Kammal (Earring)

By Jijo Joseph N

In the sudden explosion, I couldn't see anything. My whole body was covered in ash. Blood trickled down my palm, forming rivulets. A burning pain. I tried to open my eyes through the dust. Ah... a searing burn, my body trembling with intense pain. New kinds of weapons... capable of wounding the heart and mind. The enemy’s ingenuity is remarkable. Even while writhing in pain, I couldn't touch the wounds. The skin would peel off. Blisters would form, fester, and create sores. "There's a little water left, just wash your eyes." I turned towards the voice. My hands reached for the half-crushed mineral water bottle. Someone placed one in my hands. With the indescribable excitement of finding a lost treasure, I cupped my hands and poured the water over my eyelids. It mixed with the ash and flowed down my chest like a dirty stream, burning as it went. The smell of burning flesh along the path. When the water droplets embraced the burnt flesh... unbearable pain... charred body parts, scattered bone fragments... for months, the same sight... the same smell... cries... of loss... of isolation, of one... torn from their homeland... 

"Kunjaave..."(cute baby) I half-opened my eyes at the drawn-out call. I couldn't... the impact of the bomb that exploded seconds ago had damaged my eyelids and pupils. Blood dripped from my left eye. Wiping it away, I looked towards the sound. He was screaming... frantically... why? Before me, concrete blocks crushed by the force of the impact... dust clouds rising, trying to obscure the sky. Nothing was clear. 

The mother stood staring, unblinking, at the concrete skeletonic mound... a tiny foot protruding, the face gone. Her breasts were swollen with milk, oozing blood and pus, thick and dark like a gutter... someone had lost loved ones. 

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But why was he...? 

It was... him. Yesterday, he was selling soap from a broken-down cart in front of the hospital, his heart shattered. Through the red haze spreading in his right eye, I was sure it was him. Why was he wailing in such agony...? I had seen him yesterday too... at the city hospital... when it was destroyed by missiles... he was there... helping to gather... to join together what was broken... blood-soaked kitchens, severed torsos, scattered playgrounds, the tinkling anklets on tiny feet stained with blood, eager to blend into the soil... he was there until everything was captured by my camera... an unreadable detachment on his face. 

Cree... cree... cree... the desert's pet birds... the falcons... were still flying high. Falcons...? Raised in some palace... with round eyes and deadly beaks, the charioteers of monopolistic capitalism...One day, the thoughts of the exploited will gain the weight of iron... strength, and ideologies will nest in the soul, flowing through the veins, shattering the regressive forces like a fierce wind. Will governments be able to stop him then...? My thoughts gained weight... 

He crawled through the broken concrete slabs, calling out loudly, his calloused hands searching for something. His greying, reddish beard, dust clinging to his moustache,

aimlessly... like moths dying in the face of disaster... trying to retreat from the world of endless hopes, their sweat-soaked bodies clinging to him... "Where are you... can you hear me...? It's your grandpa calling..." His voice seemed to trap in his throat... they emerged... broke... scattered through the cracks in the concrete rubble and disappeared, or so it seemed. No, nothing dies in nature... neither sound nor energy flow... everything is alive in the atmosphere...? 

One who searches for something lost in the desert... bursting with joy when he finally finds it... I noticed his eyes widening even through the dust. They bloomed like a night-blooming jasmine caressed by moonlight... he was pulling something from between the broken iron rods. Above him, concrete slabs hung like the sword of Damocles. No... he didn't notice anything. Finally... I looked closely... from between the rusty concrete rods... a beautiful doll...! Did my grunt extinguish his little joy...? "See, I found my little one here yesterday...". "This is hers, that's what she calls her doll too... little one...". I looked closely. Large concrete rods had pierced her, crushing her heart... a few torn coloured papers... in her chest... they seemed to rise and grimace at him. He closed his eyes tightly... or rather, a beautiful girl with closed eyes... just like his little one... a beautiful girl... "She was mischievous." At the market, the candy store, the park... spreading colours everywhere... we went everywhere together. "Grandpa..." "When will I hear that sweet call again?" His eyes were dry. 

Her playful chatter... even the grains of sand by the roadside were a festival for her. "Unni... forward..." Her playful calls, carrying the fragrance of Parijatham(a medicinal flower), through the Acacia trees bowing their heads... even the trees lined up to caress her. Finally, crushed among the rubble... still beautiful as an angel... eyes tightly closed, only her left eye half-open... often teasing her father... 

