The Frozen Smile

1974, Mahuwa township in Rajasthan’s Dausa district. Sandy summers bear-hugged the desolate landscape. The desert around the district lay sun-baked. Scattered thorn trees and bushes stood in pools of hot eddy. Prickly branches arrayed in battle-march column guarding their stony ramparts of leaves against unrelenting sunrays ever eager to bring out more evaporation and thus more life out of the desert vegetation. A lovely flower blossomed in a dusty alley in a lower-middle-class locality. It was, however, a doomed flower. The social and the caste soil under its soft, innocent stem did not blend, although its roots tried its flowery best to gather around a fistful of the two constituents.

The young couple’s sin was laid in the open under the scorching scrutiny and hateful sandy sighs. The boy belonged to a relatively lower Bairwa caste; the girl to a relatively higher one—Gujjar. They were minors. They knew the consequences. From skirmishes and slaps inside their own respective walls, it could flare up to engulf the two communities involved. Sarla was particularly scared. Couple of years ago, there had been an honour killing for the same crime as hers.

Caste panchayats pleasantly smirked at such on-the-spot judgments. During those days media hardly existed. There were no women’s organisations, social activists, and human rights groups as are safely patronised by the Women’s Commission during present times. Whatever we can imagine as a semblance of women’s rights and their protection must have been in embryonic form. Reactions against such inter-caste affairs were taken as acts of unavoidable desperation to keep the social fabric intact. So even police preferred to ignore such cases; sometimes they even covered up if it involved influential local families. So the scorching sands contained the unknown sand grains of those unfortunate lovers—mostly girls because the stigma was bigger on their faces—who, somehow, suddenly died during nights and hurriedly cremated during the late hours of a mutely, conniving night. Hence, eloping was the only escape option. Thus one night, Ramesh, his life stuck in his throat, eloped to save his and his flower’s life.

“My widow aunt Saraswati, who is a domestic help in a big house in Delhi will help us,” he tried to calm Sarla as she shook with fear and wept.

Reaching Delhi was the longest journey of their lives. “We will somehow hide in this crowd and eke out a living,” they sighed with relief looking at the capital crowd.

Saraswati lived in a filthy shanty neighbourhood. Ramesh’s uncle had died five years ago after a struggling matrimony lasting the same number of years. Just after his marriage, the adventurous labourer in him had prompted him to seek greener pastures away from the barren land. These five years saw drunkenness, domestic violence, arrival of a bony girl, bone-breaking toil, loneliness and uprootedness in the merciless, uncaring crowd. Then from the path of misery he was swiftly plucked by death as he fell from some few-storey high scaffolding and died on the spot.

A young widow mother, and on top of it appearing exquisite in her Rajasthani rustic charms, she was very easily preyed upon by Imarti Lal. A pock-marked wretch, and an acquaintance of the diseased man, he hurriedly sneaked in with natural ease taking advantage of her helplessness. He arrived as a selfless sympathiser to begin with; got her the job of a domestic help; brought gifts for the sickly baby girl; raped her after a month feigning almost innocence and helplessness all the while; and proposed marriage after another month. She reflected over this and found no other way out. There was no past or future to do calculations about. The sands of Rajasthan appeared too far and uninviting, even scornful. She thus consented, or rather gave in.

Then the real drama of villainy started. Addicted to visiting brothels he led the parallel life of a pimp, slowly acquiring mastership in his modus operandi. He arrived late, accompanied by hollow, consumed drunkards whom he introduced as his friends and partners in trade. After some days, she too was leading the gutted parallel life of a domestic help during the day and a paid woman during the night. Soon afterwards the sickly girl child died. She too would have died of grief, if not for Rizwan, a young and handsome pimp under whose swarthy muscular body her wheatish sweat-soaked body writhed in love, pleasure, and painful groaning. He had sex with her not as a customer, but as a lover. She could feel it. From among the many men who were intimate with her, she felt only Rizwan inside her, rest of them just extracted their money’s worth from the impassive dummy. They even complained to her husband that she did not open the full treasure trove of her body to them and Imarti Lal had whacked her many times for this. But now she felt far less insulted, for she herself let out long chains of unbearable foul words, firstly with a bit of momentary hesitant tongue, and later with perfect ease—a thorough-bred sex-worker in the making.

Having served as a field worker in the industry, gaining valuable experience in striking deals, fixing up rooms in guest houses and hotels, her husband now thought of moving further in running a more lucrative prostitution racket. Saraswati helped him under the garb of many pretexts which continuously, invisibly kept on sending subtle sexual advertisements that were easily smelled by the brothel birds.

Ramesh was struck by the change in her manners. His first memory of hers stretched back to that diminutive, cowering, almost child-bride ten years back. He was seven then and thought she was only as old as him. The little bride was casting curious looks around. Next time he saw her five years back when they were in the hometown for a relative’s marriage. Despite the trials and tribulations of the gripping urban struggle, she then appeared a fully blossomed female, who at least had the consolation of a husband and a child, if nothing more.

But now the change was striking. Once all the inhibitions are cast out, sex-workers take life head-on, without caring a damn about any social expectations based on norms and beliefs. Flesh trade is such an overpowering system that centuries-old female inhibitions and shyness are blown into society’s hypocrite eyes. Words, behaviour, and gestures acquire such grotesque, pugnacious tidings that it strikes the so-called cleaner society, shaking them up from their so-called better claims to status. Dress, make-up, hair do’s, and language make them super-females who can beat any man in wanton display of aggression and domination.

Once she started carrying that typical air around her, she had to quit her job meant for a more decent society. She carried her identity too strongly now, so entry in the so-called good houses was not welcome. It happened just a month before the eloped couple landed there. Rizwan, Imarti Lal, and Saraswati were on the threshold of a more enterprising trade. Their eyes said that they were more than happy in receiving the fleeing couple.

Ramesh was confused and surprised when a wealthy-looking gentleman addressed his aunt as Sarkia and she responded in an unheard of coquettish way, in a peculiarly flattering manner overarched with Rajasthani-accented Hindi. It was her new brand name. Her over-coloured and over-done lipstick and bright silky red salwar kameez appeared to tell him many stories on the very evening of their arrival, but then greenish traditional tattoos on her wheatish forearms and around the corner of her eyes dispelled the uneasy thoughts and the minor couple fell into a fatigued sleep.

Asharfi Lal, a notorious pimp from Mumbai’s red light district visited them after a couple of days. Surely, some significant upswing in the hosts’ business was in the air. His middle-aged decimated, tobacco chewing face spent in illegal trappings of helpless, fleeced, ignorant, sold, and cheated females across India, glowed as he saw the wild, fair, sharp-featured, glowing with the peak of youth countryside beauty.

Sarla looked really beautiful. Her supple body galore with abundance of fresh youth. A fountain of fresh water in the land muddled with impure rivulets carrying social sewage. In the obnoxious, dimly lit corridors of flesh trade, the people involved took pride in counting ‘the buds violated for the first time’. Though the male in him was almost satiated—or it had been broken like a criminally overworked pack mule—it still hissed in its full hunger when it saw the opportunity to register a fresh name in the dark book of prostitution. In the lewd language of the trade he conveyed his dirty intention to his beetle-nut-chewing hostess, her lips smiling with coquetry to appease this important cog who could help them in rising further in the illicit trade. The trade was rapidly growing in the areas along the highways. The booming transport industry with its over-strained, overworked, frustrated, tired, and fatigued truck drivers, helpers, cleaners, hotel and restaurant servants were being swiftly sucked into the momentary dives of forgetfulness in the pool of paid sex.

Taking a full bright rose from the hair knot at the back of her head, Sarkia threw it at his greedy lips watching the girl passing out of the tiny door of her dingy best room. He in turn took the gold chain off his neck and gently held the bait before her greedy eyes.

“Full purchase! She will serve better than here,” he gloated and explored the possibility of striking a deal.

“You want to open the cork, drink the wine, and sell the bottle to cheap fucksters! For this pittance I’ll just allow you to open the bottle, have a few hasty swigs and leave the rest with me,” she mocked at the uncontrollable urge in the greying pimp.

The deal was struck. The fate of this new entrant was sealed. At night Rizwan took Ramesh out on the pretext of attending a marriage function. “It’ll ease your spirits,” he slapped his shoulder in a friendly manner. Immediately after they departed, Sarika laid snare. First she cajoled, used all fleecing tricks to get her consent, but when the dumbfounded girl did not budge, she and the old pimp dragged her into the dark, dimly lit cellar where her helpless screams had no effect on the crowded, noisy, unconcerned world outside. Old Asharfi Lal was drunk and raped her with the fury of a young body.

