Posted:
i simply loved forgiveness... Emotions of all three so beautifully expressed... fabulous...
This part of the OS: Yesterday--Forgiveness is a continuation from the Yesterday: Prisoner (Part 1) events, where Paro is starving in her cell. Please refresh your memory, if you need to, by reading the following link (the Yesterday part on (Prisoner Part 1--Pg 1) https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/topic/3903027
Please please tell me what you think of the return of the cruel, totally heartness Jallad of my imagination--brick bats and demands welcome!! PLEASE don't tell me to !!UPDATE!! as a comment--that drives me crazy! Thats not a comment, my wonderful readers--thats pouting, that is!
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YESTERDAY (PART 1): Major Ranawat's office was always oddly pristine. Aman privately thought that there was the army version of organized,
and the Rudra version of organized. The latter was so much more extreme than
the former it actually put BSD's high military standards to shame. Aman, no fool, believed that the over
the top spartan, almost obsessive tidiness and efficiency of the Major's office
and private quarters was a symptom of his commanding officer's mania for complete control over everything,
right down to his personal space. To be right, to be in control, to be the
victor. Rudra lived to embody all three. And all these were elements Aman was hoping to
shatter, now, with his news.
"She has fainted, sir. You instructed that she be
given no food until she talked. Well, she is talking all right, in the BSD
dispensary. She is talking total gibberish, we've made her so weak from denying
her rations, she is delirious. Her constable Ram Mohan checked her cell to
refresh her water, and found her collapsed on the floor. She is weak,
malnourished and out of her mind with hunger, Sir. We have tortured her enough.
She keeps calling for her Mamisa, for Rukhmini and Bindi.
I asked Kesari Ram,
he confirms that she is an orphan, brought up after her parents' death by her dead
Mama and Mami. Bindi is some village girl who Parvati grew up with, but Kesari
Ram does not know who Rukmini is, he thinks it might be the name of her
cousin. But even in this state, if I
approach her wearing a BSD uniform, she screams and begs me to not kill her or
her parents. Delirious, sir. I have given the BSD medical staff permission to
give her nutrients and protein supplements. We'll end up killing her, sir, if
we keep this up. I don't think she knows anything."
Knowing very well that the order for the starvation of Prisoner Parvati Vader
had come from Major Ranawat himself, Aman kept his anger to himself as he
informed his superior officer about the Prisoner's condition. He would have to
stop this treatment now, Aman thought. It was not just inhuman---it had not even
worked. She had said nothing---insisted
she knew nothing. She begged to be released, and fought every suggestion with a
combination of innocence and confusion.
Even the other officers
taking part in the questioning were privately starting to question the
logic of the torture. The Major, watching everything, day and night, had
not wavered from his conviction about what he was doing.
No one else had the guts to come to Rudra
with this---and now Parvati had physically crumbled. Two weeks had passed. The
young Bride, already shell-shocked when she came into the BSD HQ had suffered
as no other prisoner in the BSD cells ever had. The daily questionings, the lights kept constantly
bright in the cell to cause sleep deprivation. The lack of any contact other
than the BSD officers interrogating her. The unnatural chill of the cell. And
the worst element of it all---the constant, deadly, silent presence of the man she
called the Jallad, the vicious monster who had killed 37 people in 20 minutes in
front of the terrified village girl.
He was the psychological stressor that the Prisoner had been under, and she had
finally collapsed. Secretly Aman was shocked by the fact that Parvati had even held
out for two weeks. If he had been in her place, he knew he probably would have
given in earlier, especially with the Major's special, pitiless brand of
cruelty and interrogation. Aman thought that he would not have been able to
hold out under normal circumstances--It was all the more torturous for Parvati
since she was so utterly terrified of Rudra. Rudra did not give her a moments'
peace, or privacy--- he watched her every humiliation, her every questioning,
he heard her every weak request for food or
protest of innocence, her every begging cry for her freedom. And he was
the one to deny them all.
***************************************************
"Nutrients. Hmm. Good idea. She
can rest, and be given the oral salines, carbs and all the liquids she needs.
She should be back on her feet after, what? 12 hours? After that, she can be
moved to the observation room here, for her interrogations to continue. But
unless and until she speaks, she cannot have food.
And tell Ram Mohan I know he
has been secretly giving her the leftovers from the other BSD prisoners, Aman.
I didn't say anything, I've known about it since the first time he stole the
discarded rotis and put it under newspapers to smuggle to her cell. I thought it would help build trust between
her and him, and we could use that later. But it's useless, she is too clever to
fall for the old tricks. So tell him, he cannot feed her "donations" anymore,
or he will find himself needing blood donations once I'm done with him."
