The band saffron – 2

“…this nation needs a wake to the dawn of reason. These are strong words but they need life. I don’t know who will give them life but I hope that I am not the last and this is not the end for sure. Or may be I am a bit too hopeful and this indeed is the end. An end to the hope of millions who still have to find a meaning for their life. An end for whom the sleep is still away from eyes and may be it will be so now always and that they will sleep for now and forever. It’s an end to hope for this hungry and naked nation. I don’t know if anybody will come forward now. Everybody thinks we need a hero but is anybody ready to be one? Everybody needs a leader but is anybody ready to be one?

It was a dream, I had a dream. I used to have it everyday, a dream that millions here in this nation see everyday, every moment. There are two ways to break a dream, either surrender it to reality or turn it into one. This nation seems to have chosen for the first way because everybody here is a follower. They do things correctly but they don’t know what it is to do correct things. Words and ideas can change the world. True! But words alone are not enough my friend. There is no use trying to change the world when the world is not seeing it. Because then they would never understand the change. Words alone are not enough. Words alone make typewriters, words alone do not make man. Actions make man.

When you receive this, I will be long gone. But I do not fear it because I know there are things worth dying for. What I fear is what will happen of my dream. It was a beautiful dream and unfortunately, I woke up at the most interesting moment only to find that there still is no dawn and now I have to sleep. I hope someday you realise it and I hope you realise it before long. Sometimes it falls upon a man to be brave and great. Sometimes you can not do otherwise.“

I closed the letter and looked in the envelope. My thoughts wandered for a moment. It was just a moment but in that moment I felt an eternity. My entire life went past me in that moment. My father’s face swam in my view and for the first time I realised that when he died, he was smiling. “Take care of Ma.” I had never understood those words.

I was feeling good. It looked good on my arm. But I knew that was not the reason why they wore it. It was not the reason why I wore it.

Concluded

The band saffron – 1

‘…because some of us, for sometime now, have had this somewhat big dream that may be this somewhat big nation needs a wake to the dawn of reason. We are fighting for that dawn. It’s our sole purpose. And this is all we say : wake up!‘

“Good line.” he said as he finished reading it. “Real good man.”

 He had a smile on his face, happiness comparable to that of a child who received a big birthday present.

“Thanks,” I said. “So what now? “

“Well, I will take it to the printing machine in my apartment. I will print the pamphlets and then distribute them. I think this will make impact,” he said.

There was childish enthusiasm in his tone. When a child has a present kept at home and he are still on the way to reach the place. That kind of impatience and enthusiasm. He always had that in him. With me however, things were different.

“So how’s it going?” I asked him

“It’s going well. We are getting new members. The awareness is increasing. Resistance has spread down south. Some of us were hit today so I guess, I think four people are in the hospital. Rest are still up.” he answered.

There was a worried note somewhere but in his enthusiasm, it got lost. My friend and me had been together since childhood. He was always the outgoing type. Outspoken, courageous, a bit reckless at times. I think it was in the blood. His father served the army while the mother was a renowned feminist. He got these values from parents : not to bear wrong things but to fight them. I on the other hand was the one who would like to take things as they came, never the one to try and change them. My father died in the Great Resistance.

“Take care of Ma,” he had said. “I will,” I had replied. He never mentioned my brother that night. All he said was about Ma. He died in my lap. I still remember the look on his face. I was young but I understood things and I knew he didn’t want me to join the struggle. Everytime my friend tried to set a vibrant pilse in me, my father’s face swam in my view. My friend had grown different overtime though. To me he was still the same but as the leader of the resistance he was very different. A quintessentially rebellious male, who would hide even the rebellion to look passive and then attack at the right moment. He had inspired many to join the resistance, many except his best friend and that’s me.

“So you coming?”

“Where?” I asked.

“To my place. Where else?”

“You know me. I can not come.”

“I am amazed at you man. I mean how can you write things you don’t mean? It’s good but think about yourself. Does it have any meaning?”

“I don’t write things I don’t mean. I mean it and I am in every word.”

“Yes you are in every word. That’s what it is. Exactly like you : always in words but never in action. How about coming to the greensward and shedding a bit of red there?”

“Well, that’s my way of doing things. You know that I can not come. I have too many responsibilities. Ma, brother. If anything happens to them, who will look after them?”

 ”Some excuse, huh? Mann you are not doing anything. Do not feel bad but seriously you are not doing anything. What do you think? Only morons are up there in the resistance? There are people who have a leaky pen. We need you because right now they are having leaky bodies too. You are just a vending machine which gives out words. Nothing more.”

“Then why come to me? Go get someone else. Someone with guts. Look, we have had these discussions before. You know that I support you but you also know that this is all you can get from me. I can’t be a frontrunner.”

“That’s a myth. You do not believe yourself that’s it.”

“I believe myself. I am NOT saying that I do not have the guts to come up. I only mean that my duties bound me to come up. If anything happens to me…”

 ”You are afraid of dying.”

“You can put it that way. I don’t care. “

“There will be a time when you will realise that there are things worth dying for and duties more important than what you think duties are.”

“You are carefree from the family side. I on the other hand am NOT. It’s easy to speak but you don’t know…”

“Shutup moron!! Don’t tell me how easy is what!! You tell this too me. Hark who’s speaking!! You who never stepped out to be. You are worthless. You don’t even know what’s it like to be out there. It’s you who speak just words, NOT me. I know what it’s like. And what do you think? I don’t have my mother. I do care for her. But I know my priorities,” he lost his patience this time.

