Well....
I don't really know how and when it all started, neither do I've a mighty memory which would enable me to recall an incident that happened some 14 years back, when I was just 4.
But one thing that I definitely know is that, this incident didn't change my life in particular, though it may have changed lives of thousands...
It was an intense day, for all the wrong reasons....
They said,"Babri Masjid ko gira diya hai..!!, sab hinduon ko maarkar khoon-kharaaba faila rahe hain..!!!".
Kanpur, my hometown (yeah!!) has always been a communal flash point and so, I have always seen one or the other things happening there..
The one I'm talking about happened immediately after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. It was just a regular riot, a bit more in magnitude than other ones may be. But I was too small to know and understand that..and may be that's the reason why I was in the school on that fateful day..!!!!..
The aftermath of the demolition was predictable and Kanpur was no exception. Kanpur was dismantled. Nobody had any clue as to what was happening. People were panicky. People...good people and bad people...people who wanted to save their lives...and people who hunted for lives...!!!!.. A wave of tension filled the whole city, proliferating like a cancer, decaying the minds, creating incisions..building walls, spilling blood, chopping bodies, hurling invectives, going mad..!!!...going dead..!!
I lived in Civil Lines, which was far from my school. But living in a civilized area was no remedy for a boiling riot..everyone was affected... though the extent differed..
I was protected..!!
The ones who weren't...well..God knows...
Instantaneously a curfew was declared and life revolved around that..no vegetables..no fruits..no milk.. no grains.. no nothing. Life stopped, almost threatening not to resolve its normal pace...!!!!
People were the victims. Poor tormented souls. They feared of anything and everything. Alarmed by the presence of a Muslim. Petrified on stepping into a muslim moholla.
A procreated hell it was..
The wreckage was unfathomable...!!!!!
It's said that people have a short memory and they tend to forget things fast..
I think it's right too. It's better to forget the agonies than to live with them, but had my memory collapsed, I wouldn't have remembered all this, some of which is heard and some conceived...
While I was writing this, truly, I had nothing in my mind. No insights. No clues. Just a fragment of nostalgia..
As I furthered, I got hold of the shore...
I don't really know how and when it all started, neither do I've a mighty memory which would enable me to recall an incident that happened some 14 years back, when I was just 4.
But one thing that I definitely know is that, this incident didn't change my life in particular, though it may have changed lives of thousands...
It was an intense day, for all the wrong reasons....
They said,"Babri Masjid ko gira diya hai..!!, sab hinduon ko maarkar khoon-kharaaba faila rahe hain..!!!".
Kanpur, my hometown (yeah!!) has always been a communal flash point and so, I have always seen one or the other things happening there..
The one I'm talking about happened immediately after the demolition of the Babri Masjid. It was just a regular riot, a bit more in magnitude than other ones may be. But I was too small to know and understand that..and may be that's the reason why I was in the school on that fateful day..!!!!..
The aftermath of the demolition was predictable and Kanpur was no exception. Kanpur was dismantled. Nobody had any clue as to what was happening. People were panicky. People...good people and bad people...people who wanted to save their lives...and people who hunted for lives...!!!!.. A wave of tension filled the whole city, proliferating like a cancer, decaying the minds, creating incisions..building walls, spilling blood, chopping bodies, hurling invectives, going mad..!!!...going dead..!!
I lived in Civil Lines, which was far from my school. But living in a civilized area was no remedy for a boiling riot..everyone was affected... though the extent differed..
I was protected..!!
The ones who weren't...well..God knows...
Instantaneously a curfew was declared and life revolved around that..no vegetables..no fruits..no milk.. no grains.. no nothing. Life stopped, almost threatening not to resolve its normal pace...!!!!
People were the victims. Poor tormented souls. They feared of anything and everything. Alarmed by the presence of a Muslim. Petrified on stepping into a muslim moholla.
A procreated hell it was..
The wreckage was unfathomable...!!!!!
It's said that people have a short memory and they tend to forget things fast..
I think it's right too. It's better to forget the agonies than to live with them, but had my memory collapsed, I wouldn't have remembered all this, some of which is heard and some conceived...
While I was writing this, truly, I had nothing in my mind. No insights. No clues. Just a fragment of nostalgia..
As I furthered, I got hold of the shore...
U have wat it takes to be ... ( possibilities needn't be defined writer , poet watever you want to call it)
ReplyDeletegreat posts , i was lost in here !!
you are a beautiful writer.
ReplyDeleteyou have explained the agony of riots and wat all people feel... it doesn't seem to be only a peace of writing. it is a lot more than that.
good post. keep writing.
ReplyDeletegr8 2 hv u bak ..... i hv gotta appreciate your willingness to reminisce. critical comments in private :-)
ReplyDeleteSimple yet impactful. Serene yet fiery. Innocent yet mature. I liked the post, overall.
ReplyDeleteThough, don't overdo the punctuation marks and the ellipsis.
Keep writing :)
The babri masjid incident........one of the most unfortunate events in our indian history.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what you were feeling while writing this post, but u presented it in a very innoncent way.
A great post indeed. Deep and contained.
Keep writing.
The post had very less literature and a life-ful of truth.Art always has to be like that.It has to act like a dark and dissolve like salt.Your writing has it.
ReplyDeleteLike 'is paris burnig? or 'freedom at mid night' can you keep this insight to the very end.