Aman drew in a deep breath. He knew, of course. Everyone knew. It was not an
urban legend it if was true, and each raw recruit in the Indian Army had heard
rumors of, and then seen the truth for himself if he served in the BSD division
for long enough. Cruelty, ruthlessness,
efficiency, a total lack of any human emotions, inhuman drive and icy,
frightening self-control---all those qualities meant Rudra Pratap Ranawat. But
to know it, and to see it in action were different things. The sheer callousness, the brutality of the man was shocking.
Aman was a good
officer, a loyal army man. He had lost comrades in the Birpur massacre, he
still wore a sling from his own injury from the Encounter. He admired Rudra,
more than he could express. Loved the man, like a brother, even, as much as it
was possible. But he could not do this to a young girl. Not anymore, not just
on suspicions, and not to someone who (he was starting to worry), might just be
innocent.
"Sorry sir. I dont agree with you here. I don't think this is the right tactic
to take with the Prisoner Parvati. I think we are crossing a moral line that
will be difficult to justify to later---to even ourselves, Sir. Also, sir, ek aur baath--- if there is even the smallest chance she is
completely innocent of any terrorist activity, completely unknowing of the
actions of her village, what we have already done---Bhagwan bhi hum sab ko forgive nahi karenge, Sir.
Lets try some
other areas of investigation. Kesari Ram is giving us some small leads which we
are ignoring in favor of interrogating Parvati. I want to follow up on those,
give the girl a chance to recuperate."
*************************************************
A perfect silence greeted Aman. Anxiously, warily, he looked at Rudra. He had
never in his entire career refused a direct order from an officer, and he was
doing so now, for the first time, with the deadly Major Ranawat. It was not
just career suicide---with Rudra's infamous temper, it could very well be actual
suicide. Rudra stared at his junior officer with unreadable eyes for a few
minutes, and then a small smile broke across his face. Aman was so relieved at the smile, he did not stop to examine the strange tone of the command that followed it.
"Sure Aman. Its good of you to alert me to your
views. I will think over what you have said. I think you should focus on
Kesari-Ram and the leads he gives, in the meantime, the Prisoner can recover
her strength. Dismissed."
Startled, but very happy at being heard,
Aman left with his new orders.
************************************************
Rudra had been sitting at his desk, going through the border incident reports when Aman had come in with the news. He now returned to them, his mind
furiously working on this new problem of the Prisoner, and her sudden new
champion---his own Aman!! Outwardly calm, internally Rudra was seething with a
frustrated, baffled rage that actually left him shaking with its intensity. But,
as with everything else, Rudra ruthlessly suppressed even this reaction, swallowed this rage.
Parvati.
This was her new defiance, then? How intelligently played!! The collapse, the
tears, the protests of innocence. And the dead men, the men for whom Aman had
wept as he had laid them on their funeral pyres---were they all forgotten due
to one pair of tear soaked eyes? Aman
Bhaiya, she called him right? Rudra sneered at the softness Aman had just
shown him due to the prisoner's mind-games. The brothers Parvati probably cared
about were the ones already buried in the unmarked graves the BSD had dug for the terrorists
Rudra had killed. Those were her brothers---the men who had come to take
her back with them. They would have sexually abused her, used and discarded her, but those men she trusted with her life, and
with her loyalty. More proof, of her being sick, being a traitor.
And the BSD brothers---the
men Rudra had himself brought home, in body bags? Those were not honorable men,
good patriotic men, deserving of the tenderness being shown to the traitor Parvati
now?? Rudra returned to his reports, a part of him chewing away at this new
problem, the one of Aman losing his head, and reacting like this.
******************************************************
Since the blood soaked morning that had netted the Major 37 dead baratis, five
dead BSD soldiers, and one terrified captured Bride, Rudra had been tracking the
movements of the Baraats out of Birpur for the previous years. The common
factor---the brides always left at the same time every year, and that this
practice was almost 18 years old---was not the only detail that stood out from
Rudra's obsessive search into past records.
He had spotted, through night after
night of meticulous, tireless checking, that the movements of eight other
villages or small towns along this strip of the border between India and
Pakistan replicated exactly this pattern. One party coming into India, every
year from across the border, taking away one bride, leaving with at least ten
more luggage-carts than what the baraatis entered with. And with the girl, of
course. Always a cross border bride---a young, beautiful girl from the village
or the town, a girl who was never heard from again.
Birpur was only the tip of
what was clearly a massive movement of guns, terrorists, dirty money laundering
and possibly even drug and prostitution-trafficking. This was an insidious, poisonous and deeply imbedded
evil, one that had its roots in not just Birpur, but existed within an entire Indian
region. And it was an evil stretching back decades.
And the one witness to any of this was Parvati Vader, the suspected terrorist,
and the terrorized suspect in their holding cell. The woman who was the key to
cracking this--and the woman who would not crack.