She and Ramesh had made love during their minor courtship back at the home place. They had taken the risk of their lives to satiate the love–lust-born storm clouded with infatuation of the age. These were the moments they had stolen from the unforgiving society around. The ratty society has a special knack to smell out such lovers’ rendezvous moments and their natural, innocent curiosity into each other’s anatomy entailed a painful rumble in the bowls of the social cloud unleashing a storm. They somehow saved themselves from the torrential fury but landed here into a bigger trouble. The world is never sufficient to accommodate the love cooing of hearts in conservative societies. She was just fifteen.

It was a night of nasty parallels for the couple. Rizwan got Ramesh drunk. When his suspicions, hesitancy, fears, and cautions were untied by the fuming spools of alcohol, he introduced two semi-naked middle-aged whores (who were not left with much of business) in the sphere of his boozed up spirits and closed the door behind him. Even tipsy to the core, Ramesh resisted, as a love-bound man, committedly tethered to the peg of faithfulness. “What will Sarla say?!” it flashed in his mind as the expert sex-worker tore through his clothing. The huntresses were too insistent. The prey was just left with a portion of his physical and mental strength. They succeeded in raping him. He vented out the full fury of his youth in wrathful convulsions as a punishment to them as well as himself.

Next day, the couple’s dead cast eyes stared at each other. Without speaking they sulked indoors for a couple of days, almost in mourning. They had lost a significant part of their respective identities and were well aware of the gravity of their loss. One is most often forced to accept the circumstances. The rarest of the rare have the strength of breaking the circumstantial shackles. Like a game of dice we accept the favourable throw as well as the worst one in utter humility. We might shout with both joy and sorrows. We might sulk. But we accept and reconcile nonetheless.

Once initiated into the tribe, the love and affection of those around doubled. During this period of reconciliation and coming to terms with reality, they shut themselves in the cellar she had been raped, first wept in their bitter position, and when the tears had dried up, they embraced and kissed each other softly as a souvenir of their innocent love when they exchanged pleasant glances, whisked away letters, blew flying kisses, and thought about each other almost 24 hours a day; when a smile, a soft word appeared the most valuable thing in the world. When the shattered glass pieces of their dream palace pinched their young bodies with desire and lust, their fatigued and defeated selves ran to take shelter in each other’s flesh with a beastly urge. They made love as many times as their bodies allowed. It went on for a week in the damp and dank light in the initiation cellar.

“Want to sap all juice of each other before seeking greener pastures!” Rizwan winked at Sarkia.

She in turn pouted her lips and gave a lusty pinch into the groins of her paramour, “Hope it will not be the case with us!”

As it happens in the free-wheeling corridors of a sex bazaar, the parasitic undergrowth of desire, love, lust, survival, pleasures, and pains get embaled in a wenchy heap covered with a slutty, stained rag. Time being a great healer Ramesh made love to her aunt, saying it was the price she had to pay for getting them this nice job. Rizwan enjoyed with Sarla prattling she was the most beautiful among all the women he had slept with. Even old Imarti Lal encroached in sometimes mischievously. Ramesh and Rizwan both enjoyed with the new ones. Sarika too engaged with new customers sometimes. Imarti Lal would pay both Sarla and Sarika to arouse him.

In those days sex trade faced little hindrance except for the bitter pill of social ostracism. But who cared—those who poked their disgusting noses at them, their own linen lay scattered on brothel floors. There was no scarecrow of the police. Police? Yes they troubled them sometimes but it was basically meant to increase the local police’s share in profits. And the trade and its profits just boomed unprecedentedly. Deeply foraging into the society from their pathetic positions at the social fringe, forgotten in their native lands, they facelessly encroached into the estranged morals. After a decade and half’s struggle Sarika ran a posh brothel in the red light district of GB Road in Delhi. Imarti Lal died at the cusp of his glory. His frail heart overcome and over-shoved by deeply rumbling pangs of hunger, alcohol satiated, and over-fed on performance-enhancing drugs as he desperately tried to make up for the money paid to a foreigner lady of the trade in a cheap guesthouse in Paharganj.

“Tried to drink from a dead, dry well and thirsted himself to death,” his 42-year-old brothel-owner wife just evinced the littlest of interest in the tragedy and gave a rare cold sigh.

Her face tried to contort and put up a wifely show of sorrow. The heavy mask of cheap cosmetics got a strain, opening a few lines and cracks to allow reality sneak out a bit. In quick desperation she overpowered the urge to be a moaning wife. With pangs of jealousy she stared at the far fresher face of a decade younger Sarla. “Perhaps they do not nibble at her face, as they have done on me over the years,” she felt the unavoidable feminine pang of jealousy. It was instinctive female reaction, otherwise they shared a cordial relationship, almost that of a mother and daughter. As a rule, Sarika treated her girls very well.

They moved through the first half of the nineties smoothly. In the drunken haze of loose morals, wanton gestures, lewd stares, illicit relationships, and rawest humour that gripped the naked flesh on GB Road, Rizwan and Sarika’s brothel dangerously came close to being the best in the business. Even after ‘standard deductions’ their girls and pimps were left with decent money. He moved in a car now; was treated with respect in society for money gets you respect and more importantly he maintained a second rung of high society girls, educated, smart and sophisticated, to cater to top-class clients. It included a failed heroine, some struggling models, a couple of ladies from the theatre scene in Delhi, three college girls, and two over-flying airhostesses. Here, costliest deals were struck in the lobbies of posh hotels.

You cannot hope to rise forever. Fortunes fluctuate. His rival brothel owners got him murdered. Profits were going too far and deep one-sidedly. Throat slit, his rotting body was fished out of the dark polluted waters of Yamuna. With him died the pale glow of the hopelessly burning candle of Sarika’s life. In the buzzing merciless dehumanised sex bazaar one still catches at the strands of love and relationships, even if these are available in strained, grotesque form. In her case it meant Rizwan. She was now cast into the open sea of loneliness, her anchor gone; life became purposeless. She just could not come out of the pit this time.

As if nursing some inexplicable hate towards the brothel owner, a new arrival sighed, “Now she’ll go mad. I saw it. She depended too much on him. He meant everything to her.”

Sarika just sulked silently, never wept, stopped painting her face to pretend youth and went further and further into the pit of doom. Sarla did her best. She was more of a manager of affairs and allowed only ‘important for the trade people’ to touch her. She was no longer just a body of flesh rolling in stained bed sheets. There is a thread of relation management between a brothel and the clientele. The chance arrivals of some frustrated outstation male, with almost finished pockets cannot put a brothel on a speedy track of prosperity. Well-pampered regulars having fat pockets do the job. With Rizwan it was gone, and so did their dark prestige and prosperity.

Moreover, the second half of the decade arrived with all the wrong messages for sex trade. An idealist horde of Bharatiya Nari Sudhar Sabha was frequently making acrimonious inroads into the sex-workers’ dungeons along the ill-famed road in the national capital. Most of the times they preached safe sex and sex-workers’ rights. The utmost un-conservative sex trade was deaf to the clarion call. Their preaching was sometimes interlaced with talks of rehabilitation and alternative professions. They distributed some sewing machines and parroted many a word before the girls regarding the necessity to get education. How can a huge ship carrying socio-economic filth be stopped from drifting into the abyss by such light, flippant anchorage. Subdued by such a mighty clean voice from the first-rate society, sex-workers too felt duty bound to do something for society. Rubbing shoulders with such clean folks, who were there for higher purposes, Sarla after a long time realised she too was a human being like anyone else. She had come to feel like a totally different species, something grotesquely dehumanised and caricatured. AIDS was becoming a huge scarecrow. Hellish talk of the afflictions born of the deadly virus was sending goose-bumps down the spine of even the most confident and regular brothel hunters.

Feeling like a normal human being in the company of activists, much obliged Sarla presented their leader a fat cheque meant to help them in their charity work. It was her moment of glory when she presented the cheque to the cleanest khadi-clad gentleman she had ever met so closely. It was a momentary flash of dignity, pride, cleanliness, and being human like anyone else around. Driven by its pleasant repercussions she even arranged a supper for the workers, which they were forced to accept, not being able to say no and make the inherent repulsion evident to stand as a contradiction to what they preached. Stretching each and every sinew of her stigmatised self to make the function as socially clean as possible, she had chicken soup, chicken biryani, fish cuisines in the non-veg section and sweets, parathas, coffee, chocolates, kulfi in the veg section, completely forgetting in her zeal that these clean idealists are not supposed to touch meat. With some hesitant mouthfuls they formalised the occasion by taking some items from the cleaner section. Their embarrassed looks dividing the chasm more and more. Eating with prostitutes! Even the hardened idealist in the leader could not ignore the buzzing scarecrow: AIDS...HIV...these heavy words struck at his rattled senses. During those days the disease was more maligned than the causes. There were huge misconceptions including the one that one can get it even while eating with the afflicted person.

