A nation torn by revolutions, two inseparable brothers and a love bound by tragedy.
About a thousand days apart, Adrith and Rudra are brothers bound by blood, faith and indifferences. The question arises - how much loyalty one owes a brother, a fat...
He had left for college early in the morning, as usual. The primary school had it's vacations going on, and so Adrith was still home with his parents. Their father had yet to leave for work.
It was by the late morning, when the earth was warmer that the violence began. But this time, it were the Hindus retaliating. For them, it was payback for what the League had done about a month earlier. The massacre repeated itself.
People were trying to vacate the building, chaos covering the walls, footsteps kicking the concrete floors loudly, the groans of horrid pain and splashes of blood were very audible throughout. Women screaming, running. Some trying to hold their children in arms, under their saris. Rudra had never seen so many people frightened for their lives ever before.
A gang of mobs had taken over the college building he studied at. There were gunshots, slashes of swords, throwing of stones through the windows. And for the first time in his life, Rudra was scared for his life too. It was baffling at first, not knowing what the noise really was about. To his eyes, all he'd known was that there were people dying.
Before he actually registered everything, he was yanked by his back collar of his shirt and pushed against the wall. His back hit it with a thud, a cracked and helpless voice escaping his mouth. His eyes went wide when he saw a man with a sword in his hand. The man wasn't too broad, like himself, was also wearing a dhoti. But his hand was holding Rudra's collar tightly and he shook him twice towards his covered face, the sword-yeilding hand rising backwards with force, about to launch a life-piercing cut through Rudra's heart.
But suddenly, the man's eyes fell onto Rudra's chest, his eyes glimmering through reflection of his shining pendent. The assassin's eyes went back to meet Rudra's - empty, hollow and scared. The man then threw Rudra back again against the wall, and went off without ever looking back.
Rudra was shocked, beyond the senses of his mind. He couldn't even move or think for a couple of seconds. Then, in the blink if an eye, his body went limp and he fell on his knees first, and then his hip hit his heels. Before his head would hit the ground, his took control of his body again and held himself. There was a very light tickle below his chin, and he looked down at it, still shocked and soaked, and identified what it was the man looked at.
It was a pendant his mother had given both - him and Adrith. It wasn't gold, but it was golden water. It still blinked against the sun. The pendant was of the sign om - the sacred sound of the universe.
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She sat in front of the tiny temple of wood, where she'd sit every early and late hours of the sunrise and sunset, respectively, with her legs crossed and a string of dark wooden beads being pushed and counted by her thumb. Her lips moved soundlessly and her eyes remained closed.
Adrith was fidgeting with the radio again, trying to get any news that he could, the fear of hearing something worst taking over the city, tearing his heart out. Even though it was known that it were the Muslims being attacked, he flinched with fear - an internal unraveling pain - that he might just possibly never see his baby brother again.
Even with the unwinding tension, he couldn't help and remove the image of their childhood at the graveyard house. There was a line of insects crawling through the stairs at the veranda, and when they saw it, Rudra was scared. The tiny organisms were red, with barely visible antlers to pierce through flesh. Adrith then suggested an idea to get rid of the ants without hurting them. Both of them then started making spit-bubbles and dropped them on the insects, trapping them and making them scramble in all directions. They jumped with fear, but Adrith stamped barefoot on the ants to kill them before they touched Rudra.
"Let me go down and look around the corner," said their father, his voice evident with escalating fear of loss.
"Are you mad?!" Adrith shrieked in a whisper. "You cannot go! They might kill you!"
"Then what do you expect? I can't just sit here and wait to know whether my son is dead or alive!"
"Well, if anyone goes, it will be me."
His mother could hear everything, but she didn't dare flinch any part of her body and break her prayers. She had faith, and that her faith would help protect her younger son and bring him home safely.
"No, Adrith. It's almost night. You have to stay back to look after your mother and wait if Rudra returns."
"What do you mean by if?!"
"I mean... I meant, he will return. And whe-"
Suddenly, there was a soft knock on their door. Everyone went stiff for a second and the mother stopped moving her lips for the first time in hours, her eyes slowly opening. They pretended as if they couldn't hear it, until there was another knock, louder than before.
"Baba? Dada?"
It was Rudra.
The mother started sobbing immediately and the father opened the door, Adrith running towards the it, as if his life depended upon it. As soon as it opened, Adrith pounced on his brother so quickly, it took both Rudra and their father by shock for a second. But then the father joined in too. They stood in the doorway for a minute or two until the mother let out a loud sigh full of tears.
They then let him in and closed the door, latched it and Rudra went towards his mother's lap. He began shaking too. She started kissing her favourite son's face violently, holding it by the sides, her teary streaked face still ugly. But Rudra only smiled.