**********************************************
Rudra stirred from his desk, his muscles finally seizing in protest from the
hours he had spent on his reports, maps and detailed interviews from other BSD
border camps. Two weeks had passed,
since Parvati had been caught. Having brought her in himself, catatonic with
shock and weeping with fear, Rudra had given Prisoner Parvati less then one hour
to crack like an egg and spill everything she knew about the Thakur's plans. She was alone, captured red-handed, with smuggled
gun barrels and a trunk full of bank notes in payment for them.
It was over, as far as she was concerned, and she had to know that. He had been
positive that she would not be able to resist the BSD questioning--or his
interrogation tactics. She was guilty and also---she was so...well, small !! So young and helpless. He had
seen her in the rear-view mirror, the slender wrists bound in the rope he had
wrapped them with, her eyes looking into his, glistening with sadness, and the
glitter of her tears.
Lies, but ones so beautifully presented, he remembered
feeling almost drawn to the purity of her. Fake, like her protests, fake like
her eyes.
A fluttering bird caught in a snake's jaws, Rudra thought sardonically,
unconcerned that even in his own imagination, he saw himself as a deadly reptile and not as a man.
She was like a budding flower--easily wilted, easily bruised, someone who would
be crushed, would be torn apart through a moment of his careless handling. His hands unconsciously fisted, as if crushing her in them. Easily crushed. At least that was what Rudra had
assumed. An unbidden image of a
hammering pulse in a creamy throat, the warm softness of a small body
sheltering underneath his own as he protected her from attack came, unbidden,
to his mind. Irritated, he banished it from his memory.
If life had taught him
nothing else, it had taught him the fact that ruthlessness in women went up in
direct proportion to their beauty. The worst of them looked the purest---and if
that was true, then he had caught himself a devil, indeed, in Parvati Vader. This much beauty? The rot inside was just as insidious, just as deadly, then.
**********************************************
It was inconceivable that this Birpuri girl who was being sent, willingly to
the other side of the border did not even know about the border smuggling and
gun-running. After hours of interrogation Rudra had to finally admit one thing
though-- seeing the prisoner's total incomprehension when asked crude questions
about prostitutes and being sold to brothels, and her revulsion at the thought
that her sainted Varun was going to be her pimp, not her pati, Rudra had accepted
one thing. The girls being sent every year across the border as brides did not
know they were being trafficked.
But that did not mean they did not know about
the guns, ammunition and bombs being sent as their "bridal" gifts. They had
fathers, brothers, cousins and neighbors working for the terrorists and the Thakurs
of their villages. Would an entire village, an entire town, stay unaware about
something like this for decades?
Parvati had to know everyone who was involved in this, she must have grown up
hearing rumors, seen the smuggling, hell, her family probably lived on the illegal
money and profits from this trade. The men of her village worked for the
Thakur, and no one else. They came and went out of the Haveli like it was
another temple, not just their Thakur's home. The money that they got from the
smuggled arms-- it paid for their little medical center, the local school, the
shops. Where else did it come from? The entire villages' lives were based on
this trade...and Parvati did not know anything?
A few tears shed in front of Aman -Aman
Bhaiya, wasn't it?-- Rudra recalled, with a cruel smirk. And she thought she
had managed to get through to him, to Rudra? Innocence, in the woman who had
been the cause for his soldiers now facing possible questions about their
patriotism from the stupid media and even more blind army HQ? She could
collapse dramatically, mutter nonsense, and what? Steer Rudra into seeing her
as anything more than what she was? A terrorist. Even more evil than the men he
had killed, because she was betraying her very mother-land!! The baraat were
from across the border---it made sense that they would be terrorists. But a
traitor, who's very tender, soft skin smelt of the sandalwood and myrrh of her
native home? A woman who had grown from the bread of her soil, to then turn
that soil red with the blood of her people?
Collapsed, innocent, helpless was
she?
An ugly sneer, one composed of cruelty, anger and hatred twisted Rudra's lips into a grotesque parody of a smile.
Perhaps the BSD had been too mehmani
nawazi in their treatment of the Prisoner Parvati. There was a man he
needed for the job of real interrogation. Rudra had hated this man while at his
previous post, even reported him for using excessive force a few times.
But it was enough. Desperate
times called for unsavory methods. It was time to have Corporal Jasheem Khan transfer
in, and take over the Prisoner's interrogation--and time to take Officer Aman
Kundra off his sister Parvati's case.
...to be continued...
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PART 2 OF YESTERDAY---FORGIVENESS TO BE POSTED LATER...five pages later, I think...😆..
EDITED: HERE IT IS!
YESTERDAY:(FORGIVENESS) -- PART 2 https://www.indiaforums.com/forum/post/103613204
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