The sex industry got a mighty shove by the rumours and talks of a pandemic. A team sponsored by United Nations Funds for Women went scurrying. They spread hair-raising information about the most lethal disease, dumped condoms at every nook corner to save the clean world from these live-forms of death.

“HIV is a virus that causes AIDS...spreads through unprotected sex...females are 2.5 times more susceptible to the disease...no vaccine to secure life...drug abuse...sharing needles...etc...etc...”

Sarla’s courage gave in. She was hesitating in going to be tested at the first referral unit-cum-antenatal clinic sponsored by AIDS Prevention Society and a foreign NGO. Many in the locality had been tested positive. Red alert had been blown in the red light district. Prevalence rate was dangerous. Her head was dizzy with fear. When life is at risk, all other tensions of this world do not mean anything. All we want is just life, nothing else. Spectres of death in all its wanton forms loomed in her head. A group of work-broken farmers, their faces weather beaten, lustfully came begging at their doorstep. They had sold the harvest in the grain market and had plenty of money in their pockets. She knew they had money but turned them away. She had decided to take all her crew to the clinic.

“The sluts, the whores...even they have the choice of choosing by looks!” one rowdy farmer spat.

The results came. They felt like celebrating. Only the latest arrival—who had been least in the trade—was tested positive. The poor girl fainted after hearing the sure-shot chimes of death right in her ears.

“Strange...but it’s just luck...ours! Just lucky so far not to have a virus-ridden customer. This poor one unlucky to have one,” one was heard sighing in a mixed cauldron of emotions.

Ramesh? Haven’t we forgotten him? Well, nothing to tell much either. The glory of his days ended before it could really start. He had spent most of the days as majority of the inside men of the trade do. He never showed the promise to rise high in the profession. Just remained there like a pet dog. He and Sarla had come too far from each other, even though they shared the same place. Pathetic in shape, decimated physically, tobacco chewing and drinking, their relationship had come to be that of almost mere acquaintances since long.

The unfortunate new girl continuously mourned her fate, while her colleagues consoled her with some unease from a distance. A thick wall now separated them. Circumstances had forced her into that ghetto just three months back. From a village in Uttar Pradesh, she had gone intimate with at least a dozen boys and men by the time she turned sixteen. However, the pining won’t go away. Her helpless nymphomania was well diagnosed by a widow from the village who led the double life of a nurse (in the eyes of the villagers) and a lady of trade in the city. No need to elaborate further how the poor girl’s journey was facilitated to this end.

“Oh the filthy scum...only he has given it to me! All my lovers in the village and customers here were in pink of health,” she arrived at her desperate conclusions. “It can only be he. He injected me with foul grease!” she ran towards to the top-storey cubicle assigned to Ramesh. She came out dragging the weakling. “A dying proof of what can this disease do. Oh, only if I had the guts to refuse this skeleton!” she roared and could not control the fits again and fainted.

Fully convinced of the truth of her charges, other girls felt relieved for they felt a strange repugnance to him and could not remember having done it with him.

“So the dog sometimes went outside. Oh we hardly thought him to be capable of walking even. Got his blood spoilt with some sick bitch and then fouled this young filly!” one was heard commenting.

“What is this noise about?” the lady of the house muttered in a strangely resigned tone.

Each passing day brought new strands of grey hair, more wrinkles, and further debilitation of her brain resulting in lesser control on what she said, heard, and did.

A shocked Sarla dropped back into her chair. Reminisces of that night more than two decades back flashed across her memory vividly. A terrible pang of pity, even for herself, gripped her. She silently cried and sobbed watching his weak body cowered in a corner. He appeared so poor and helpless. Later they took him to the clinic. Yes, he was positive! HIV-positive people are the unfortunate lepers of the new age. The information of every new case shook the still remaining frail foundations of their loose self.

The grief-stricken girl almost went insane. She thought of committing suicide. But her boiling guts, vigour, and anguish blunted her instinct to do so. She was burning with anger and agony. “The bitch in me will kill as many dogs as possible before I die,” she was rapidly losing control of her senses and ran away from the brothel.

“Throw the sick dog out,” most of the girls were adamant.

Just then a spent middle-aged man barged in. “Will have to use a condom,” the lady of the house announced even before he could say anything.

“Why that would be even worse than masturbation. Scared of AIDS, eh! Why worry about your wretched life if I do not care about mine that is far better,” he was fully drunk.

They threw him out. The business was suffering. The crowd in the ill-famed quarters had distinctly thinned of late. Delhi was a bustling metropolis crazily spellbound by the Western values for inspiration. To have a sexually consenting girl or boyfriend was becoming the norm. It too must have hit the industry.

There was no need to throw the sick man out. The pandemic was in its initial stage. Overzealous support organisations, government agencies, and NGOs condescendingly accepted the slowly emerging cases to test the efficacy of their drugs and management of the patients. The world was lost in the myth of this new challenge to the medical science and everybody appeared puzzled and scared. The man with imperilled longevity and suffering with almost every step was picked by understanding volunteers to the newly created AIDS patient ward of a charitable hospital. There he got sweet–sour company of fellow sufferers and consoling sympathising doctors. When they spoke to him in a normal, unchanging, un-mocking tone, the old man in this middle-aged dying body looked at them with the bright eyes of a child. And there he lived believing in the generosity of God and success of doctors. Ignorant of the biology of his disease that was eating his immunity like termite eat dead wood, he had every right to believe in curability till his senses were struck too weak to think and feel anymore.

With some little moisture in her eyes, Sarla wrote him letters, and sent him gifts sometimes. She still occasionally remembered those old times. She was now being helplessly carried by the current of sex trade in the endless sea of life. Some inner glow was still burning in a clean corner of her conscience many layers below the frivolous make-up of a wench. Subconsciously driven by this semblance of truth she started to spend much of her time in serving the old lady of the house who was rapidly losing and surrendering to premature ageing. She had virtually no control over her thoughts, words and memories. Their business went downhill. Girls arrived hesitantly and surefooted left quickly for greener pastures. From the past savings they had enough to survive. Sarla had attended school till the eighth standard and then had eloped. She now scribbled words with the mammoth efforts but with the eagerness of a child.

Their house was losing its sheen. What else can happen to a whore house where instead of cheap, sleazy sex magazines and books, you have works on AIDS comprising all the information and prevention of the deadly virus and the disease; the owner of the house ill; and the second in command going out of the ways and means of a paid woman?

She took the old patient to a neurologist. Pondering over the brain scan, he evaluated:

“Don’t call her a bit mad! Please! She is mentally ill. It is an illness like any other, with the difference that in her case it affects her brain. We call it dementia,” he tried to explain.

He prescribed anti-dementia drugs; requested the far younger looking woman to make the mentally ill lady take care of her needs daily so that it might muscle up her neurons. Even their conversation became an exercise module in which Sarla repeatedly put questions, providing multiple clues while the invalid fidgeted with every movement and word she spoke. Her sympathetic touches, drugs, and exercises showed few distinct results and it was proven that the old lady was not completely mad after all. Struggling with her jumbled thoughts, memories, and activities, she raked up some clues to her identity.

“Who are you and why do you constantly nag me?!” she would grind her teeth one moment. Later, staring in the kind eyes of Sarla she would suddenly remember her as the eloped girl who had been helplessly tossed at her threshold. “O the poor girl! So they won’t let you remain in your village!” she would hold her against her bosom, totally oblivious to the story further on.

Sarla was now in the whore house to help her see such moments, haphazardly, disarranged, but at least belonging to the old lady’s life. On very rare occasions when Sarika called her by name, she thought she had been rewarded. Why was she so sincerely serving the old lady? Well, some basic things are too deep to be ruffled by the superfluous rut of life however sleazy it might be. These may lie dormant but spring forth whenever chance is ripe. Sarla too possessed such natural lotus that sprouted forth through the muddy waters of prostitution. She accepted whatever ray of light was filtering through the gutted by-lane of the sex bazaar.

