It was a day when a cruel joke happened with the family. Three
years ago, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, they had become victims of life,
destiny, survival and death.
They could not know but only asked and kept on asking, why
it had to happen. They keep on asking why it happened. Their lives were thrown
in a mess. No one of them knew how to respond to it.
They were so numb that they did not feel initially if they
had questions but they kept on asking, with teary eyes, with swollen faces, with
unkempt hairs, with untidy appearances, with a broken souls, with a thoughtless
presence, why did it happen to a person, so jovial, honest, simple and helping,
a person who went out of the way to help the needy.
Photograph him from any angle, in any situation, the
outcome was always a jovial, photogenic face. And that person was subjected to
unimaginable brutalities when his life was taken away by the three persons, one
of whom he trusted and helped. It was this person who betrayed him, laid a trap
with others and called him to perpetrate his crime.
The smile that was there in the evening was gone permanently
by the morning. Still, when he was found there lying in a pool of blood, his
face was speaking in the same way, but this quiet face was now tearing into the
existence of the family members he had left behind.
That face still comes to visit, renewing the pain that has
become now an inseparable part of their lives.
The movement he went missing in the evening, lights not only
went off symbolically, but also existentially. The ambience became haunting
dark. Next morning, the shrieks were deafening. He was lying there, lifeless,
not speaking. They were madly trying to speak to him but nothing was moving as
if he had taken every other voice with him, as if the perpetrators had killed
many other voices with him.
Three years ago, the family was hit hard by the life to
stare at a survival crisis. Since then, they have been learning to live with
it. Since then, they have been learning to internalize the pain. Since then,
they have been trying to fight the vagaries of that death, the destiny, the survival
and the life.
Three years later, they still feel, as if he would come
and talk. But now they have learnt to live with his memories.
They know, that smile is to be preserved, in thoughts, in
living. And that can only be done by surviving the odds.
They know he would not come back. But they know he never
left them.
They know life will never be the same again. But the way
he lived his life asks them to live and prevail.
March 24/25, 2010 to March 24, 2013
