Excerpt
from forthcoming novel: “It Happened Like This” by Suraksha
Just short of an hour he heard a cycle bell ring and from a distance
came Raghu’s voice in full throttle, ‘Hey Pullanna, where have you kept my son?
That boy is from the city and must be alarmed sitting in the dark. Did you
offer him some buttermilk at least?’
Aditya gave a whoop of relief, ‘Daddy, daddy, I am here in the battle
axe, which stalled and these people mistook me for a thief!’
Raghu gave a loud snort and scoffed, ‘What a fool you are Pullanna,
behaving like an old woman. Did you not recognise my beautiful van? What have
you done to her? Get down and shine the torch.’
Raghu had already lifted up the bonnet and hooked it upright muttering
all the while, damn fool flooded the engine and there’s an air lock. What damn
mechanical engineering has he studied that he could not check this?
‘Aditya look this is how you prime it and release the air lock. Come on,
pump faster… there now let me turn on the ignition… get in you fool, bye
Pullanna see you in a day or two.’
With a mighty roar Raghu took off barely giving Aditya time to dive into
the passenger seat.
The mystery of the uncommon reception was solved a few days later when
Raghu visited Pullanna to discuss the number of labour required for plucking
the mulberry leaves the following week. Business transacted, Raghu asked about
the hostile welcome offered to Aditya. Pullanna lost his bluster and in a
sheepish voice begged pardon for the great rudeness.
‘Dora it is truly not our fault. With this Emergency there are late
night raids, people coming in vans and picking up our young men from the
villages. They take them, Dora, and perform an operation so that they are no
longer men, cannot have children. We have heard these stories, Dora, and we
have mounted a night guard so that our boys are safe. We saw the van and
thought your son was from a raiding party. So we were suspicious. Not our fault
you see, Dora.’
Raghu assured Pullanna no harm was done and later narrated the story at
Nalini’s home. Everyone had a hearty laugh at Aditya’s discomfiture and then
fell silent. The state of Emergency declared by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
had unleashed a reign of terror. Twenty five years after being a Republic, India’s
blackest hours would last twenty one months as Democracy came to a grinding
halt. The time for acts of good faith was over. Had it been a mere illusion of
trust, the shine of idealism, the outpouring of sacrifice, the confluence of
thinking into which the foetus of a nation was delivered on 15 August, 1947 and
named India?
A mosaic of new patterns was emerging from the cauldron of changes and fires of
political ambitions.
It was the end of
a journey that had begun in 1885. The Freedom Era was over but freedom was
still elusive. It now had a new name: Development.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Indira Gandhi declared
Emergency in India: 25th June 1975 - 21st
March 1977
Unforgettable
Literary Pairs
Swamy & Malgudi: R K
Narayan
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