we have killed them but another troop of Nirbhaya is coming for you. Maybe with them will be some Devatas but you have to fight.”
“If you are with us why you can’t help us?” Uncle Akhil steps ahead. Perhaps the words of Jagapati have filled courage in him.
“If I’ll help you, you will lose everything,” he says, “if I’ll help you and you will go in the wall, there will be no one to welcome you.” His voice is now pure anger, “The creator will send troops of Nirbhayas inside the wall and there will be the greatest raid after Pralaya. But I’ll be inside the troop with my soldiers and once we’ll be in the wall we’ll kill the other troops and save your families who are inside the wall.”
He seems right to everyone standing there.
“I’ve travelled in the night so we can be in this building because this building has a basement in good condition. Before you leave the building we’ll go inside the building and you will close the door from outside so when the troops will come they will think you have over smart us.” he says, “you have to fight with them once they come.”
“We can’t win them.” Uncle Akhil says.
“I’m not telling you to win them, I’m telling you to fight with them.”
“Why?” uncle Akhil says, “to be killed by them?”
“No,” Jagapati says, “to give your children time to escape.” He continues, “There are enough food packets inside the bushes. Teenagers will get their bags and fill them, with foods. They will escape from here but the troop will chase them this time you have to give the last stand so they can’t chase them. Don’t fear about running out of the food. I’ll send help once they are out of the tail.” He looks over my people, “are you ready to die for your children?”
“Yes,” the sound emerges from the crowd, in the chorus.
“I know you all are feared because you have lived life as Sunyas but,” here his voice becomes something solid, “Are you ready to be Nirbhayas at the last moment of your life?”
“Yes,” this time the chorus of the crowd is so loud, “we’ve lived as Sunyas but we don’t want to die as Sunyas.”
“Okay,” Jagapati continues, “half of the teenagers go and get food from the bushes and remaining people come inside the building and get every tool which you can use as a weapon.” He says, “Remember, this fight is not to win, not to live but only to save your sons and daughters, only to give them time to escape.”
A few tense minutes pass after Jagapati finished, like me all are in bewilderment. It’s so weirdly unusual. No Sunya has faced this moment before. Most of us are the first time in beyond the wall. We don’t know anything, anyone or anyplace here and we are supposed to run from here.
A knot of people gathers and discuss among them. Then some teenagers start towards the bus, some more follow them and the rest, mostly experienced head inside the building, following Jagapati and his soldiers.
“The rebellion has happened.” Uncle Akhli says, he sounds out of breath. “And apparently a lot Nirbhayas would come to kill us.”
“We will survive,” I say.
“Yes, you will,” he says and looks at Jalpa, “Stay with Padhma,” he again looks at me, “promise me, you’ll take care of her.”
“I’ll.” I answer, “She is my best friend and like my sister.”
He looks at Jalpa, who is sobbing, wiping tears with palms.
“Go and get food packets,” he says, “they are coming for us.”
“I’m not going,” Jalpa says among her sobs.
“You are going with teenagers.”
Jalpa shakes her head, “I’m not going without you.”
“You heard what she said.” Akhil uncle looks at me, shaking his head, “if anyone is going, it is teenagers. Doesn’t she understand?”
“Fear of death can’t split us,” Jalpa says. I’ve never expected such brave words from her.
“You are going with them. You will stay will Padhma and she will take you home. You will go back to your mother and that’s it.” He says, “I’m not going to say this twice. We have no time. They can come at any moment, now go.”
“No” Jalpa shouts, “we all stay or we all go, father.”
I look around many parents were persuading their children to go but the same behavior as Jalpa I see by half of the teenagers.
“Padhma, promise me you will take her home.” He says.
“I’ll,” I say, “what about you?”
He smiled like I had asked something kiddy “you know it.” He says.
I know what he means. His words feel like a hot ember in my heart. I’d lost my father beyond the wall. But in last month with Akhil uncle, I felt like I’m again with my father. He was taking my care as he did for his own daughter. I know once we’ll split – it ends the family. If I leave him behind I would never see him again. Like my father, I’m going to lose him but there is no other way.
I clutch Jalpa’s hand and pull her towards the bus, “we should go.”
“I won’t,” she says, resisting me with force.
“If your father will be alone maybe he can take care of himself but if you are with him he will surely die in protecting you,” I say, shouting at her.
She hesitates but doesn’t speak.
“Do you want to be a reason for your father’s death?” I ask.
“no.” a sob escapes her mouth and mine too.
“Then let’s go,” I say and I walk towards the bus, pulling and dragging Jalpa with me, her feet are walking with me but the heart isn’t. Still, her head is back, looking at her father. I know how it feels when you know you are about to lose your father. Perhaps no one knows it better than I do know.
***
to be continue...
