Masked men hide around a pale building reeking of paan and cigarettes, their gamchas acting as masks covering everything except their eyes, sharp axes and farming tools clutched resolutely in their hands. They are hidden with practised ease even if the men inside are least likely to notice, given the rancous laughter coming from within, all of them waiting for a signal to move from the man leading them. It comes a minute later, the signal and they invade the building through the wide open entrance and the open windows. The men inside barely have time to reach for their guns before they are slaughtered one by one. When the last man falls, they move out in record speed, hurrying in different ways to their place.
The man leading them removes his gamcha when they reach their safe place. Eyes ablaze, face serious, Satyakam nods in acknowledgement. He has never been a man for speeches but that one nod is enough for his men to know he is pleased by their operation. They scatter to their respective places but Satyakam stays where he is. When he first began his rebellion, he had resorted to as minimal violence as possible but it became very clear to him, violence was very much needed. Because the system he is rebelling against to get justice for, which first began to only provide justice to one woman, the woman he loved, the woman who had been wronged and then turned into a fire to get justice for the common populace of the lower stratas of society, this fight that was for every time he looked away, stayed silent for any atrocity committed thinking it wasn't in his power to change, that it was a meaningless battle, that maybe someday things will improve, this system he is rebelling against is now on a larger scale. The very first time he and his men had invaded a police station, it was only to beat them up but it had gotten ugly soon enough and two of his men had paid with their lives. He had gone on to kill them then, their blood and deaths staining his conscience, guilt eating him alive. He wasn't a murderer, he did not want blood on his hands but he had no other option. Corruption, he has discovered, is a disease that makes home in the very roots of the people.Like a parasite, it mounts on the greed in a person and feeds and feeds and feeds off of it, growing big and strong and never allowing for it to stop. It is an addiction, an affliction that can seldom be cured, that people seldom want to be cured of. It is a weed and the only way to eradicate it is by cutting it off because the people he was up against, they had sinned far too much to even attempt to be purified. Now though, there is no guilt anymore. Because all of those who had perished today, they had only been targeted after months of intel that proved they were vermins and nothing more. Nothing about these monsters has been redemable and they are all but burdens on the application of justice because how even can they be when they are as much the perpetrators as much as they are puppets wielded by money.
No, he feels no regret. But he knows, the stakes have gone up and he is getting closer and closer to danger he may not be able to get out of!
_
It is a meticulous effort that takes them three days to complete the list that has all the topics in each subject that has to be covered. With the first step done, Harish and Malini decide the next step will be to decide where she stands in what she already knows.
"Me and Malini are going to make a question paper for you. Till then your task is to brush up everything you have learnt till now and to attempt the daily tests I'll get for you. Times have changed now, we have better workbooks and more easily available question papers. You will solve the paper/ workbook exercise I select for the day, as a test and Malini will correct the papers. We will keep a tab of your scores. Assume Imlie beta, you are in school, okay?" Harish says, the seriousness ebbing away at his last few words which are said amusedly.
Instead of being remotely upset or concerned, the brightness on her face increases.
"That sounds great!" she exclaims causing both Malini and Harish to chuckle at her.
"In the four years of my teaching and 28 years of my existence, I have never heard a student say that in response to being told they shall have tests every day!" she says, chuckling.
"You just haven't met students like me Didi!" Imlie says with a smug smile, pulling her non existent collars. It is the first time in days that she looks so close to how she was before her hospitalization.
Malini smacks her head lightly and Imlie pouts at that.
"Sach me behene lag rahi ho!" he says
("You two really look like sisters!")
"Haan toh hum hain Bade Papa!" Malini says hugging Imlie
("Yes, we absolutely are!")
"Nazar na lage meri bacchiyon ko!" Radha says, waving away the nazar with her hands and cracking her knuckles to ward it away.
("May there be no evil eye on my children!")
The family then settle for their dinner, a light, hearty meal of parathas with matar paneer.
_
There is a certain weakness that refuses to dissipate from his bones. This disease within him, he knows it is his death but ever since he cut off all ties with his family and her, in a bid to protect them, it feels like this very action of his has been a fodder to what's killing him. Each appointment with the doctor only strips off more of what has already died within him - any sense of hope. He lives his last days in a routine, going to a job he does not need yet goes to because he has nothing else to do, because he'll be forced headfirst into all the thoughts he's been avoiding if he were to leave his time empty.
He stumbles, dizzy as he gets up from his couch and barely manages to stabilize himself. He slumps back, eyes fluttering closed in exhaustion. He had pushed himself to the brink again! But what else was he to do, he didn't have many days to live anyways!
Note
Yes Nishant's bit is more of a filler. Also I have been thinking few things. I have been wondering if the changes I am bringing is in anyways seeming like I'm altering the core of who Imlie is - a village girl who dreams of being educated. When I say diction or altering her style of clothing, I don't mean completely transforming her dialect. What I mean is helping her blend in with proper understanding of the languages spoken here. I write most of my dialogues in english, it does not mean the characters are speaking english so it might seem I'm transforming Imlie in a way that is against her character. I really hope that is clear.
Love,
Pratyusha
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Lakeerein - Ties That Bind Us
Fiksi Penggemar------ Can Be Read As General Fiction ------ One night. One event. Lives of two people altered completely. When Aditya Kumar Tripathi, Chief Executive Reporter at Bhaskar times stepped into Pagdandiya and met Imlie, he did not know how his life woul...