Despite her best efforts, the old lady forgot her name completely, lost her ability to speak in a couple of years, and then further survived for another two like in a coma. They were not serving as a brothel now. She decided to serve till her death. Problems galore, as they naturally should when you live mis-fittedly in a sex bazaar, not leading a life like those around you. But once the body has been cut, bruised, making one less than average afraid of situations, then it becomes immune to further cuts. She thus braved these challenges, like a lady of her trade should. She knew that the good thing she was doing should not turn her into a cowering female, so her tongue snapped like a rattle snake to ward off any endeavour to take advantage of their changed situation for profit.

As was inevitable, the old lady died leaving her almost all alone in the bustling whore house. Her mourning tears for the diseased, whom she had literally served like her mother, further polished that goodness under her stigmatised skin. Around this time elections for Delhi Assembly were announced. The Election Commission ordered that even the sex workers are to be registered as voters for the upcoming elections. The Electoral Registration Officer of the Paharganj area accompanied by a much amused staff and committed social activists toured the area. For a fortnight she toiled with the field staff to get the sex workers enrolled as voters.

The process however faced a nagging problem. Most of the brothel owners had no lease agreement with the girls. Some had not even the ownership proof of the place. So they were apprehensive of getting their girls’ voter identity card, giving the place as their address. Sarla decided to get as many girls enlisted on her address as possible. She held the papers of ownership, inheriting from the old lady. However, missionary zeal was met with an opposition and boycott. She was living like an outcaste now and she and others knew that their ways had parted on the ill-famed road. They warned her of dire consequences if she did not move out of the place—not because of the fear that she had a choice now and break free of the shackles, but because she could decide not to be a whore now. In her early forties now, she sold the property and moved out of the filth with a decent purse and walked in a restrained, shy, unresolved manner. It was like walking on an alien planet. It was like she was learning to walk as a woman with a new identity. Almost three decades of fleecing, flattering coquetry had seeped into her skin and she knew the challenge of forcing herself to change her ways of dressing, looking, gestures, and words to fit in the clean society outside.

Hiring a room in a respectable neighbourhood she optimistically looked at the new dawn from her balcony. She was pondering over her future. But fatigue and drudgery of three decades yawned within and she went inside to lie restfully on her clean bed again.

“It’s another start for me. But this time I won’t slip!” a wave of determination swathed her in a fold of contended sleep...after so many nights. After three decades in fact. 

Fragments of a Full Smile

 Jenny was an adventure photographer. She had this knack for clicking the button at the fractional precision of time. Adventures, misadventures, happenings, and mishaps do happen in the flash of a moment. Very rarely did she miss her date with such flashy, fleeting moments. Unsurprisingly, her portfolio consisted of publications in many reputed magazines, newspapers, and illustrious periodicals. A string of rewards in the field ignited her to cross an extra mile in search of hair-raising moments. A hunter with a camera she was thus on predatory prowl after the shy, exquisitely rare, and unique natural and social phenomena.

Convincing herself of India’s status mired in such moments she decided to tour India. The chain of events drew the lot in her favour. A welcoming mishap arrived. Monsoon was at its full fury over Bombay as her ever-helpful boyfriend Michael held the umbrella above her head while she zoomed the lenses around the rain-soaked taxi-stand outside the airport terminal. Suddenly the invisible shutterbug clicked and a dazzling flash of lightening made the grey day lit up with a blinding spasm. Lighting had struck. Even in that fleeting fraction of a second, the artist in her knew that her index finger had clicked at the right moment. In the next moment, the earth shook from the rumbling bowls of the sky and a large burst of water eased out on the ground. A few dozen yards from them, two porters lay lynched and a third one was struggling onto his feet. A drenched crowd gathered around the little stage of nature’s fury like tiny dots on a frizzled screen. It was a moment of victory for the photographer. But for the human in her, it was a moment of pitiful sigh and shudder. Unable to react more she looked into Michael’s eyes. He, the national rafting champion, was dazed beyond wordings. He was a man who made love to the water’s spate of fury and really liked the unrestricted brushstrokes of her photography.

Bombay to Delhi, they decided to go by train. After all the true charm of India lies in its bustling, teeming transports chugging across huge swathes of tiresome humanity lost in a self-eating mad race of survival. It was a long and tedious journey, but hugely exciting nonetheless. It was early morning. Sitting by the window she was sipping train tea to get a real feel of Indian passengership. The train had halted at a nondescript station: a couple of platforms with iron-sheet shelters with hawkers, vendors, and little stalls. Coal smoke made the small crowd appear all lethargic and sleepy. There were just four railway lines to facilitate crossings. To her right the platform at the other end ended with yellow-walled godowns. A goods train was being loaded on the track. Its dark purple bogies full of coal bustled with labourers. Just in front of her a separated bogie was being unloaded. Two labourers were standing in the gap chatting merrily in oblivion putting their life into the conviction that the bogie would not be shunted without their knowledge. But then human fallacies and mistakes are as many as there are stars. The engine driver started shunting with a pernicious jerk. It happened before her eyes. She saw the first jerk. The plastic tea cup slipped out of her hands. Instead of her finger tip on the camera button her tongue clicked. There was just a meter and half gap between the metal rumps of the bogies. Her shrill cry ran to intervene. The labourer’s startled eyes moved in her direction and from the corner of his eye he perceived the mortal jerk of the carriage and ducked right beneath the connect shaft. But the other one was not as lucky and was almost jaffed like a fish between the thick cylindrical protruding. It was horrible beyond imagination. For a moment her hand moved to camera, but then she slumped back in her seat.

“India is a land bustling with such tragedies,” Michael embraced her consolingly.

For the rest of her journey she could not put the horrific scene out of her mind. This tragic misadventure had left an almost indelible image. A forlorn day in New Delhi followed this. She found it busy, boring and filthy, a caricature of a European settlement. From a distance of 300 kilometres the great Himalayan range was calling with basketful of pleasant adventures. They set up their itinerary. A rafting expedition in the upper reaches of Himachal Pradesh. The monsoonal spate of Sutlej in its upper valley seemed winking mystically in a photograph in their travel guide.

Deeply dissected topography and varied geological structure of the Himalayas assuaged her feelings as the toy train moved into gorgeous mystery of the mighty mountain after starting its journey from Kalka situated at the base Himalayan foothills. Rain was continuously falling as the toy train chugged into the temperate, magically plentiful flora of these tropical latitudes. Breath-taking sceneries, stripped agricultural fields on the slopes, tiny rural settlements, rivulets gurgling in little waterfalls, all this soaked in monsoonal haze found her taking copious snaps of leisure photography from the train window. She felt her quirky, pin-pointing, concentrating self was spreading unhindered without any focus. It was on the rare occasion that Michael was watching the unrestricted, unrefined beauty of her features.

“Dear, forget about adventure, let us visit this place,” she twisted her tongue to pronounce Kharjiar, her finger on Chamba district. “It’s called mini Switzerland because of its remarkable similarity to the European paradise.”

But how could the champion rafter miss this opportunity to victoriously foam over the mighty Indian river originating in the Tibetan highlands to enter Himachal Pradesh from the eastern side. “Look at the continuous rain, even the tiny channels sparkle with a rafting invitation. Just wonder how spiteful the big river would be!” his enthusiasm prevailed over her cooing request.

Reaching Kalpa, Kinnaur district headquarters—the district through which Sutlej unleashes its full spiteful fury after gushing into from the Tibetan side—they hired rafting equipment and support crew from a rafting club. The dark-grey veil of clouds hung over the valley like an un-flickering shadow as they moved eastwards into the rugged terrain to start rafting from the upper reaches.

Their rafting crew comprised four battle hard locals. Their brownish faces glowed with adventurous expectation in the company of these elite travellers. Water was gushing at such a speed that it splashed and splattered foam in air. A soaring, scary euphoria hung in air buzzing with exciting fresh water drills. A pulverising, incising Sutlej was eating into the V-shaped gorge with a killing effect. Its muddled grey waters rumbled ahead noisily carrying huge boulders at the bed. Some adventurous spirit seemed to be riotously ricocheting off to the nook and corners of the valley.

“Please be warned of the danger. It’s raining continuously for the last few days. Sometimes lakes on the Chinese side burst unleashing death and destruction in the valley on the Indian side!” the club manager had amply warned the couple.

But where Indians stopped, Westerners started, so Michael’s overblown spirit would only listen to the river’s rigorously rolling watery growl. So he just laughed off the premonition, while Jenny’s hand tightened around her camera in gleeful anticipation of capturing nature’s catapults at its rowdiest best.

