The stench was overpowering.
The smell of charred earth flapped like a wet rag against her senses,
suffocating, dreadful. The paddies had
only scorched stumps left. The thatched
cottages had been reduced to ruined mounds. The trees stood stripped of leaves,
branches blackened and deformed, clawing the sky, strangely skeleton-like. Sukhada suddenly came upon a half-burnt
forearm stuck in the charred lower undergrowth, the flesh bloated, horribly
mottled in pink and black, crawling with flies.
Battling nausea, she clapped a handful of her saree over her nose and
quickened her steps.
Her ancestral home was one of three brick and mortar
buildings in the village, the others being the post office and the school. It was a rambling residence, generations had
added a wing here, a room there, modified it to suit them over the
centuries.
It was shaped loosely like an E, the three bars of the
letter forming the three main wings. The
outer wing facing the main gate housed the sitting rooms, one large for the
men’s use every evening, and a more intimate family room. There was also a small schoolroom for the
children and another one that served as an office. The middle wing was mostly
bedrooms, a day room given over for the women’s use, the central one a small
shrine. The last wing comprised
servants’ rooms and the bathrooms. The
spine of the E were the kitchens – vegetarian and non-vegetarian strictly segregated,
the store rooms, another with the paddy-mill.
Tucked between the women’s wing and baths, was the small ante-room used by
generations for music. The entire house had deep, wrap-around verandas, so that
all rooms were accessible from the verandas as well as from each other.
Sukhada stopped where the main gate had been, and looked at
what remained. The entry gaped
open, the walls were charred black, a heap of burnt rubble. The graceful louvered windows had been
reduced to cinders along with their frames, the terrible heat had distorted the
wrought iron bars before they had worked loose and fallen in a tangle of
metal. Sukhada’s head swam as she
recalled the postcard.
'They
were more than fifty strong, armed with machetes and torches. They dragged the menfolk out. Our esteemed mother protested, and was shoved
back. She fell and stayed
motionless. They went through all the
rooms, helped themselves to what they wanted.
I hid behind the sitar, huddled under the dust-cloth and recited
the Durganaam, thinking if the Goddess wishes my baby to be born She will
let me complete the chants. The house
became quiet presently. I went to our mother and called her but she made no answer.
I found
Moga outside, she has brought me with her, I am writing from her home, but it
is not a secure position. I lit the pyre
for our mother as there were no other males present, the priest said no sin
would attach to me and more importantly, affect the little one. I am much dispirited, Sister.'
Room after room lay in ruins, furniture reduced to kindling,
cherished items made worthless, dust and ashes. Sukhada felt a terrifying hand
squeeze her heart in a constricting grip.
What had happened after the postcard was written? Was the letter-writer
safe when the burning was going on?
Her grandmother’s elegantly carved rosewood four-poster lay
in a brutally burnt heap, the exquisite scrolled carving of vines against the raw
grain of the split wood like an obscene wound.
She could not bear to look, yet she could not tear her eyes away from
the destruction, hypnotised by the horror.
In her brother’s bedroom, someone had brought out the old
rocking horse and given it a fresh coat of paint. The mob had decapitated it, and she stumbled
over the mutilated, partly scorched head, the blackened mouth had been split
open in a ghastly travesty of a grin, parts of the remaining gaily-painted red
harness seemed like oozing blood. She ran along the veranda with her heart
thudding.
She paused at the threshold of the music room, it too had
not escaped. The doors had been taken
off their hinges with blows that had cleaved the frame, the windows looked out
onto the veranda black and hollow like the empty eye sockets of a skull.
Sukhada felt dizzy, all her fears heightened to a crescendo of panic. She stepped over the doorsill.
The mindless destruction had left its evidence all around
the walls here as well. A collection of flutes
that had hung in a case had been torn off and set alight. The drums and harmonium were similarly
defaced and burnt. Sukhada walked, astonished,
towards the centre where a small but exquisitely made carpet was laid. She recalled many hours sitting on it practising,
strumming the sitar. The instrument was still there, its dustcover
disturbed, bunched up over the neck. The
full, round gourd rested on the carpet exposed, but intact.
It sat on the carpet unscathed as though on an island
untouched by the ocean of wreckage around it.
She sat down beside the sitar
and picked it up. The strings came alive
at her touch and she drew the few first notes of a favourite raga in
unpractised fingers. She had not played
in a long time, the instrument was not tuned, but still the strings felt warm
and quivery under her hand, eager to lighten the weight in her heart, to
resonate with her grief. She laid her
head upon its neck and finally abandoned herself to uncontrollable weeping.
~~~
