ishakhemkablog

1.

Rani outstretched her palms over the stream’s edge. Young ripples danced through the small crevices between her fingers and ushered away her thoughts of worry. She smiled silently to herself.

It wasn’t as warm in Amritsar in July, but India could never be cold, at least to her. She felt solace in the perpetual embrace of its warmth.

Rani sat cross legged. She left everything that had happen to simmer under her favourite sun, her breath baited and heart sinking but content.

She remembered hr mother meticulously tending to her older sister’s wedding sari, then she forgot. 

It was a pleasant and perfect interval from life, the only place where she found respite from the world.  

As she flicked the cool water off her fingertips, the first rays of dawn unveiled the golden temple in all its splendour, casting a gentle glow over the serene waters below, leaving it bathed in a gentle luminescence. An expanse of brilliantly yellow and fuchsia hues, swirling along the tepid water and blessing the horizon with the magnificent colour. The mandir’s watercolour blended into its reflection and hummed a tune from below the water. Enveloped in the temple’s serene embrace, Rani basked in the silence of Amritsar. No more shouting.

Her eyes scanned the sky and hovered upon a family of miniature figures,floating around with effortless grace,  parading their domain freely, darting back and forth and diving and frolicking with a freedom, a joy that enticed her. Parakeets. Their gleeful antics a testament to the beauty of simple pleasures. 

They rose and soared rapidly picking up their pace , bouncing between exuberance and blundering youth, cascading the clouds.

Rani anticipated their arrival, a smile forming softly on her face, over her cheeks.

One screech, a shrivelled and shrill screech, a gunshot in her ear, her smile slapped away and she was back to her reality.

2.

The morning of Baisakhi- 3 months ago

Papa is a freedom fighter, when he is not a farmer, which is hardly ever but nevertheless.He tends to his crops, to his cattle, to his sheep and to his children, and to India.

Today is Baisakhi, he is grinning and so I grin back harder, I accidentally bite myself.

The other uncles are home for breakfast, my ma makes fresh pirathas with piping hot masala chai. She woke up very early specially for today, the day of spring harvest, or happiness and prosperity for all of agriculture.  Disrupting their mature greetings, I joyfully scream and tumble barefoot into our garden, pushing past my sisters and bolting towards the mango tree. They realise and chase after me bitterly. I hoist myself up the tree, my knees graize against the trunk and I wrap my dupatta a few times around my neck. My sisters join, squabbling about who gets what, but I tune out of their high pitched argument.

Those glimmering alfonso mangos, just ripe, all for us. We promised papa we would wait for today, but at this moment I can’t wait any longer. I reach out across the spindly branch and pluck one from the heights of the tree. I marvel at the thing in my palm, before I impatiently rip past its skin and bite into its saccharine flesh. It’s perfectly ripe and juicy, bursting with sugared flavour.

I skip back to the adults, my uncles slightly horrified at the sight of three teenagers breaking into a brawl over a few pieces of fruit. I coat my voice in honey and thank papa. He pats my neck and blesses us all, he wishes for a good day.

This will be a good day. I can tell.

3.

The uncles converse, they talk about their wishes to be free, desires for a better India. Papa commands that they will all join a protest today to do our part for our home, my ma doesn’t bat an eyelid, she knows they are safe. He says that the protest is against an act in which  police could imprison anyone for any reason, I almost scream at how meaningless India has become. I don’t remember what life was like before all of this, probably because I wasn’t born then. The uncles cackle when I tell them about my home: India, how the people would laugh, pray, eat familiar food, spin around in the blazing sun and each night fall in love with life once more. I dream of it a lot. At school,at home, at day, at night, in bed.

I chime in and ask papa if I can come, he says yes.

So I run upstairs and change into nicer clothes. My sister rolls her eyes.

When I come back downstairs, the uncles are by the door, sliding on their slippers. I chase after them out of the door. “Be safe” my mother pleads, I wonder why she says that this time, after all I’ve tagged along countless times.

They march along the road, boasting their crops to  each other as they pass their homes: pulses, wheat, mangos. A display of prosperity to bless the new year, our novelty plants.

My papa says something like a chant, at the back of the uncles  I didn’t quite understand what he said, but I felt a fiery proudness in my chest as I watched them all eagerly listen and repeat after him.

I try to repeat but I’m not sure if what comes out of my mouth is even coherent. I’m embarrassed I even spoke.

Their faces are turned from me, I’m talking to their broad necks and heavy backs. I appreciate that they didn’t hear me.

One day when I’m older, I will know how to speak well, and they will listen, just like they do for him.

We trudge along for what feels like hours, my skin bakes in the heat, I’m sure I have become darker than in the morning.

I know we are close when I hear loud choral chants, familiar Punjabi words. I feel so tall. Papa grabs my hand.

Jallianwala Bagh is my favourite square in the entirety of Amritsar,  a hive of my people, buzzing eagerly, no-one here is alike yet they shout the same words harmoniously. All, here for the one shared reason, with the desire to be free and once again I am filled with a shimmering pride.I can’t help but marvel at the sheer number of farmers,papas, sons, daughters, mamas here, at this same moment, at this same place,breathing the same humid air as I am. I am ecstatic to be part of this, I feel whole. When that old man speaks, my voice comes out.

4.

On the 13th of April 1919 at 5:30 pm, the Jallianwala Bagh massacre happened. A vast crowd gathered to peacefully protest the imprisonment of two freedom leaders. Troops fired 1650 rounds at 10,000 Indian men, women and children, with 329 deaths and countless injuries. Two days after the massacre, Martial Law was clamped down on five districts – Lahore, Amritsar, Gujranwala, Gujarat and Lyallpore. The declaration of Martial Law was to empower the Viceroy to direct immediate trial by court-martial of any person involved in the revolutionary activities.

5.

After Baisakhi

Rani was still holding her fathers hand, but it wasn’t as mellow and soft , it was falling out her her clasp and gradually drooping to the side. She had sat there for thirty minutes, waiting for him to wake up, to pat her neck with his coarse hands and comfort her but instead she watched him slip away,out of her grip, onto the dirt.

She overheard the murmurs of the survivors and savoured the final simple sounds the corpses hummed out before they sank away, she locked them away into her memories, wisdom only she possessed.

Rani’s blurry eyes’s swollen and brimming with sour tears protected her, turned the awful bodies, dressed with colourful turbans into blobs of shapes, like her paintings at school. When her eyes ran out of liquid, she couldn’t help but glimpse at the lifeless forms which used to be children that lay scattered across the square like pick up sticks: a game she used to play at lunch with them, when they were still alive.

Her sari marred with crimson, Rani lingered amidst the solemn symphony of chirping birds, their mournful tweets serving as a lament for the following.

She could not understand how a place that provided her with such refuge and hope, with so much life could turn into a graveyard so quickly. It was so still.

Never had Amritsar felt as far away from her as then.

She collapsed onto her fathers disfigured back ignoring the horrible clicking sound it made, the silence of the square patiently echoed the screams, screeches, floods and floods of tears, a torrent of sorrow streaming down her cheeks.

She wished nothing more to be free.