The child squealed through the reticence of the four walls of the house. The mother stood vulnerable by the door, unable to placate her agony, forlorn and impotent. The child was famished for three days; the last supplies of the food consumed to its last bit. The elder daughter hunched by the corner light, its umbra only accentuating the child’s horrors and grief. Her father had been missing for a week now; the rumors were he was arrested on the grounds of some theft in the neighborhood.
The Mother walked to the end of the room, taking the child in its arms and rushing to the streetlights in the pouring rain. She had held a bowl in the corner of her torn sari, now falling apart in the shards of abject poverty.
She stood in the rain, holding the child, covering her from the moist of the clouds above. The child never seemed to get tired of its own pain; the hunger was just a crowning glory. The lights turned red and the mother ran car to car begging for some mercy, for some humanity ostensibly dead in the eyes of passers by. She pounded the mirrors of the car, thumped the road- unable to move the passing traffic for it deemed it inappropriate to halt for a non-moving life. She could not stir any sympathy, just some angry glares and abuses. She could not feed her lone child.
One Month Later
The mother had been missing since morning. The elder daughter tried to soothe the little child, singing her songs which she remembered from her childhood.
A rush in the stairs and her mother was back, with supplies of food- Bread, rice, and vegetables of different colors and shapes. She smiled and said “Never would you be sleeping hungry again.â€
She fed the daughters and sang them the song of happiness and glee.
“These are truly the last days, May Lord keep us Happy in His Own special ways.â€
The kids slept close to her mother. She was wide awake, with a paper in her hand.
At the stroke of the morning hour, the mother crept out of the house. She had kept a letter for her daughter in her frock that asked her to keep good care of her sister and to be a strong person. She advised her not to go out of the house for coming few days. Her daddy would be home soon.
Daddy came home an hour past midnight.
The cities were rocked by twin blasts, each of them a suicide blast, killing over a hundred. The bloods of people painted the street-roads, effacing the alive and the dead apart. The stories were all over the news channels, they ran a full show carving a picture of inhumanity and atrocity, witnessed by the mother in that pouring night.
The daddy got a cheque of 50,000 Rs. in the mail next day.
Awessssome stuff!!
Moved me no end.
Keep going!!!
This was really rocking stuff!
nice … fallin short of words to describe how good it was … keep it going …
[...] tragic and yet thought-provoking short story is penned by Isha paints the brutality of the modern society in two different lights: The lights turned red and the [...]
Nice one…
Too good, esp. with the small content…
Hi Isha,
I just kept brooding how she could have felt while implementing her last decision…while taking the last look of her kids. Suicides have never been easy, especially for the ones like the mother here who took to begging a little while ago. If she had chosen to beg, how could she choose to die? Don’t they say, ‘I would rather die than beg’?
A nice story to elaborate.
Thanks
Nanda
http://ramblingnanda.blogspot.com
http://remixoforchid.blogspot.com
This is a good post, tragic yet true. The movie The Dark Knight also portrays a similar exploitation of the Joker pushing people against people.
Hi,
I am Richa from SiliconIndia. I am also an avid blogger for a while now and participating actively in Indian blogosphere. I read your blog posting and found them very interesting and informative. We would love to see a copy of your blogs posted here, whenever you are posting it on blogger.com. Here are some of the benefits of posting your blogs here:
We have a strong community of 500,000 Indian professionals
Best blogs of 2008 to be published in a book “SiliconIndia bLoG PrinT”
Best blog to be printed in SliconIndia & SmartTechie magazines each month
Chance to be featured on homepage everyday
We appreciate your community initiative here and in helping build a more powerful India! Also, if you have any ideas or want to volunteer to help for SiliconIndia, we would be more than excited to get your help. Pls mail me back at richa@siliconindia.com with your suggestions and feedback.
Richa
Blog Editor – SiliconIndia
Hi Guys!
Just wanted to send in a quick update- India’s First book on corporate blogging written by top CEO blogger Rajeev Karwal and social media researcher Preeti Chaturvedi titled “Corporate Blogging in India” was launched at the Oxford Bookstore in Delhi on the 10th of Dec. A hardback version of the book, priced at Rs 345 is available at all leading bookstores. We have created a blog for the same at Corporate Blogging in India. If you don’t find a copy at some bookstore, please order the same through our website http://www.wisdomtreeindia.com
Too good….no words to describe…
hey , nice blog , like it ,
won’t be nice if i u can clickover to my blog page too ,
& post some suggestion