A Bend in the River of Life Read Free Page B

they decided to perpetrate the worst form of brutality at the religious altar. They began attacking the migrating minorities, maiming and killing the men and raping and abducting the women. As the news spread over radio and newspapers, retaliation reverberated at a larger scale and in a ghastlier manner elsewhere on the other side of the border. Riot broke out at thousands of places simultaneously. Law and order became paralyzed totally. Only jungle rule prevailed. As the Independence Day drew closer, the brutality and insanity were stepped up at an increasing crescendo. Soon ghost trains stashed with thousands of dead and mutilated bodies started arriving from either side of the border with blood dripping along the mute train tracks. Death and destruction stilled the minds of the civilized. The foul odor of the dead filled the air. The blood-soaked earth recorded for the posterity the most thoughtless, most inept and most brutal end of nearly 200 years of abhorrent and ignominious British rule in the history of mankind.
    When the first bout of riot took place on the outskirts of Amit Roy’s neighborhood, a shock wave rippled through the community. Good fortune would have it, the peaceful neighborhood was part of the enclave of the high and mighty with enormous political and economic clout. For obvious reasons the neighborhood was meticulously protected by the crack police and military units under instructions to shoot at sight if it was necessary to quell the riot there. Without that impregnable defense befitting a fortress, the communitywas not prepared to protect itself against the rampage of the wild mob.
    Rana was not even three years old then, but the first night’s riot would forever remain etched in his mind. All day he heard a word “curfew” which sounded scary to him. Before sunset a few families of the neighborhood came and joined his family under a group survival plan hastily hatched up. The females and children were asked to stay on the second floor under cover of darkness behind locked iron gates and latched doors. All the adult males stayed alert, roaming all around the garden of the property armed with whatever defensive weapons were at their disposal. At one point in the evening, little Rana walked up the stairs to the roof with Rajani and Devika only to observe the night sky with an orange glow arising out of numerous arsons torched by the rampaging and killing mob. Rana did not under stand everything, but perceived something terrible was happening.
    Next day, all the men in the neighborhood got together and took two immediate decisions: First, to prepare for the self-defense and second, to send away all the females and children to their friends and family on the other side of the border at the very first opportunity. The ghastliness of the previous night’s killing and cruelty was ominous. The impact of the riot changed the lives of the neighborhood forever. Those like Amit Roy who had not taken the fact of the impending partition of the country seriously and were planning to carry on with their lives as before, were hastened to take the decision of safety first for their families. Consequently, in the first phase of the exodus the families began despatching their young females to safe havens.
    Amit Roy’s family too could not escape the inevitable. Discussions were taking place among Rajani, Amit and his two younger brothers Sumit and Sudip with regard to the course of action the family should take. Though as the two youngest members of the family Devika and Rana had no part in the discussions, they remained in the hearing distance to follow vaguely what was being parleyed outof sheer anxiety. Within a few days, Amit’s married sister Kamala came with her husband, Gautam. They were on their way to Calcutta on the other side of the border. According to the plan of the family, they came to pick up Devika to escort her on their way to safety.
    That was the first time that Rana met