| Username |
Post |
| Biruwa |
Posted
on 01-Aug-02 08:44 AM
We were a team. Dr. Dwarika Tamrakar, Dr. Subash Lohani, Miss Julie Maharjan, Mr. Ranjith Boggarapu, Mr. Hari Sharma and me. Dr. Tamrakar and Dr. Lohani are medical doctors working at Bir hospital. Miss Julie, whose true name is juneli Maharjan, is a journalist with “TheDailymirror”. She had changed her name to Julie since westerners found it difficult to pronounce her actual name. Mr. Ranjith is an Indian journalist and an acquaintance of Julie, who had met him while she was studying journalism at some university in USA. Hari Sharma, is an old friend of mine. But make no mistake, he is not old. In fact he is at his prime and is a strong heavily built man.
We had set out on this mission. We had returned to our country after some years in self-imposed exile. We hired a jeep in the early morning and headed west. On we went passing the lust green corn fields. It was raining. After all it was monsoon.
We reached “Barha Bise” and still we went on for a couple of hours. Hari said: “pani ta nikai parira cha, farkaun kyare.” Dr. Tamrakar retorted: “Haina yeti jaldo baldo manche pani, paani dekhi daraune.” Hari who prides himself for his strong built was hurt, he said : “la la thik cha, aagadi badhaun!”
After a couple more hours our driver said that we couldn’t go any further since there were check points ahead. So we offloaded our baggage from the jeep and bade the driver farewell. We moved off the road and soon came upon a village. The villagers told us that fighting was going on in the next valley and they could take us near that place. So with 2 villagers (kancha and kalu) we headed further into the war zone.
We were walking on a ‘motor able road’; we noticed no vehicle on it. The road was empty except for us. Julie was walking near the corner of the road when we all heard a cry. It was Julie. She had discovered something.
That something was a jeep much like the one we had left behind. It was lying in a ditch and largely blocked from view by bush growth. The windshield was muddy. The jeep was riddle with bullet holes. Hari and I cleared the side glass and peered inside. A lifeless body was inside the jeep.
We broke open the door of the jeep. An extreme smell of rotten flesh floated in the air. We quickly withdrew. The doctors with us moved forward to have a look. The body was badly mangled. There was nothing much they could do!!
Suddenly the body appeared to move. Julie, who was quite near, let out a scream. Then the body moved again. This time there was no mistaking. The lifeless body still had some life in it. Dr. Tamrakar tried to take the pulse. The limb fell off. Probably it was hanging by some thin flesh under the shirt. There was nothing much the doctors could do.
Just then we saw a flash of lightening. The Indian, Ranjith, was taking photos. I snatched the camera from him. Probably, it was too much for Dr. Lohani. He struck Ranjith on the head, and Ranjith fell down. All of us were furious with him. Paparazzi mentality.
Hari, always the religious man he was, asked the man to take the holy name: “ram bhannos, ram.” The man tried to move his mangled jaw. The rotten lower jaw fell off. We heard a grunt from somewhere deep in the man’s throat. Then he was still.
All of us had tears in our eyes. Through my own now blurred vision I saw trickles of water flowing down each person’s eyes.
Part of us died that day………slowly.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 01-Aug-02 04:56 PM
Biruwaji,
I wish you had explained some more. This is really a heart-breaking account of
war. But your story omits a lot of relevant facts, so we are left wondering about
a lot of things even after we finish the posting and we are asked to focus on a
dying person only.
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| mother goose |
Posted
on 01-Aug-02 05:31 PM
What is this? A fiction? Is this a horror story that would sit next to Carey? How could a rotting body be still alive? what about the village people? His body clearly was decomposing. Biruwa, could you explain more?
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| psychodreamer |
Posted
on 01-Aug-02 07:02 PM
was the person who died was your driver, since you said the jeep looked like the one you left behind..but again you said the smell was rotten...its a nice story but could you make it clear by giving us details like date and the name of the so called valley...
thank you.
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| biruwa |
Posted
on 01-Aug-02 11:31 PM
Dear Sajhites,
I already feel complimented that my fellow Nepalese took the time out of their busy schedule to read my story.
It is indeed heart rendering. A horror fiction? This story was supposed to reflect the decadent state of my country. It came out as a night mare.
However anymore explanation on this story seem unsuited at present. Let your imagination roll. War is definately unpleasant; to say the least. I wanted to rest the story with the dying man firstly because that is the climax of man's own inner squabble with reality. Secondly, while there are definately other aspects of war, death is the most heinous of them all.
The now truely lifeless body was definately not our driver. He is a representative of all the dead.
I am always happy to receive criticism, albeit the constructive ones.
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| Diva_Starz |
Posted
on 02-Aug-02 06:50 AM
Biruwa,
There is no outcome so sure other than blood and carnage in war and internal upheaval. I, myself too don’t think any national boundary, any ideology; any ‘way of life’ can justify hundreds of life massacred each day. What you portrayed looks to me as one such horrifying outcome in Nepal. Believe me, going through your post stroke me with terror in the same intensity as did the pictures of the partial buried head less corpses, I saw in the net sometime back. This kind of scenario is really disheartening.
Is human life so cheap to die for something muddy…mercurial reasons? I wonder how many of those kind of dying Nepali men really had the opportunity to justify themselves. Regarding the dying man’s squabble with reality…death is just so powerful, it galvanizes every attention. When we see just how precarious this life is, then we come to see how precious it is. Its natural we feel pain when we see someone dying, what about the pain of the person who knows he is loosing his grip over his life and feels his relationship to his body shifting tremendously…..
peace
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| MG |
Posted
on 05-Aug-02 04:56 AM
Dreadful !
Another poor victim of dirty politics.
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