Cry With Me

"Oh I forgot the mushrooms!"

I stopped in my tracks. My friend laughed lightly. 

"Its OK!" She reassured. "It will be delicious even without the mushrooms."

We are to travel together, by bus from Dharamshala to Delhi and we are planning what eats we should carry with us. Travelling with friends can be such fun that even the thought of it is enjoyable and we cannot contain our glee.

I'll cook Maggi and carry it."  I announce and mentally plan: Maggi with olive oil to ease the guilt and lots of capsica, cheese and of course mushrooms. But I forgot the mushroom. 
"Koi nahin!" the friend again assured me.

As I cook the Maggi here in my kitchen under the mountains, I cannot gather the same joy I had felt while planning for it. Not today. Not now. This morning as I had sauntered into my office, mind full of the prospect of cheese laden Maggi on a long comfy busride with a friend, I had no inkling what this day had in store.

"Did you hear the news?" my colleague enquired.

I looked at him askance.

"There's been a terrorist attack at Sunjuwan. Soldiers and their families have been fatally wounded!!!"

Sunjuwan???

I did not know how to react.Just six months back,  I had been there. Taking a lecture on some health issue for the wives of officers and soldiers. 

There were people I  knew, friends and acquaintances who lived near by. 

I did not  say much. But it was a shock. And then the whole day was spent in the tedious job of trying to find out who was hurt and where. News kept pouring in, trickling in, a soldier dead, another hit on the chest, a soldier's mother injured by a  bullet, a little boy, a soldier's son battling for life with a bullet wound to his head, another young woman, a daughter hit by bullets..... ....

We are a dispassionate lot, we doctors. We are so used to dealing with the darker side of life that there is nothing that shocks us, hurts us or shatters us...So I worked, diligently, completely detached and then returned home in that same absolutely normal frame of mind.

But here over that pan of yellow Maggi, I began to think and to crumble....

Ayesha died alongwith with her father, a junior commissioned officer. * 

A few days back,  a JCO had come to meet me. 
"Madam, he had said, "My daughter is studyng for her NEET entrance examinations. Could you guide her? She is a good girl. She is working very hard."

 I had of course been more than willing to help.

I do not know how old Ayesha was.  

Was she like this young woman, studying for her NEET PG? Did she wake up today morning with visions of mathematic sums and complex chemical formulas of organic chemistry dancing in her head? Did she make tea for herself and her Dad, warm tea on this cold February morning? Did her mother tell her, "Eat something with your tea, Ayesha. You know how tea on an empty stomach makes you retch?"

My mother would always tell me this when I was studying for my entrance examinations.

Am I sounding a little garbled? Quite possible.

Well, this post is not going to be about nuanced language, about literature, about an attempt at literary art......Today I will write without frill, without acrobatics withour jugglery. I will write without any effort at being contrived. For I need to vent, to reach out to you, to tell you what I feel....An in doing that, if I am garbled, then let it so be.

Nayana was hit with bullets. Her father too was shot. 
She lived. 
He died. 
Bled to death.
Her age I know. 22 years.

You know Jaya, she of the 'An Evening Walk in the Hills' fame? Jaya is thirty. To me she is a kid. What then is a twenty two year old like? 

How was I at twenty two? In college, struggling with Medicine, Surgery and Obstetrics. Cramming all night.  Staying awake on Maggi and beaten coffee. Tottering over Pune in my waif like two wheeler Sunny. Crushing gleefully on seniors, college-mates and teachers. Exploring feelings, tastes and dangers. Losing my Dad was not a possibility in my twenty two year old mind. To lie bleeding and watch him bleed, dying slowly was not a consideration even in my most horrendous nightmare.

What would I have done in had I been Nayana's mother? Coco Chanel, how old is your daughter?

And that little boy, only fourteen struggling in the ICU of the military hospital at Jammu, what of him? 

I do not know whether little Sunil can think right at this moment, whether his injuries permit him to be coherent. If he is thinking, is he wondering, "Who are these people, Papa, who put a bullet through my head? I have not been that naughty Papa.  It's true that I sneaked a smoke behind your back and spent the whole day chomping on Lays chips, but how grave are my these crimes? Are they why they wanted to kill me ? Or is it because I am your son and you wear the combat uniform? Papa?"

Who are these people who kill without qualm, who kill for ideals  I cannot understand, who kill without discriminating, who can die just to be able to kill? 

Just now, I cannot figure out the answer. I am too exhausted. My eyes hurt and there is a stale taste in my mouth. These things that divide us, why do they divide us, divide us so sharply that they pollute, convolute and distort humans into ugly things without soul and without feeling, take away our humanity make us monsters who defy description? I do not have an answer.  And I cannot do anything about it. Nothing.

Young people die everyday. They die of disease, of accidents, of murder and sometimes they die wilfully. They get hurt too, in so many different ways. What happened in Sunjuwan today maybe just another unfortunate thing for you. But it has made me incredibly sad today. I don't feel any other emotion within me, no anger, no thirst for vengeance, nothing; just an endless gut wrenching sadness and a sense of futility. 

My Delhi bound bus has just left Dharamshala. It weaves slowly down the winding mountain road as people around me talk, laugh, surf...The bus is warm, the city lights twinkle, the Maggi with cheese and capsicum secure in the overhead shelf and all is well. But I have no sense of assurance, no craving for it just now. My friend is gazing out of the window, letting me type. I've excused myself for a bit, telling her " I'll just finish the post and then we can gossip." But my mind's not on it.

I gaze out of the oversized Volvo window, my eyes filmed over and think, "I've cultivated this bad habit of entreating my blog readers to leave a comment each time I publish a post. But this time, for this post, I'll not ask you for a comment. This time, I'll beg you to think about Nayana. And Ayesha. And Sunil. 

This time I"ll only ask : Cry with me.......

PS* Errata. No young woman was killed. That was misinformation caused by the initial chaos. The brave young woman was hit on her leg and survived. God bless her.

The little boy, though is still fighting his terrible wounds till today. Pray for him.