LAST DAY ON THE JOB

Authors note : I know how easy it is to bash our foreign neighbours for every act of terrorism that occurs in India and lament about how they're brainwashing our fellow Indians too, but I just wanted to put in a thought process.. by continuing with these prejudices in our own mindset and discriminating against innocent people for the crimes of others, are we not ourselves promoting anger and hatred in our nation ? And, in the end, is that not the birthplace of terrorism ?

They both stood on the terrace watching the festivities below, oblivious to each other.

He watched the crowds running around below, teenagers, schoolkids, old men and women throwing that wretched powder of theirs celebrating their stupid senseless festival. From where he stood, they seemed not bigger than rats... thousand of rats.She watched the crowds below, her friends and their parents, her teachers, the milkman, Raju Chacha and Oh! my God, even prim and proper Mrs Gupta... all drenched in colours. She couldn’t help herself. She couldn’t stop laughing at them all... they looked so happy, it was beautiful.

He remembered as a child not being invited to play these games because he was of another culture... the other religion, they said.She remembered celebrating this festival every year with her family. The colours, the gulaal, the games.

He remembered the constant jibes about how his mother covering herself from head to toe would not cleanse the sins of ‘her type’.She remembered her normally mousy mom dancing crazily after daddy put something in her drink one year.. he called it bhang, she recalled. She was like a drunken giraffe, she thought, another laugh, escaping her.

He remembered all the times he had come home crying, his shirt torn after being bullied by the schoolkids because he wasn’t like them.She remembered mom not recognising her with all that colour and almost taking Shibi home. Ha ha !! What a fool she would have looked like that day.

He remembered how his father was thrown out of his job, despite being the most experienced, because they wanted more of their own kind and struggling to get a job thereafter.She remembered the sweets her dad would distribute every time this holiday came around , the neighbour kids waiting eagerly for him to come home so they could ransack him before she and her brother got to him.

He remembered the size of the stone that had shattered their window and their lives, when India beat Pakistan in a game no one remembered anymore, the shards of glass leaving his sister blind in one eye.She remembered the cricket wars that took place in the compound every year on this day – It had become a part of the festival. Raju Chacha always cheated but still lost. Even his wife would boo him, she giggled to herself.

He remembered begging for help from his friends to earn enough for the operation, the slammed doors and lewd suggestions on what his sister should do to earn that money.She remembered running around from door to door, collecting toys and distributing them later with her friends to the kids living on the market road.

He remembered the people who finally came, too late albeit, to his family’s aid, providing them food and money while their own neighbours turned their backs on them.She remembered daddy saying that under all this colour and laughter, religions and castes disappeared atleast for one day in this confused nation.

He remembered what they had taught him about good and bad, about forgiveness and punishment... about a final judgement. How these people would accept him and his people as one of theirs.She remembered what her dad said about never forgetting how a single random act of kindness reverberates in the receiver’s heart, long after the deed was done.

He looked down at the remote in his hands. She looked down at the powder in her hands.

He looked at his watch. It was time. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. His finger reached for the button and...

“Excuse me, Bhai Saab.”

He opened his eyes. He hid the remote behind his back and stared at the little girl standing 10 feet away.

“Excuse me, Bhai Saab. Can I play Holi with you ?”

He bit his lip in frustration at this intrusion. “I’m sorry I don’t play. I’m a Muslim. This is not my festival.”

“Toh Kya Hua. Abba always says that under all this colour and laughter, no one can see castes and religions atleast for this one day. He says it’s a pity India doesn’t have 300 more days like this.”

“Bakwaas! What nonsense.” He thought. Then something struck him about what she had said.

“Abba ?” He asked.

“Hah ! That’s my Abba over there” she said pointing at a figure dancing in the crowd, drenched in violet and yellow.

“Salim Chacha is your father ?” He asked incredulously. “But.. but.. he’s Muslim ?” At the back of his mind, something gnawed him. He couldn’t put his finger on it... something about her wasn’t right.

“Haa. So what ? That’s never stopped anyone in our family. We’ve always been this way only. Enjoying every festival. Why waste a single day hating someone when there’s only 30 days a month to love and enjoy and barely a festival a month to have free cake, Abba says” She giggled.

He came towards her. She didn’t flinch back, her hands hugging the terrace rails as she watched him and the crowd alternatively. He sat down on the ground, so that they were face to face.

"But don’t you ever feel these Hindus treat us so horribly. I mean, for someone else’s crimes, we have to suffer. I know you don’t have to face it that much at this age but it gets worse as you grow up.” There. Again, as she had turned towards him and he saw her thin frame in that gawdy overcoloured frock , his mind was sending warning bells to him. Something was not right here..but what ?

“I’ve never had any problems like that. My friends are all of every religion and they’re my best friends in the whole world. They always come for our Eid parties and Sanjay and Sucheti even take fast with me and Ammi during Ramazan. They were there for me when I got hospitalised for some time last year and always invite me and my family for any function. Abba says that anger is no good, so what’s the point of sharing it ? If someone treats you wrongly, don’t spread that dirty anger. Spread love.. Of course, Abba’s usually trying to get me to say that I like Ammi more than him but then..”

He listened as she babbled, wisdom intermixing childish rants. He tried to ignore both but something had seeped through into his senses. The remote suddenly felt like a brick in his pocket. He nodded as she talked, listening to words that suddenly made more sense than any his “friends” had preached to him. At her silence, he looked up to see the girl with her palm outstretched, coloured powder in her hands. She looked expectantly at him.

He smiled at her. He mused at how life was... how an innocent little girl, untouched by violence and hate, could change his mindset and in doing so, save the lives of thousands of people enjoying down below. He got up and she smiled. A rattling sound behind her turned his attention towards it as she came closer to him.

And suddenly the warning bells in his head seared through his brain, burning him. He watched nauseated as she held the railing and approached him. The gawdy overcoloured frock, untouched by the colours of Holi all day, the crutch lying on the ground where it had fallen, her unsteady gait, the hospitalisation... the hollowness under the long frock where the right leg should have been. And he knew instantly.

“What happened to your leg?” he asked, his heart crying for redemption from the truth he already knew.

“Oh that” she said, smiling. “Somebody put a bomb in our playground last year. I and 12 others were badly hurt. I was lucky in the end. I only lost my leg. I was really angry but Abba told me I should be lucky... what if I had lost my hands, he’d say ? Then I could never become a violin player or an astronaut because who’d press the lift off button ? What if I’d lost my nose, he’d say ? Then I couldn’t win the Best Nose contest in Ms Universe... what if I’d lost my ears, he’d ... Why are you crying ?”

He stared at her, the product of his first test of loyalty, his first job. She and all the others had been faceless strangers until today.. and his own words came back to him.. “for someone else’s crimes, we have to suffer. I know you don’t have to face it that much at this age...”

“It’s nothing. Will you.. play Holi with me ?” He asked through the tears. She smiled and smeared his face.

His friends did not know it yet, but that was his last day at work.

He had just quit.