Before letting themselves to the gay abundance of the furious waters, Suresh, whose knowledge of ramshackle English naturally made him a leader among the local crew, led a short religious ceremony to inaugurate the venture. Finding a niche at the base of a big boulder he sought out a piece of canvas and held it before the tiny hole like a tent entrance. Securing the upper end of the protective flap with thick glue tape he put pebbles at the lower end leaving only a little opening by the boulder side through which a hand could just grope in. The foreigners were lost in the spectacular assemblage of multilayered reality carrying best and the worst side by side, literally life and death arm in arms. In deep attunement with this unifying facet of nature their eerie was broken as incense smoke reached their nostrils. With folded hands all four hill people were muttering some prayer to a local goddess. The little oil lamp and the incense stick spread a cosy religious aroma inside the makeshift shrine. Finishing their prayers, Suresh looked into their inquisitive eyes and before they could put any query he reeled off his explanation.

“It’s worship to the river Goddess. We believe it will save us from the flooding waters,” he saw a glint of non-believing rationality in the white man’s eyes, while his girlfriend did her best to look understanding and believing in their faith.

Once the raft was launched into the waters and their hands started working in full dexterity and professionalism, it was swiftly carried into the lolloping folds of greedy waters. She gave an excited cry born of suave enthusiasm caught in the blurring boundaries of fear and enjoyment. It was a feeling that seemed to break through all existential dilemmas.

“Up to now it was yours, now onwards it shall be mine!” the river seemed to chuckle with muddy mirth as it sucked the boat into its swirling swathes.

The danger, fury and risks were enough to test the all-out skills of the national champion and the local crew. While they rowed and manoeuvred for life, she—almost glued to the gunwale—tried to meet the most fearsome moments of watery delight running down slope in unbridled ecstasy. The moments flew in sparkling rapidity. It was adventurous beyond imagination.

What a journey! Those great lakes situated like ancient puddles on the roof of the world, Tibetan plateau, saw their outpours winning across the majestic ranges. Lake Rakas, connected to Lake Mansarovar by a stream, is the watery womb of the Sutlej. It sneaks into India through a pass called Shipki La. Its majestic gorge incised on the bulging breast of Nainadevi Dhar ranges. Old sedimentary and granite rocks—the highly folded, faulted, fossilised karmabhoomi of this mighty stream—of the Greater Himalayan range bear enough testimony to the fact that even the rise of Himalayas could not beat the river’s erosive power. The river being antecedent in nature, as the Himalayas evolved slowly, the chasm kept on deepening. Geological upheavals could not defeat its march. Sediments embedded deep down the plains in Punjab bear testimony to the fact. Large blocks of rock have been dragged over thousands of kilometres. The mighty torrent has toyed with boulder debris; writing its signature on this mountainscape in the form of numerous lines, faults, plateaus, rugged northern slopes of ranges and forested southern slopes. All this has just been silently carved over centuries. On the steep valley-sides, river decimated archaen rocks like granite, gneiss and schist gaped like famished old ladies as Jenny captured their curious wild looks. Somewhere high in the misty hilltops Alpine forest degenerated into low evergreen scrub and dry xerophytes. Massively forested hillsides smirked with dark green carpet of mixed foliage of deodar, juniper, pine, birch and rhododendron.

Cutting through the flooded music came the jocose cries of armymen. The Indian army is famous for its discipline and belief in core values of democracy and humanism. The group seemed to be enjoying in full spirit beyond the pale of the heavy wagon of discipline and risky duties. All of us sometimes unyoke the institutional burden to shout with joy and excitement. With an exciting fury their raft approached from behind. Four military uniformed crew members manoeuvred their raft to beat the flooded watery snares. Moving from one detachment may be they were carrying some provisions. There were two agile young soldiers—drawn from the tough north Indian peasantry class—more of energy and less of caution. While the Naib Subedar and Havaldar in their fifties appeared the stabilising forces in the raft that seemed to prevent it from capsizing. Looking back, she apprehensively watched the coming raft’s cascading fury. Mint-fresh junior officer blew her a kiss as their rubbery platform was thrown in air. She but appeared lost in the fruitful moment for having captured exactly the way she might have wanted to her full photographic satisfaction. The light had flashed against the background of pine, cedar, silver fir, cedar, deodar, oak, laurel, and bamboo.

The young soldiers seemed to have forgotten the seductive fury of the flooded river. What a harsh life they had led during the past couple of years. Earlier in Kashmir, where every fearful step into the night on reconnaissance patrols was heavily laden with possible death. During the days, cold staring eyes of the locals—especially women—spitted almost in their faces. They were like aliens where everything seemed affiliated to Pakistan. “We are with terrorists!” the local people’s eyes glared openly and defiantly. Deadly rounds of night patrols, search operations, encounters, and ambushes were indelibly etched on their fatigued psyches. They drowned their sorrows and grudges most often in wine and sometimes—when it was most suitable and secure—by their frustrated manhood on available Kashmiri women turning half consents to full and changing unwillingness to careless surrender. Now in these rugged detachments along Sutlej, nature’s unblemished charm deprived them—for they were no poets and artists—of all the sweet charms of human frailties and basic instincts. There was no immediate enemy here. Only the pining loneliness of the basic instinct in them had to be fought against to curb it to decency. So within six months of their arrival, one had his sweetheart at Kharo village, while the other had his at a place called Tangling.

As the military rafters passed them, one of the young soldiers gave her a flying kiss. However, she was struck by the cold, lusty melancholy in the other’s eyes. He appeared more lethal.

“Having a good time in Sutlej’s piss sir!” he shouted with a great effort at English without removing his eyes from Jenny.

She felt a cold shiver, but like an empowered Westerner stared back boldly. Right from her school days she always had this stomping competitiveness against the opposite gender that found her rubbing shoulders against the boys’ attitude and superiority complex. The carefully constructed contours of her feminine notions and convictions made her stand out as a deeply self-respecting and confident young woman. But then it was the East. She was very well aware of the swarming cynicism of the patriarchy here. As a woman she could very well catch the discomforting vibes and tedious shades of grey born of overheated passion. She was even scared by the eccentric look in the soldier’s eyes. That invasive stare put her in a state where a woman gets guarded instinctively in the face of any unwelcome advancement against her physical self. Her deeply expressive eyes clearly showed that she was scared after being literally buffeted under the impact of that acrimoniously impassioned stare.

The one having more lethality in his eyes was taller than the relatively jocose one. The shorter one slapped the tall one’s shoulder strap and winked. Who cares about rule books and discipline during such rare, flirtatious moments! The hardened leaves of their challenging existence brushed against the soft petals of this chance for soul-stroking moments.

“I’ve had experience of bigger pisses. Just take care, Mister, this little one might find you upside down!” Michael retorted with mild irritation plainly reading their minds and having a clue to the object of their lusty eyes.

The taller soldier was named Rakesh, but nicknamed Raka on account of his daredevilry and fondness regarding the topic on women. The other was Sukhwinder and was called Shaka for being pally with Raka’s overenthusiastic self regarding many sensitive topics. They had served in differed units in Kashmir, but here chance had thrown them in the same basket for synchronised sojourns in the relaxed wilderness in this part of the Himalayas. So Raka-Shaka the duo was on fun and frolic prowl in these imperilled waters.

“Have a nice time and safe rafting young lady and sir!” Naib Subedar’s condescending thickly dialect-accented baritone English sailed over the gushing torrential surge of the river.

Such a long period in the army and a senior’s fluent reprimands are enough to make the semi-educated rustic native tongues twist and turn along the sophisticated syllables and phrases of the international language. Among his nondescript, simple features, his eyes shone with simplicity, understanding, and openness. She acknowledged the elderly soldier’s good wish with a smile. With that smile she appeared like an Empress of Sweetness. The corpulent Havaldar’s glassy eyes stared with stony neutrality. But then they could not match the champion rafter’s skills, so after a few minutes they could only see the beautiful lady’s back from behind and the distance increasing in surges.

“She is a queen in beauty!” Shaka gasped at her tresses mystically engulfed in foam and watery frills as he slackened his moral reins to enter the den of gluttony and plain physical hunger.

After some time they could just discern the back of her vivid green life jacket. Raka’s expression was grotesquely profound as he was caught by the virile humming of the basic instinct in him. Forgetting rank, files, and age he helplessly gave coarse, weird exclamations. The two elder soldiers appeared shame-faced against this helpless surrender of the young man to the wildly adventurous call of lust.

