The Assasination

                My name is Reheman, Reheman Choudhry. I was born on a chilly January morning in 1970. I am a 14 years old now. My mother says i am old enough to take on the world. She has a lot of expectations from me, I being the only one to take care of her. My father passed a month before i was born. So I am destined to be the sole bread winner of my family. Until a month back I was confident I could indeed take the world at a go. But now I am not so sure. I am writing this story as a boy who has lost all his confidence and sanity about the rights and wrongs in this world. Please bear with me... I am frightened.

                I am a Muslim. Yeah... u may say...”Choudhry?”... But yes I am a Muslim. I live in a small village named Mirpur that is 80 kms away from Calcutta. My family migrated from Bangladesh (at that time it was West Pakistan... I know some history).

                I had a normal childhood. Well except that my father was dead... he was killed during the civil war in Bangladesh... that’s when Ammijan came to West Bengal. I don’t know much about it... Ammi won’t tell me much about it... well as I was saying i had a pretty nice childhood. I went to school every day, I am obedient to Ammijan. I played with my friends in my locality. It was all good until a month back when I witnessed the brazen face of society.

                I didn’t know for a long time what difference does being a Muslim make... hell, I didn’t even know that I was a Muslim... Sometimes when I saw my friends mothers wearing a big round bindi on their forehead like all Bengali women do, I came back to house and asked my mother why she didn’t were one. Of course I didn’t know that this was not a part of the Muslim culture. I sometimes felt uncomfortable seeing my Ammijan clad in burqha from head to toe. You see, Ammijan is beautiful... why she did have to hide from everyone I had no idea... I wish today I could go back to those days of ignorance. Ignorance indeed is bliss...

                You may be thinking this is going another story of how the Hindus have oppressed the Muslims. Well no it isn’t... in fact this is the story about how the first time I was happy to be a Muslim... and that is also the sad part.

                There was a grocery store just round the corner where I lived... Somesh Grocery store... it was the social hub of our locality... everybody came in for groceries and shared their interesting piece of gossip with each other. People from all spheres of life, let it be the local postman, the sarpanch of the village or the daily labourer... all came in for the groceries. I loved the place

                His name was Surienderji. Well that is what we kids called him... he was a 60 years shikh who had migrated from Lahore during the time of partition. He lived some distance away from my home. He had no kids of family... he lived alone. He was a very jovial man. When he came to the store he was very friendly with me and Somesh. He asked us about our studies. He gave us a lot of advices from all his worldly knowledge. He always used to say “ tussi dono thik se padho, vade vade afficer banoge ik din“. We loved Surienderji. He never had any shortage of any jokes. We used to laugh till our ribs cracked. He was very well known among the kids as well as other people in our locality. we sometimes offer to carry his groceries to his house. he always came in the store to always buy bread and eggs only. He was like a father figure to me.

                A month from today, when I woke up, I knew that something has happened. It was October 31^st. The streets were deserted. No kids were playing outside... everything was quite...all I could hear was the distant roar of an angry mob... I asked Ammijan what had happened. She said that our prime minister Indria Gandhi had been assassinated by 2 of her sikh guard. I don’t know much about politics... I knew her though... I read about her in school that she was the first lady prime minister of India... Ammijan said that all over Bengal riots have started and there was killings’ going on everywhere... at that time every Sikh was a potential target. I was very frightened...

                It was late in the evening when all hell broke loose... Ammijan was reading her namaz and I was fiddling with my books, when suddenly we started hearing angry shouts and slogans everywhere. A group of nearly 50 people with flaming torches and some with swords in their hands were shouting slogans and abuses. Some were saying “they killed indiraji... we will kill them all”, some were saying “maro salon ko “. Ammijan looked frightened... I went beside her... we both sat with bated breaths and terrified to our cores.

Then suddenly we heard the angry mob slamming doors open... they were entering into people’s houses. We heard loud banging upon our door... we were so terrified that we couldn’t move. The bangings grew louder...” Darwaza kholo nahi to ghar jala denge”... finally Ammijan stood up shaking from head to toe and opened the door. 3 men with torches in their hand forced in to the room. Their  faces were covered in scarves. One of them asked to Ammijan “ tu sikh hai?”. Ammijan was too terrified to answer anything. The  goon asked again. No answer. The goon came towards me and asked me...” tu sikh hai na ?”.. at this the motherly instinct surpassed and Ammijan freed herself from the clutches of fear. She embraced me and said desperately...” hum musalmaan hai... hum musalmaan hai “... she cried in desperation and fear. The goons looked at my mother.. they didn’t believe her... they talked among themselves, maybe deciding our life or death. Then one of them looked at me. With a hideous grin almost visible beneath his scarves he said to me to drop down my pants. I was too terrified and to move or think. Somehow Ammijan snapping out of her fear and understanding something that I didn’t understand unbuttoned my pants and pulled it down over my rigid body. I was too panic-stricken to feel ashamed. One of the demons took a hard look and I don’t know why but he looked satisfied. With savage grin on their faces and laughing among themselves, the left our cottage.

                With shivering hands i pulled up my pant and buttoned up... my mother was crying uncontrollablely. Wiping the tears from my eyes I sat beside and tried to console her. She embraced me and cried a lot more. I also cried but hid my tears. After all I was the man of the family. That night neither Ammijan nor I could sleep. With the angry mob running through the streets with torches in their hand and shouting slogans, we couldn’t wink an eye. In the morning everything seemed eerie calm. Ammijan wouldn’t let me go out to the streets. I lay in my bed; churning in my mind the events of the past day... I couldn’t understand how could people change into animals overnight.

                After 3 day when the situation went back to normal... there were no more angry people with torches running on the street but things had changed. Not many people were out on the streets... everybody was always looking over their shoulders all the time. Elders were having discussions in groups all the time... they wouldn’t allow us kids anywhere near them..

                After 2 weeks everything went back to normal. Children played on the streets.  People went back to doing their normal chores... the grocery store was again full of people and full of chatter but all one could take about was the riots and how many Sikhs had died and how the massacre was still going on... I knew that Surienderji was a sikh as he wore a turban but I was too afraid to ask anyone about him. So I hung around the grocery, desperate for any news in him. Disappointed I was about to leave I suddenly heard someone saying” arrey pata hai  surienderji k saath kya hua?”  I ran back to hear. What I heard shook me to my roots. I started shivering... my legs couldn’t take my weight any longer. I collapsed. The people around noticing came to my rescue. The picked me up and splashed water on my face. I recovered; and then I started running... I ran past my home. With tears in my eyesi couldn’t even see where i was going. Finally I collapsed some 2 km from my home on a deserted road side...

                I didn’t know why the two Sikhs killed Indira Gahdhi. I also don’t know why the rioters had killed all the other Sikhs who had nothing to do with the assassination... why they burned down all the houses and destroyed all their lives. All I knew was that they had chopped off his hands. The mob had chopped off both the hands of the 60 year old Surienderji. They had left him to bleed. He  was in the hospital now. He had no one to take care of him. Everybody was fearful tend to him lest he or she will be targeted next.

                I thought of all these as I sat beside the deserted road. My tears had long dried up. For the first time in my life I was thankful that I was a Muslim and not a sikh. With all the strength I could muster I stood up on my weak knees and dragged myself to home. Ammijan was making biriyani for dinner. I didn’t eat dinner. I lay on my bed pondering about the biriyanis, Indira Gandhi, sikhs, muslims, the masked goons, Surenderji, the arms of Surinderji............