ONE SUICIDAL JOURNEY
I was halfway into a reverie within
which many parallel sequences of events were in speedy motion. The re-enactment
of the viva voces of the recent final examinations, the vivid 3D action scenes
from the movie, The Avengers and the risky late night drive from Shillong were a fleeting integral. In
amidst these accelerated flashes were phases of tranquility consisting of parts
of the many hours spent with Simone, and the imagined awareness of a balmy
breeze. And all of a sudden, these gave way to tumultuous scenes of terrorizing
violence.
Against six humans
inside a car,
There were hundreds
outside, and they
Waged a war and
nobody cared who died!
They had spars, and
they dared and tried,
To make the largest
scars, with fury they eyed;
Rang bells to
celebrate as the unfortunate cried.
Conflagration in
their inebriated minds,
Would they leave that
untried?
With every hoot and
remorseless howl,
Tyrannical hatred in
their every scowl;
And brute force in
every killer hurl,
Of stones and bricks,
with a fetish snarl;
Shattered the
glasses on every side,
Those battered with
rocks many inches wide;
Dented all the metal
and thus they took pride,
Attacked to unsettle
and shove the car down upside!
The occupants were hurt
and lot more scared,
For such barbarians
they were unprepared;
Overwhelmed to
unwillingly surrender,
To the sudden
savagery, undeclared!
Chances were slender
that they would be spared,
Though the women folk
pleaded for mercy;
Never in their
dreams could they fancy,
The amusement caused
by the rampancy!
The catcalls,
whistles and buzz of cheers,
Defied and derided
their despairing tears;
Rather the burly
murderous men,
Threw brutal blows
in multiples of ten;
The very morning
they mortally wounded many men,
It was fiendish
pleasure in doing it again and again...
It was a bad idea and I knew it all
along. Simone too urged me not to go. I walked from my hostel to Bhangagarh,
when I realised I did not have my cell phone with me, walked back and forth that
distance to board a city bus to Jalukbari and then trod the way to Amingaon
across the Saraighat bridge to meet my parents waiting there.
That morning in Barpeta, my parents
hemmed and hawed about the journey. They did not like the idea but they gave in
to it. At 11 AM, they were at Amingaon.
At Dalgaon Tea Estate, my uncle and
his wife and son were waiting for us. They too had this disinclination for
making the trip but they relinquished any reluctance on the face of our bravado
in uneventfully arriving at their place at 1 PM.
25th May was an Assam
Bandh declared by multiple tribal organisations because they protested their
inability to be eligible for being school teachers based on merit and wanted to
force in the idea that their eligibility everywhere is their caste itself,
irrespective of unachieved qualifying marks! We had no intention of defying
their designs but our urgency was that we wanted to be part of the 1 year
anniversary of my little cousin sister and that was drawing us towards destiny.
We picked our uncle’s family and I
was ready to drive using the National Highway, when we saw a hand waving at us.
A hefty person with a husky voice confidently declared, “Don’t take the
Highway. There is some disturbance ahead. Instead use this diversion. I have
come that way.” I wish I had not listened
to his false assertions.
We took that village road and at
the end of it, before it merged with the Highway at Orang, we saw a gathering. At
the same time, many sulky eyes in that mob spotted our car. Without any
warning, they charged at us from all directions and began pelting stones. As I
saw people jump in front of the car, I had no choice but to halt it partly out
of fear and due to concern that someone could be hurt. That was the point
wherefrom began the extreme onslaught. They used large bamboo sticks, canes and
rods to inflict greatest damage. Many of them lifted huge rocks and hurled them
with murderous intent. As I tried to guard myself with my arms from the
splinters and stones, I imagined that those people were teeming with rage, but
what I saw surprised me. Many of them were deriving sadistic pleasure from it
and had sardonic smiles plastered on their faces. I heard whistles and hoots
with every hit they made on our car as if it were a game to them.
I was numbed for some time trying
to come in terms with what was happening. I felt no pain though I was
repeatedly being hit with stones. As I attempted to re-wear the spectacles
displaced by the blow of an attacker, I felt sticky fluid in my fingers. I saw
that it was blood. At the same time, other than the constant thudding of stones,
I heard the burly assailant screaming at the top of his voice at me, “Get out
of the car and I will teach you some lesson”
He was vociferous with his slang
usage and kept on bellowing his bloodthirsty intentions. From being stupefied
with horror, I was slowly mustering courage and the constant bashing from this
aggressor, both verbal and mechanical, made me recover from my shell-shock and
inaction. I started my car again. I saw many policemen ahead of me and slowly
drove towards them. After gently manoeuvring the car for a hundred metres, the
premises of a police station offered haven.
As I dismounted the tattered car, I
could gauge the mammoth loss resulting from the imprudent temerity of our
party. I also shuddered to think that our lives were at stake and loss of anyone
could have unfolded at any time in that harrowing quarter of an hour. I had just seen the ugly face of humanity.
A few policemen came to the succour
of our injured party. I saw that every one of us had suffered bruises and
abrasions. As I sat on a bench with the rest of us, some of the policemen were
talking to us. From them, we came to know that this was a road blockade by a Bodo militant organization. We were
unaware of that. They had been destroying vehicles from the early morning. A
few hours ago, a father and a son travelling in a new Ritz were badly bashed up till they were unconscious and bleeding
profusely from their scalps. Their car was awfully decimated. I could see its
remains beside our own car. A truck driver was similarly assaulted and the mob
looted his truck and stole its battery. A completely crumpled motorcycle was
also in view. The rider was in hospital and they said that he was in a very bad
state. Even a bicyclist was not spared. He was mauled till his breaths were
laboured and he was also shifted to the hospital.
I was listening to these
enthusiastic accounts by the policemen. What was glaring was the fact that
everything was happening right in front of that police station and the unruly
crowd perpetrated the rampage in defiance to over 50 policemen having fire
power, the latter almost impotently accepting the carnage. Even then I would
not deny that our lives were saved by the opportune presence of that police
station.
Today, a few days later, as I
recollect the incident, I feel sad about many things. This has been a lesson
for life.