Then with a snorting flourish something sneaked into the waters. The river below them felt a massive tsunami shove. Even before they could think of some rescue strategy they found water level had gone several feet up the narrow valley. The flood had suddenly acquired intimidating, formidable, and disorienting parameters even in relation to the most critical category of severe danger in rafting. Furrows of worry surfaced on Michael’s brow. It was dangerous to anybody in the art of rafting. His face told the nasty realisation. They saw a whole village being eaten by the watery deluge. Just by its side a military installation had been ambushed by the gushing waters. A bailey bridge a couple of hundred meters downstream collapsed and water tossed the wreckage as its wanton weapons of war. They saw army personnel and villagers being washed away like helpless, lifeless twigs, and branches. Watery power was such that an army truck rolled along the boulders.

The champion rafter in Michael was furtively drawing every bit of skill and strength from the book of his experience to save some lives. But running and bumping through this fleeting macabre they could draw only two almost decimated lives—an army Naik and an old woman. The latter had been miraculously thrown into the raft. Gushing waters ate away all other cries.

The tragedy was unfolding in screeching circles. The watery onslaught was contemptuously screwing up anything coming its way. Some big lake falling in the river’s course in Tibet had burst...suddenly...somehow...unleashing watery assault in the Indian territory. Within an hour so much of life and property (both civilian and military) had been destroyed as would put months-long war (manmade) statistics to shame.

Violent waters tossed the raft with such demonic tumultuous force that it now became only a foregone conclusion when’ll it capsize. And then it happened! After half an hour’s gut-wrenching struggle, Michael’s hands showed that momentary lapse, that fatal mistake like when walking on the tight rope, and the muddy, greedy waters grasped its chance. At the most crucial moment, the champion rafter’s hand tightly gripped the wrist of the most beautiful hand in the world, as they were tossed into the fearsomely spiteful waters. Even during these deathful moments her other hand held her camera sling around her neck. After all, this digital piece had captured so many hair-raising moments for which no human eye would dare to bear testimony.

First the swirling eddy just pinched them down with such deadly force that their bodies hit the boulders beneath. She would have been fatally injured hadn’t it been for the rafting helmet over her dark-brown hair. During such moments, like a chanceful draw of lots ones chances of survival are totally decided by some inexplicable throw of dice. They struggled as one would in the face of death but the result was totally out of their control. And as chance would have it, one sudden spurt, which could have very easily taken their lives, quite incidentally, became a saviour and threw them against a firm rock valiantly jutting out a few feet above the highest water mark. Like decimated insects they clung to it. Between their hold-out and the life beyond water was billowing with such fury that any attempt to even touch it would have surely undone that lucky chance’s work. The wreckage sped by. They took shelter in the lee of this mighty motherly rock.

“Will have to wait till the waters go down,” Michael’s teeth chattered. “Or till something comes smashing into the gap to the slope.”

It was now completely a question of faith. Sticking to the rock, their fingers clawed around the sharp rock edges, teeth chattering, rocky hardness eating into their shrivelled finger skin, they cooed little words of support to each other. Desperate forehead bumps saw a couple of hours pass with unusually drawn-out slowness. It was raining with even more fury now. Though it was just afternoon, the whole surroundings were lost in twilight grey. Just a couple of hundred paces up dangerously lolloping tongues of water were eating the muddy slopes. A massive old deodar dangerously tilted into the waters as water cut into it foothold few feet below. The increasing angle of tilt brought invigorating glint in their eyes as they helplessly peeked around the corner. Then their prayers were heeded. A big chunk of land slid beneath the huge tree’s root-hold and headlong it crashed into the water. It massive, long trunk laid like the arm of a clock as water lashed against its foliage. There were still enough roots left to keep the upturned lower end still pinned down to the root-hold. With life-giving succour the top branches of the foliage softly came to brush against the hard rock.

The leaves appeared to muse, “We the lower forms of life sacrifice to save you the higher ones!”

With many cuts, gashes, and bruises they managed to crawl along the tree to reach the slope beyond the inroads of water. They had seen settlements along the river course. So surely there will be footpaths and goat tracks or even road (for they remembered military installations). Going into the forested upslope was the only choice. Life meant to be away from the water as much as possible. Believing it to be a journey for the better (for they already felt lucky due to that providential escape) they moved ahead.  Detouring around the rugged mountain slope their resultant direction of movement was to go upstream. But you just cannot choose your best path in mountainscape. One can choose only a rough direction to move into and the zig-zagging path is decided by the mountain itself. Within an hour of their purported upstream journey they were a good kilometre away from the flooded river bed.

Soaked to their bones now, life appeared mired in an unconquerable watery deluge. They clung to each other as the light faded fast. Very soon the rainy mistiness changed to irrevocable gloom over the forested hillside. They had almost nothing with them. Clad in shirt and shorts (they were still wearing their life jackets) they felt the rhythmic rustling of life beating through their hearts. She had her camera and he just a packet of biscuits and a chocolate bar in his belt purse apart from some local currency and credit card. The night brought only one solace: rain stopped. But even from it they could not draw any consolation for the foliage would continue to drip almost like a light drizzle. Sharing half of their emergency ration, they gave each other life by embracing lovingly. They held each other to assure themselves that all will be well. Removing all of their clothing they wrung out water and then touching each other’s body with mischievous love-making finger touches they started that primordially old pleasant game of male and female which for ages has found the species rolling in oblivion far away in a world deprived of all anxieties.

Their tired and worn out bodies clung to each other to reciprocally sneak into each other’s zone of warmth. They knew all the nightlong hardships could be trivialised this way. Their caressing hands stroked away all tough moments. There was not anything hurried about this love blossom. Their breathing mixed to form an airy cocktail of cosmic forgetfulness. Snail-like movements of paired lips had no hunger, but just licked into each other’s privacy with marvellous contentment, just giving life to each other, not taking anything in return. A majestic calmness spread around. A causeless mirth gripped their bodies responding to each other’s touch. The cheerless monotony was shooed away by the rapidly rhythmical motion of their bodies. The peerless virginity of the surroundings was impregnated with love strokes. The soft sedateness of this spectacle appeared to assuage the monsoon-lynched ridges around. The clouds parted and a full moon gaped through the foliage to sprinkle its soft, milky whiteness over them. It was an eloquent picture of peace and tranquillity drawn by the ultimate connoisseur lost in dreamy drowsiness. Her enchanting submissiveness seeped into his masculine being creating dazzling chaos. The swelling tide of his dominance generated unsurpassed blooms of ecstasy in the niche of her desires. Above, the juniper, pine, and birch stood as spellbound spectators to this silently, mystically, noiselessly flowing stream of river on the gentle, plain surface of their bodies. And the night passed as beautifully as it could. The forest just stood in jealous loyalty. A grand despondency hung in the air.  The love storm was too strong for any further worries to disturb their contended, fatigued bodies.

On the previous day, the other inflatable raft that had been left behind by Michael’s dexterous oar strokes had, as can very well be expected, also capsized. All its four occupants were flung into the greedily lolloping mirth of water as the raft hit the wreckage of the broken bridge. The elderly Subedar was hit on the head and his unconscious body was washed away. His fate was unknown in the flooded pell-mell. Badly shaken up and bruised, the two young soldiers, Raka and Shaka, had a providential escape. Thrown ashore by some unknown hand of providence and fortune, the rugged terrain of a few hundred yards separating them, they crawled to console each other’s death-scared and shocked bodies. Shaka’s backpack, bigger than Raka’s, contained emergency first aid and ration. They nursed themselves as best as they could. Then the dreary, desultory and aching night somehow lumbered in the foliage above them.

A full hour before twilight they decided to struggle towards the destroyed army encampment site. The rain had stopped completely. There was a pinkish grey slit behind the ridge through which the day peeped to ask permission to call its turn. The twilight was soaked and saturated with water. In the distance, the river’s rumble had abated considerably. Through the chink in the sky’s cloudy fabric a yawning sun glittered on the rain-washed glory of the greenery. But then all their broken muscles and fatigued limbs came to life suddenly. Two embracing naked white bodies—their statuesque curves jutted against each other for warmth—lay asleep. Their clothing spread under them on the grass. The dawn lit up their primordially complementary curves. Afterglow of that unison of bodies, minds, and spirits during the mystically slow and silently spread moments of life still blanketed around them.

