The finished hour
It was 3 a.m. and I was sleeping cozily in my bed when all of a sudden I heard screams and shouts from the roadside. A stone came hurtling in, crashing through the window; and I knew those shattered glass splinters were doom.
As I ascended the steps to the Kaal Bhairav temple, he twirled me and pushed us into the shadow of a languid tree. The dusk befallen shaded us any ways and the crowd for evening aarti hurried to tolling bells. At this hour in Ujjaini, every chore stopped, every pair of hands joined to worship the angry god, every being with faith in the Lord of Time' turned this way to pray and offer liquor to mellow Kaal Bhairav's anguish.
"Going to pray for me?"
He asked. I nodded.
"Why?"
"Just as you pray for me five times a day"
I whispered and moved on, musing to myself of his adoring stunned reaction.
The glass lay splattered around my room and the sky outside my window lighted up in a strange orange light; what terrified me though was the horrible howling. I rolled over in bed, lonely and scared as I was, to cover myself with the blanket and let the noises pass. They didn't.
The cries become stronger, harsher. Someone from below shouted that we were seized. How that was possible, I knew not. Until the sounds of Allah' Bismillah' and Khuda ke liye kaafiron ko maaro' reverberated into my room through the creaked glass of the window.
Phone, I searched frantically for my phone.
"Haan ji"
I chuckled at his tone and the way he said those two words. They held so much promise, so much welcoming in them even when we were a long phone call apart.
"I am going to the town fair"
"You know I wouldn't be able to come. Market mein aaj badi bheed lagegi"
"Work, work. Tum toh bilkul boodhi aatma ho"
He chuckled. I smiled, knowing he couldn't see.
"Kya karen, ab aapko bhi saari zindagi isi boodhi aatma ke saath rehna padega"
Before I could reach the phone, another object was hurled in. I shielded my face with both hands but the stone like object fell onto the other side of my bed. A suffocating feeling engulfed me even before I knew; the stone I thought ticked and disseminated curling smoke. I doubled over in cough and ran to the windows; the soles of my feet cutting on shattered glass. Vaguely I was terrified of the injection I would have to take later when the pieces of glass were removed.
"Wahan! Woh rahi ek hindu"
A sharp accusation echoed from the street even before I could take notice of the fire and the men, of fighting and swords, of crying and bodies dead or alive I wouldn't know until I went down. Instinctively I turned behind the curtains and my back hit the wall. I cupped a hand to my mouth in terror as I thought it was the end. What do you do when your family is away and the town that you live in, that has lived in harmony for centuries suddenly erupts in communist flames? What do you do when in the dead of night there is no escape?
I stole myself from the late lectures on hearing the sound of Azaan and ran to surprise him. As he emerged from the mosque unknotting the white cloth from over his head, his dark eyes rested on me and crinkled in mirth. I was ecstatic, shy too.
We then sneaked behind the holy tomb of an old Sufi saint; sitting in the streaming light of filigree carved tall walls as he gazed at me in awe and what I knew was love.
"Aksar main socha karta hoon ki tum mujhe kisi neki ke badle mil gayi ho"
He said
"Par phir khayal aata hai ki tum hi toh meri neki ho"
I blushed.
The door of my house was pounded outside; I ran and locked the room door. I heard the door broken and wild noises, words exchanged that meant they had seen me and searched for me now. Save me, someone save me. I prayed to that lord of time who sat as the guardian to the threshold of life and death.
"Main chahti hoon ki ab se zindagi ki har subah tume shuru ho aur har rat tum pe khatam"
I told him one afternoon in our little hiding behind college. He smiled and took my hand in his.
"I promise they will"
Then when he went away, he didn't come back the way he was. His cousin in UP was burnt alive, the Babri Masjid demolished.
Now they were at my door, the hinges shook on their frame, their pounding grew insistent, the abuses and their animalistic cries tore every nerve ending in me that was surviving to live. I curled behind the curtain but when the door started coming apart at the seams. I had no option left but to go and try a last chance at life. I plastered myself against the door in dire desperation, the shouts became louder; the howling down in the street all the more dangerous. It was like the Tandav of an angry lord.
Muslims all over turned against Hindus and he turned with his group. He called once, to tell me he was never coming back.
The door vibrated once and froze. And just when I thought that it would not break, it turned on me and I was flung back into the room, falling on my hands and knees over shattered glass. I cried in terror, those perpetrators howled in excitement. A hand fisted in my hair and I came face to face with those dark eyes that had prayed for me five times a day to his god and for whom I had prayed to mine. They were blood shot, doused in a fire of their own. He slapped me hard. I fell back again.
"Jao. Ise main
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