I wish you all success.
me have a new post.
do visit.
bye and take care.
Babri masjid dwemolition, i remember , i was in school.We seen so many photo ands clips on TV, but its never like if you are there.These do leave behind a mark on your soul and errupt at anytime.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting me, please do come again
Itz a good portrayal of ur NOSTALGIA....well i m an outsider to the entire episode in a parochial way...bt can feel the vocarious agony.Well written bt cd hv been mre descriptive in terms of incorporating the plight of other pple...specially of ur (then) age who myt nt hv bn as lucky as u and ur family..
ReplyDeletewell done...!kp writin!
:-) keep blogging
ReplyDeletefor describing that incident it would have taken many more words but writing it in short and still not losing the feelings is just gr8...
ReplyDeleteYou were able to describe something that happened to you so long ago in such a way that was so descriptive. The words that you used were almost surreal. Such great writing... Kayce
ReplyDeleteAmazing posts!
ReplyDeleteYou should be editing some newspaper ma'am.. take a bow!
would blogroll you shortly.. amazing post.
and yeah,I spent 25 days training in IIT Kanpur and I absolutely loved them..though I didnt get to see much of the city..
cheers..
hey could relate to a few of the thoughts..was in mumbai during babri masjid riots and in ahmedabad during the godhra carnage..very well written
ReplyDeleteThe babri masjid incident effected everyone, but in different capacities! great post,nice blog.Looking forward to read more posts from you!
ReplyDeletecivil lines == "civil"ised area
ReplyDeleteNice conclusion !!!!
lol
Anyway good post !!!!
good thought n good post,
ReplyDeleteI also have this type of Nastolgia. I was in Moradabad (Police Line)n curfue was there. Cann't forget that moment.
[:)]
ReplyDeletegreat one ......looks really from insight.
This is a nice blog. My best to its continued success.
ReplyDeleteShruti,
ReplyDeletenice to know tht u r a native of kanpur me being from Lucknow and i had relatives in Govindnagar.
U surely made me remeber tht day: 6th dec
but mine was a much more peaceful as we were having fun, oblivious of d happenings in neighborhood city. bt d following days were tough.
I will not like myself to be called a secularist but still d line frm ur blog made me ponder:
"Alarmed by the presence of a Muslim. Petrified on stepping into a muslim moholla."
This isnt sumthing tht i wud say went well..it cud hav also read like tis for sum1else...
"Alarmed by the presence of a Hindu. Petrified on stepping into a Hindu moholla."
Yes, tht was indeed ur state of mind but trust me d feeling is same everywhere. A mob has no name, face or religion it only has a motive.
I will say, lets move on... We r wat we make of ourselves
Nice pondering post n nostalgic at d same time.
I think most of us agree that a day that started just as an ordinary day changed all of us permanently.
ReplyDeleteOver the years I felt that things couldn’t go that bad again and that it was an aberration but then Gujarat happened in the age of live TV news and there was no still intervention.
Hi! I've become somewhat apathetic to the intense suffering people experience during "man-made calamities" as communal riots--honest. The human nature and ensuing actions have largely ceased to surprise (and shock) me. So, you might understand it's a huge compliment I'm paying if I say, this post if only for a moment penetrated through my apathy and touched a cord. I'd written a blog called "Communalism", and if you in through it, you might realize how clinical had been my approach to the whole issue. Thanks for finding me a part of me I'd lost sometime, somewhere. TC.
ReplyDelete@Ketan-
ReplyDeleteThe very fact that you chose to comment on this post and not others (Assuming that you read the first few posts but chose to comment on this one because of your reasons) brings in that may be you are NOT that passive as you think you are. This is however hypothetical a derivation, on my part..!!
We all at times feel the same passivity. Excess of anything and everthing brings indifference.
Also, since you (or someone close) have never been on the receiving end, you are 'apathetic'.
I haven't read your Communalism write-up as of now, but will surely do so.
Thanks for the comment.
Regards
Well yes, Shruti, none of my near and dear ones have ever been affected. If something untoward does happen, I'd be affected at a personal level, but it won't make me philosophize over the whole issue, because I feel I know, even if somewhat vaguely, the reasons why such things happen. My thinking won't give me new answers for it won't throw up new questions. It is this thing that I'm calling apathy.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of your description of the event was that you didnot use a certain kind of shortcut to evoke emotions, viz., a family/person caught up in the riot, and still it portrayed very well the chaos that must have loomed.
Part of the reason I've become apathetic is because I'm convinced that at certain level we all are responsible for "man made calamities" in the world. The human race deserves all this (sic). Yes, the only defence that we humans have is that we've been so caught up in our day-to-day life that nobody has "time" to think on these philosophical issues. And that's a bad excuse. We've outsourced our thinking to manipulative elements in the society, without even realizing what we've given up.
It's possible that lot of what I typed here might not make sense as you're not tuned into how I think. Maybe, reading a few of my analytical blogs might help you undertand. But what's the point in undertanding how I think? Not much, except that you'll come across yet another way of looking at the world and the people in it. TC.
I tend to be bit busy, but as and when I go through your blogs, I might comment. But, the irony is my commenting won't be in proportion to how much I enjoy a certain post ;) but if it makes me think something new. Hope that's fine by you. TC, again.
ReplyDelete