A Tale Of Two Brothers

XI

PART 3

"At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes, but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance."
- Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, The first Prime Minister of Independent India, 1947

Freedom means the act of rising and proudly stating, "I'm not going to do this because I don't believe in it."

Purna Swaraj (complete Independence) was achieved, or so people thought.

In the months surrounding the independence of now counted as two nations, religious riots broke the country once again. A border was drawn in Punjab, Bihar and Bengal. Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims began killing each other, throwing themselves into trains and resulting in massive bloodshed along the borders. People on both sides of the border were being killed.

The other side of the border, what formed was the dominion of Pakistan, an exclusive Muslim land. Many of these Muslims stayed back, among which many were slaughtered, disbanded and un-homed. Sikhs were mistreated on the other side of the border as well. It was as if the world had come to an unrest. These religious bunch stamped their feet into directions they thought would be more favorable to them, and where they'd find more majority. Nevertheless, people were terrified. Muslims came from the East, whereas Hindus and Sikhs cam from the West. This uproar had begin to leave people on the wrong side of the borders and many lost their lives, as a consequence.

On one side, where millions were celebrating the disbandment of the British colony, the other side was being shattered to shreds. People were migrating barefoot, with scratches on their heels as some footsteps left blood stains. They traveled hungry and parched. At the railway station, there was a never ending line at the water-pump. A man was pumping the nozzle, while men were filling up their palms curved like bowls to get mouthfuls of sips. Some of them filled their hands for their children. Where the blood of the previous riots hadn't dried up, was once again freshly drenched in blood.

The entity of Pakistan celebrated its first Independence on the 14th of August. The following day, the second anniversary of when the Japanese had surrendered, marked the first celebration of the Indian Independence. 

Two children of history were born.

As a witness of it all, Rudra believed he was handcuffed to history.

He was disheartened, that even after it all, a nation once called as one, had a man made crack into the foundations of the very earth. The crack divided people like him, estranged, and perhaps, for years to be unlike him, an alien. For many who once rooted here, would now be forced to replant.

He saw his brother jump while sitting, fist-bumping the air in happiness, not only for the colonial rule was over, but also because the only colonies left were for Hindus. He saw his parents hug for the first time in years.

Even though he was happy to know that the rule was over, there was an underlying satisfaction that the country he had called home for all these years, where he was bread and buttered had now broken its chains and fled out of the cage.

While there was chaos and screams of happiness almost everywhere around him, he knew, that the cost for this happiness was heavier than many could even imagine. Who'd really understand what the country - or more, he'd lost? Nobody asked or even bothered to know. Not even Adrith.

He went to the balcony, where the noise was even more real, and picked up water in a stainless steel glass for a cold drink from the earthen jar beheaded in the corner. He raised the glass high above his head, tilted his face backwards and opened his mouth while pouring the water right into his throat. His eyes locked onto the fishing eagles flying not-so-high above the buildings, circling hungrily around the chaotic landscape. Freedom, he thought.

Nothing better represented the idea of being free to him than wild animals, free of constraints, religions or beliefs. And the only one person he could think of in that moment, was who he believed to be the most free-spirited person he'd ever known. He smiled at that thought, his parched throat now salivating with thoughts, a familiar taste of a very forbidden memory.

A memory that in physicality, would never return - Wasay.

He thought, what meant freedom, if it took away the affinity of people for land, if it harbored ambiguity & and struck unwanted assimilation? What good is freedom if it harbored separation?