The onlookers’ breathing was strangulated. Gasping instincts hammered their almost numb senses. For a long couple of minutes they just stared at the female half of the love-lost unit—the other half almost hidden from their view. Lying side by side, her partner’s head was lost in the cushion support of her pinkish-white breasts. He lay on his left side; lower hand stretched as a cushion to support her rosy cheeks while the upper right hand was resting in the marvellously arching hollow of the side of her back. Her left hand going under his right armpit was spread around his shoulder blade. Her lower hand was buried under her breasts and her long slanderous fingers were lost in his hair. His upper leg was bent in a protecting right angle over her thighs. His masculine independence safely anchored in the slumbering feminine bay of her receptivity. It appeared as if those surrendering moments were still sonorously lingering in the morning fresh air.

The sweet long-lasting after-glow was suddenly shoved by the lusty fury. Hovering with their hypnotised selves they were helpless before the attack of their basic instincts. The moral and ethical compass had stopped to function. These are blinding moments when one shuts off reason to enter the domain of outright, rapacious illegality. The lust-driven criminality is blind to any notion of sin and its consequences. There is always a beast inside that secretly continues worshipping devilish desires. And when its collective illusions beat the giddy optimism of goodness it strikes to gather plum plunders. One can feel the murmuring undertones of its incendiary restlessness deep within the self. In the so-called law breakers it becomes ruthlessly authoritative and strikes to create some toxic moments. With profound agility the soldiers tore them apart, and before the afterglow left their eyes and heart, they found two wolfish predators holding their revolvers against their heads. A fearsome cry escaped her lips. These feminine notes of distress and horror went sailing in all directions for help.

“One more word and ants will eat your brain!” Shaka gnashed to convey his intentions through a great effort at English.

Noticing defiance in Michael’s eyes, Raka forewarned, “No rafting...it’s a game of death and life...so no heroism!” he appeared helpless and gasping before the criminal urge.

“Look, if you commit this folly your future is surely lost,” Michael tried to bring sanity to their devilish desire.

They but had been blinded—totally helpless before the sexual monster that had puffed inside them like a volcanic eruption. Raka, following the rules of his seniority in rascality, raped her first. Her boyfriend tied with their clothing and some cords from their backpacks cried, shouted, and closed his eyes. Impotent rage lynched him leaving him tossing in agony. Before the wounded emotion could force him to do something almost futile his eyes met the muzzle staring into his face. Shaka was holding both weapons to him. She resisted to all her strength. But since she was already naked, half of her struggle was already over before it even started. The rapist was naked below waist. She bit him; her fingers clawed into his face; pushed him away; her soft fist beat against his strong body. Finally he pinned her down on her back and successfully struggled to break open the defensive gates of her tightly squeezed legs. How long will a woman resist the criminality? She gave into the sinner. Her tightly squeezed hands opened and palms lay like a corpse. She just  put her face away to one side to be away from the evil puffs of her offender’s heaving self, trying to keep away her soul, her heart, the flower of her modesty, the buds of virtues and the purity of the womanly emotions in her, as far away as possible from his rapacious lips. Her eyes tightly shut with the pain of soul and body as she tried to free her spirit and take her to a distance and sobbingly watch this unpardonable sin. Her body was in revolt. Each cell of her physical self was buzzing with silent defiance. Not even a single molecule anywhere in her violated self had the least bit of condescending trace for this brutal act of sexual criminality. The tiniest sinews in her being cried in silence for this violation of her body. It was an endlessly long trauma. She never felt so near to death. She could feel her spirit had left her body and the sinner was just raping a corpse.

Leaving the stains of sin on her flesh and still graver ones on her soul, he moved with lassitudinous ambers of his once fiercely burning desire. His flushed smart young face already mired in worries about the consequences. Like a stone he took the position of his companion and nodded him to become an equal partner in crime. He had felt it, the eternal aloofness in her. She had been successful in not feeling him inside her. The crime and any of its evil fruits were his own. She was beyond the gloomy pal of his crime. That judgement of hers about his crime was mocking. Whole hundred percent of the crime in his share; she the victorious had slapped his sin hard in his face. He had raped women a few times in Kashmir. Lust-blinded male chauvinism in him drew solace from deep, mysterious, painful feel in the victim’s body. And this agonised, agitatedly condescending miniscule portion of the deed from the body whose ramparts he had breached saved him from any moral pricking later and swooning over mugs of alcohol he would smirk:

“Oh, just to prove that she was not a slut, she feigned resistance initially. But later I know she enjoyed it...I could feel that!”

Allowed to go scot-free by the wispy invisible court of conscience he need not fear anything else for things had been muddled from all sides and particularly around the time when there had been Kargil War between India and Pakistan putting armymen, civilians, and terrorists and secessionists all in a burning cauldron.

Shaka was but oblivious to such subtle nuances of the sinful game. He was taking much time. Then his flesh could no longer run as fast as his desire and he gave in collapsing on the ground. His desire but still kept beckoning and after a couple of minute’s passive, stony, lifeless tugs at his flesh it once again got onto its feet and run a bit longer on the track of crime.

Desperation, despondency, envy, fear, and boredom were creeping into Raka as he stood watching over Michael. Though he held the weapons as firmly as his training and experience allowed him, a vague defeat lurked around his face and he avoided the hostage’s eyes. Almost all his reflexes had gone impassive to the surroundings. His colleague was naturally blind to any light around for he was deep in the dark cavernous pit of his deed.

Suddenly there was a painful mutter from behind. The first sinner looked behind. The perspiring face of the first sinner flushed purple and still remaining upstanding sinews of his conscience went flabbergasted. Scornful, desperate and mocking gaze of the Subedar pierced through him.

Yesterday, tossed by water and lashed by angry waves he had slammed backside into an underwater boulder. But his moderately corpulent body had enough cushion support around his bones to save these from a fatal breakage. Though his teeth chattered with almost mortal fear and head spun, he still was alive. Much to his good luck, his helplessly floating semi-conscious body was carried through a lean and safe stretch. Here the bottom and sides were free of those monstrous hindrances to the gurgling river. He not only regained his consciousness, but successfully planned his escape from the watery war and ambush. Firm determinations of renovating his house, getting his daughter married, providing good education to his son to make him a commissioned officer in the army, all these and many wise thoughts kindled his spirits through the lonely night. He was moving lugubriously along a hollow separated by a low ridge from the scene of crime. The early morning air had swiftly carried her cry over the ridge to reach his ears. After that he had used all his knowledge to follow its course.

“O God, what the hell...and the government thinks...” the elderly soldier put an effort to speak out his English words, “the country’s honour is safe in your hands!”

Shaking with rage, seeing this grossest, meanest form of human misdeed, the burly Subedar spat on the ground and moved with firm steps of justice.

“Subedar Sahib just do not move!” Raka hollered more out of fear than aggression. Desperation dawned upon him, “You know me well, I won’t hesitate in firing the shot!”

He brandished one of his weapons in his direction. But the meanest of the mean have to promptly—almost on the spot—repay for the misdeed. His sin had sapped into his courage and alertness. His finger twitching around the trigger, he fidgeted and shook like a lynched beast.

“Shoot his legs! What are you waiting for?” muffled, panting, and gasping sound escaped the second sinner’s throat.

But Raka’s eyes went blind with fear, shame and regret as the firm-footed elderly soldier moved forward, his eyes staring hypnotically into the offender’s. The Subedar knew any action on the trigger will be preceded by the same standard twitch in the eyes. Life and death depend on this threadbare separation between the eye twitch and the shot. As the thread of desperation was broken, with the mighty effort of a bull’s heave he swung his upper body to one side. The shot echoed in the surrounding vales. His left side moved in greater proportion to the effort he had put in. If not for this perfectly executed manoeuvre, the bullet would have surely hit him. It now just grazed past his left arm. Raka’s whole strength seemed to have gone with the shot, and before he could think of anything else the Subedar’s hairy fist struck him and he went rolling in the damp, muddy grass. Pinning him down, the elder soldier locked his knees into the pits of the culprit’s stomach. The latter groaned with pain. Like a pernicious predatory animal, athletically built and lithe Shaka was gnawing at Subedar’s back, his arm trying to strangulate the big man. Realising its futility, he lunged forward to grab revolver from his friend’s hand that had been pinned down to the ground. But as the chill of success in getting this harbinger of death and injury ran down his spine, a shudder of fear rumbled along his taut spine. The latter one frantically rode over the earlier fleeting sense of victory for a nanosecond. The opponent too had succeeded in snatching the other weapon. Marking each other they stared at each other above the helplessly lying body of Raka between them. Their cold, steely eyes struck like arrows. The elder soldier knew that the rapist won’t hesitate to shoot him, so slipping on his heels utilising the muddy earth below, he let loose another manoeuvre as he fell backwards. The shot rattled above his head. It seemed as if the younger soldier’s advantage had been nullified by the gory deed. A second shot rang. Just at the moment his broad back hit earth his stubby fingers had done the task. Shaka had been hit on his right flank, above the armpit, near the collar bone. Convulsing with pain he staggered, fired very high above the mark and fell onto the ground.

