The Living Dead (© Biswapriya Purkayastha)
Page 2 I leaned across the seat
again. "How much longer?" "I don’t know, saab."
The driver indicated the jumble of men, carts and rickshaws in front of us with
a wave of his hand. "You can see for yourself. We can’t move." It was at this time that I
had the idea that directly resulted in my getting killed. "All right," I said. "Stop
here and let me out. I’ll go on from here." In defence of myself I must
explain a few things. I was not an inexperienced traveller; I knew well enough
how taxi drivers had a well honed sixth sense designed to spot the stranger in
town and to fleece him. I did not believe there was any riot; I had seen
nothing out of the ordinary. And the taxi was going at a rate that would get us
to our destination sometime after the sun burned out. So, I still maintain, it was
– according to the circumstances – a logical decision for me. How was I to know
what would happen? Indeed, how do any of us know
what is going to happen to us and to others as a result of the actions we take?
Which of us can confidently proclaim, "Today I am doing this, and the
result will be that, and perhaps those may happen in the fullness
of time, but nothing more"? Can anybody? So I paid off the driver and
made my way through the carts and darting urchins, past noisome open drains and
little men with dirty clothes who pulled bulging sacks into dark doorways from
which came the odour of stored grains and spices; I turned my body to squeeze
between rickshaws so inextricably entangled there was no point in even trying
to engage one of them. I walked on until the crowd thinned a little and then
suddenly I was relatively free. The people around me fell away, and I was
almost alone. I turned a corner and they
were upon me. I never saw them coming. I
don’t know where they sprung from, but I believe they were waiting in one of
the little dark alleys alongside the street for those like me. I don’t know who
they were or how many, but I was surrounded in an instant. I did not even have
the time for fear; and the one in front of me reached out and grabbed my shirt.
"Here’s one," he said. I did
not speak his language, but it was close enough to Hindi that I could
understand. Then, to me, he said, "Where are you going, hah?" "Uh?" I was bewildered. What
did they want with me? "Who are you?" I asked in Hindi. "What do you want with
me?" "Speaking Hindi!" It seemed
to infuriate the man for some reason. "Motherfucker speaks Hindi with us!" He
slapped my face, lightly, back and forth, twice. I am not – I was not –
a coward, and I would certainly have hit back, instinctively, but my hands were
pinioned. I felt other hands drag my briefcase of papers off me. Someone else
ripped my mobile off my belt. I noticed that most of them were carrying iron
rods and machetes. Still, at this time, I was not seriously alarmed. This was
all a stupid mistake. I had come out through worse scrapes in the past,
unharmed. I still did not realise what was going to happen, or I did not
want to realise. "Fucking bearded Muslim
traitor!" he screamed. Oh heavens. "I’m not a
Muslim," I said. "Bastard." He shouted so loud
he sprayed my face with saliva. "Strip him!" I felt the hands on my
clothes. I felt them grab, and pull, I felt threads part and buttons fly. The
tie, caught on its pin, constricted tightly round my neck for an instant, then
tore. In another instant my torso was bare. Something slashed around my waist,
and my trousers collapsed round my ankles. My underwear followed suit. "Circumcised! The fucker’s a
cut-prick! That proves it! Smash him!" "You’re wrong. I was…" I got
no further. Something smashed me across the face. Almost as in a dream I
watched a sharpened iron rod drive at my chest. The rest happened in less
time than it takes to tell of it. Weapons rose and fell, something hit me
across the back of my head, and as I collapsed someone kicked me back against a
wall so I ended sitting with my back against it. I don’t know if I was still
alive at that point. [ Continue to page 3 ] |