There was a moment of silence in which his eyes bored into my conscience if there was any left. Most of it formed the cover of my cowardice.

“It’s no point discussing with you. Thanks anyway for the script.”

 ”I am sorry,” I said

“No, I am sorry. I need to go,” and he went to the door.

“You have been up since last two days. Take a nap for sometime. You need it.”

“I think that maybe this somewhat big nation needs a wake to the dawn of reason. I can not sleep until that dawn. Thanks anyway. And sorry for losing composure.” He opened the door and left.

I saw it on his right arm. The saffron band. He used to wear it. Most activists used to wear it; on the right arm. A symbol of uprising, revolution. My father also used to wear it. He used to be very happy everytime he put it on his hand. I don’t know what happiness they drew from it, I was never so brave to give it a try.

To be continued

The last bit

“He was caught again.” “Are you sure?” “Yes. He was caught just when he was about to cross the fence. Poor soul, one more step and he would have been free.”

“Poor soul? He is a lunatic. What’s the good of trying all this when he can wait?”

“He says it is better to die than to take freedom for granted.”

I heard as the inmates talked. I also wondered: Why did he try it again and again? This was the twelfth time that he had been caught in a escape attempt. Everytime we doubled security on him and everytime he tried the same thing. His attempts were folied but not him. He was as outspoken and had the same nerves he showed in his first attempts, even more. It was time now for taking him to the concentration cell. It was nothing new for him though. This would be the umpteenth time he would be sent in the cell. We had never succeeded in ghetting any information from him. Neither did we succeed to crush his courage and confidence. Thrashings couldn’t keep him from trying to escape.

I stood outside the cell, hearing his cries for a long time. But everytime what I heard was another proclamation of courage. Fear was absent from those cries. as absent as the moon from the new moon night. The officers left the cell and he was dragged to his cellar by the inmate-in-charge.

That night I went to visit him. He was bleeding at places and the bruises were as common as hair on his body. But he was alive. They had never succeeded in crushing him : mentally or physically.

“Hmm..uh uh.”

He looked up at me. ” How are you doing? ” I asked in the usual hard tone.

“Fine. I am fine. May I ask, what, in the name of god, brings the Jailor himself to me?”

” It was just that I wanted to warn you against trying to escape again. This time we will not tarry from having you shot. So if you want to live, be good.”

“I tried twelve times. And you know it as well as my soul does that I will not refrain from a thirteenth attempt,” he said, defiantly.

“Thrashings show no effect on you. I have seen that.”

“So why do you think your warning will do what thrashings couldn’t?”

“I am warning you not because I am afraid that you might escape. I am warning you because I am afraid we might have to shoot you this time. The security has been doubled again. Look the court might just issue a release order. By trying to escape you are just delaying that process. They might even withdraw the case on this pretext. What’s the good of doing this when you know there’s still hope?”

“Hope…hope. Your fears about shooting me are based on the hope that I will fail. You have hope that your security will succeed. I have hope that I will escape. I hope that you and your security will fail. The world clings to hope jailor. That’s most of all we have whether we realise it or not. Let’s just respect each other’s hope.”

I closed in on him, face-to-face now and spoke to him angrily, “I am not interested in your philosophy of hope.” He merely smiled and I backed off. “I am interested in why you have been so insistent on escaping when you might just get a release order. You can be a free man without this trouble.”

“What’s the good of taking alms when you can always do things yourself? Things taken for granted lose significance. Freedom is grabbed, fought for, achieved; NOT taken as mercy or for granted. What you call freedom is a bone thrown to the jaildog for me. I would rather die attempting to break free than take what the court throws at me.”

“I knew you would say this. But still. I don’t understand why you try again and again even when you fail everytime?”

“Who says I failed? Is there failure jailor? Tell me, if I give the attempt the best I could, is it failure? No it’s not. It’s just that there is a better way to do things. The more the freedom keeps itself from me, the more indispensable it becomes for me. The glass is full jailor, you can’t keep me for long now.”

“So you will try again?”

“Certainly.”

“Even when you know you will be shot or that you will be beaten worse?”

” All that will do is to kill me or hurt me badly. That doesn’t matter much. I will either escape or I will perish. But perish my body will one day even if I escape. This is the only truth we have here. The only thing worth knowing. Every thing perishes till the last bit except the very last. It’s the only thing that remains. In your warehouses it earns nothing in barter but for me it’s invaluable. It’s the only thing worth having, it’s the only thing we truly have. I will perish but my ideas, my soul will remain unscathed. They will live on and you will see them live. They are the last bit. Within that bit I am free, no chains or walls bound me and no bullets can kill me. Bullets kill bodies jailor, bullets can’t kill soul.”

I couldn’t say anything. He continued, “I hope to escape and I hope you will watch me escape. Have as many bullets as you can but remember all you have is hope just as I have just hope. Bullets without that are useless and so is my pursuit. Go to sleep now, it’s been tiring for you to police me again and again.”

I returned to my cabin immersed in what he had said. Somedays later he did it.

“What a waste of life? He could have been a free man,” chief said as he threw the release orders in trash. I knew better.

“I am outside the fence jailor. I am free as I always was in the bit that your bullet missed.” His eyes shined like the moon above. I could see the triumph on his face.

” I won. “

He was right; five prisoners escaped that night.

Inspired by V for Vendetta