O Justice, how fervidly we crave for you! The woman with her modesty ravaged, dragged herself to life from the stony slumber and deadly impassivity. Jumping like a wounded tigress she snatched the weapon from the injured man’s hand. Utterly dazed, almost paralysed with strange forebodings, Raka was still lying on ground. Her face distorted with raging revenge, hair dishevelled, in the depths of her eyes a boiling sea of sorrow and pain, all this and much more gripped her in its typhoon swirl. A teary blink preceded the shot. The second rapist grunted and leapt to the other side. Clawing at his thigh he rolled in muddy water. Before the full fury of her vengeance could match the lethal metal in the magazine, the elderly soldier came between her and the two wretched lives that were mortally indebted to her for their crime. For rape is no particular crime but a mammoth universal sin whose limitless contours define how half of humanity can be abused, exploited, thrown into mud, mortally injured (all soul, spirit, and the body) by another chauvinistic half of humanity. Torrentially abused her eyes were red with rage. Every pore of her body seemed to instigate her to empty all bullets into the sinners’ bodies. She was greeting her teeth with unthinkable anger. Meanwhile, Michael fought to free himself of the unsystematic and hurried tidings, and his naked body writhing with the fury of an injured leopard fell upon one of the injured soldiers.

“Ma’am I...I know, they must be killed, but...” all thoughts blanked out of the elderly soldier’s head as he pleaded with the woman to hand over the weapon.

Michael was crying and fiercely slapping Shaka’s face.

“Please, please...ma’am!” he pleaded as if seeking forgiveness from the side of all men, the wrongdoing species, from the side of Indian military, India the dirty country as a whole, whole world, whole universe. Failing to voice his agony, he pleaded with teary eyes and folded hands.

In silent fury a wave of sorrow again rose to its crest inside her. Her face contorted in consequence to it. The writing pain of her soul surfaced on her pursed lips. She had been robbed of her identity, her pride, her belief in the beauty of this world and this feeling cut deep into her soul. Oh, the fearsome face of an offended woman! There was such sea storm of emotions that the old soldier was completely lost in her facial fury. In devastating desperation, unable to rein in the grape-shot of revenge, she even brandished the weapon at the belated helper.

“They...they deserve...worst punishment,” he muttered. “But if you colour your hands with their dirty blood...it will lessen the woman in you. They are dogs. They don’t deserve to die at your hands. They have raped their own human selves. Law will see them into the den of their sin,” he folded his hands in true Indian fashion of entreaty, pleading, and request.

Michael had turned their faces into almost bloody pulp. She the sufferer of their ravenous onslaught stood shaking with infinite pain and rage. She could have very easily spent all the metal into their sinning bodies and stay contended in her conscience throughout her life. Their killing was justified on all grounds. Possibly even law would have ultimately absolved her of the deed. Their offense was even worse than killing a human being. But then killing a human being is no simple task however justified the killing might be. She the catcher of agonising and ecstatic moments from the endless stream of time for a better world possessed more of a human inside her than the instinctive urge to take revenge on spot. She vented out rest of her injury and ravage into the foliage. Holding the revolver in both her hands above her head she shot one bullet after another; pitch and notes of pain rising exponentially with each rebound of the catapulter. Throwing away the weapon she realised her nakedness and moved towards the knotted heal of their clothing. Back into the modesty of their torn and muddied clothing they fell into each other’s arms; their respective sobs going like painful waves into each other’s body. Instantly his caresses felt like succouring balm on the invisible scars in her soul and the gashes and bruises on her body.

“As per the one and first form of justice they should be shot right here on the spot by the sinned person,” staring on ground, his hands hanging dejectedly, the elder armyman bespoke forgiveness and apologies from the side of his land. “But we are long past that age of eye for an eye. Even revenge is also taken as a crime. In order to move over to higher, more sophisticated form of wrong and sin, we notify the previous ones in gilded letters,” he was speaking sensibly, intelligently in despondent tone. God knows how much effort he was putting on his tongue to sound intelligent and overcome the whirlpool of strange emotions.

“It is so easy to preach...but do you even have an idea of the brutality of their crime and what she has undergone...will she ever be able to feel safe in life?” Michael cried, clenching his fist. “See the deeds of the so called protectors of law in your country and you speak and sermonise about law and justice!”

Before he could speak further, Jenny tartly pressed her lips against his mouth as if to dive into the sea of love leaving behind all traces of the gory act and forgetting all memories of the crime against her. The veteran soldier, who was rising in the ranks of thought and ideas through reading a lot many books these days to kill the boredom in barracks, was heard saying in a warm, moist, sighing, and suffering tone—“Second form of justice is to leave then here on their fate and wait for God to do justice. But in that case it will mean like pretending to take ourselves out of the sin and leave it to the wheels of natural uncertainties. But then we will in that case carry the dirty baggage of their devilish act on our back singlehandedly into uncertain future.”

He was now sitting on the ground. On the same ground where the rapists were groaning with pain. His personage was solacing and understanding. The couple now moved towards this suffering, fat figure that out of shame for the deed of his countrymen was even hesitant to look into their eyes. As she came closer, she saw tears of shame and repentance rolling down his chubby cheeks. Slowly, she was taking control of herself; gathering the sinews of her senses after the devastating earthquake had shaken her physical self. They sat in front of him. He raised his teary eyes to them. Her eyes welled up with massive emotions. Here was a man who was soulfully crying and repenting for the crime against her. He wept like he would have done had it been his own daughter in place of her. She could feel the genuineness and purity of this stranger’s tears. She felt a strange succour to her wounded soul. Sloth and slovenliness in human hearts can break us. But purity of hearts can make us as well. His tears of repentance appeared to wash the blots of their sin from her skin.

“As we stealthily devise higher forms of wrong, we make a public show of openly, constitutionally punish and penalise the lower forms of wrongs. The suitable form of punishment left out is to take these swine to the doors of justice and put shame of public filth on their faces...to get their story published...to tell to everybody whoever hold them in slightest esteem...to get the Indian army rub off its name from their epaulettes and condemn them like petty criminals...to leave them to face their mothers and sisters,” his refined, calculated courage and books-ignited convictions got tired under the force of overpowering emotions and he stopped.

“You know ma’am what I’m asking you is one of the most merciless requests I have ever made in life,” his plump hand was fatherly resting on her heaving shoulder.

She saw thick clots of blood trickling down his sleeve. For the pain of a fellow human being this man was totally ignorant of his own injury. He knew the ravaged modesty of a woman any time surpasses the deepest cut on anybody’s body. She felt it. She felt supported and more importantly respected. He was talking in terms of contemporary justice; in exact definition and terms of the law of her own land.

“Without your help...oh, it is shameless to ask you...to ask you...to...” he could not complete his sentence.

“I will not allow my rapists to die here without getting them publicly raped in the eyes of their employer and their families, friends, and society at large. I know the way to get them punished in the severest manner. To get them branded rapists for their whole wretched life!” she yelled with fearsome determination tightly tying their wounds.

A long and tough ordeal waited ahead. Shaka was carried by the armyman on his shoulder in the military fashion of fetching a casualty from the battlefield of honour. The only difference was that he was carrying a casualty from the field of chaotic, filthy, muddy passions. Moderately tall and averagely build body of Raka hit in the thigh was carried by the couple, holding his sinned hands across their shoulders and dragging him in between. There was very little strength in his legs, so they had to literally drag him along. Shaka’s shorter, lithe body contained some traces of consciousness. They struggled along the ravaged valley, the victims carrying the culprits’ bodies cautiously, carefully stepping along treacherous precipices and muddy slopes in the hope of getting justice; to drag them into the public cage of condemnation, to throw light on their dark crime, to highlight their sin and throw it into the face of society and justice dispensation machinery. Humankind’s eternal quest for justice...pure...unstinted...fulfilling the contemporary needs.

Justice!

In a local English daily she read about the spating valley:

“No telephone working...bridges collapse...people die at Tangling and Kharo...army under stress...casualties referred to command hospital, Chandimandir...”

She hadn’t the courage to go through the main page key item about a raped foreigner whose sense of justice had prevailed over the sense of revenge to publicly rape the rapists.