He held her close... the old man... trying to warm her frozen heart... a thousand kisses... he couldn't... one more call of "Grandpa"... he couldn't. Finally, he... his eyes... close to her eyes... saw... she was flying... 

Slowly... slowly... 

To the land of angels... 

Without war... 

Beyond the seven seas... 

"But... just once more... Grandpa..." His words broke... they broke, and tears and pus flowed, or so it seemed. 

Hesitantly... I asked, "Can I have that doll...?" "Just for today... she's just like my Ammukutty to me." I begged like a child for the doll. 

“Ammu...”(name of a baby) it was hard to find that name. It shouldn't be Hindu or Christian, not Jewish or Muslim, that was his wife's insistence. The elders in the village used to say, "The true devotee is the one who recognizes the “Omkara”(god) within the heart of the other." He doesn't know violence. Only one emotion in his heart... love... only love. It flows like a clear stream, wetting the valleys and deserts, softening the human mind. For a moment, my thoughts... like an aimless migratory bird...

"Why do you want it, sir...? You're here to report the news, aren't you...? Our lives are like this. A tightrope between life and death... but the children...? What did they do wrong...?" Did he understand the language of my eyes...? Reluctantly, "Take care, sir... she's like my little one to me..." 

It was the joy of conquering the world... for me that day. By the time I finished bathing in the room, it was night. During my usual prayers before sleep... "Uncle..." It must have been my imagination. Again, a sweet, playful call... my eyes moved uncontrollably. That little face was flushed. "Um... what is it...?" A human voice in the solitude of the flat, a little one whose milk scent hadn't faded...? I was excited. "Uncle, will you take me to the city...? Like my grandpa used to do...". 

The little doll... at this midnight...? I was anxious. Explosions flashed and shattered in the sky like a continuous stream of stars, destroying human hearts... suicide squads, exploding themselves to kill others...? Jumping in front of the enemy...? The light might have gone out from the families of those who died. Martyrs...? For whom...? 

For ideologies...? 

For God...? 

I couldn't understand anything. 

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She jumped with joy... yells...sings! when I pushed the bicycle out of the garage... like a thousand angels dancing in the full moonlight... to the rhythm of some lullaby... "Little one... who taught you to sing...?" "Grandpa... Grandpa was very happy when I sang... but...?" 

Was nature nursing her...? Man... the one who doesn't see what he should... heartless beings. 

"See... that was Grandpa's candy store." I looked where she pointed. Everything was rotting and stinking, as if nature had spewed it out. Maybe corpses... human or stray dog...? Impossible to identify by looking at the sunken face or the blood. Potholes formed here and there, like the human mind... the aftermath of the explosion... the earth... trying to resist... like a mother taking the swords aimed at her children on her chest; nature...! But the heartless roar of the cruel one defeated it... "See... this is Grandpa's double chair." I looked closely. A small one stitched in the middle of a big cushioned chair, covered in rose velvet. When Dad sat, she would sit on his lap. Her words painted vivid pictures of deep bonds in my mind. 

"See, Dad's beard." Raising one of the greying, reddish beard hairs from the table, "I played with it yesterday... during the game... it must have hurt Dad." "...but Grandpa loses every game, I win, but... now...?" "Love loses itself. Pure love... will turn the Asura's (evil) cruelty to ashes..." I remembered then. 

Occasionally, she would look up at the sky. A little star among the constellations, served by others, a beautiful girl. I stared at it, unblinking... and at her face. 

"Uncle... why did you bring me here... through the scary explosions...

"I like you, child... you're just like my Ammu to me," I replied quickly. "If people like me, why can't they like each other? Then I could still play with my grandpa... listen to his stories... I long for that..." Her questions troubled me one by one. 

She didn't know that selfishness and greed were man's siblings from the moment he was born on earth. The philosophies woven to conquer and impose narrow-minded ideologies, the barriers built on the basis of skin colour and belief, they bound him and destined him to self immolate on the pyre they created... when would he break those barriers and see his own essence in the eyes of the other? My thoughts gained the speed of the desert wind. 

"Uncle... I want to see Grandpa. It will be in his pocket... the earring from my torn left ear when I died... will be there... Grandpa's crying... I can't bear it... he should hold me close... tell him to be careful...keep it... in memory of the buds which is plucked and trampled by the heartless men... that earring... mine... only for my memory..." 

I tried to delve into her eyes... the redness of the explosion had faded from them. Were dreams still flickering there...? 

The cry of a child, born in the fire of survival; from under the tarpaulin sheet covered by the beloved ones, gently awakened me from the world of burning memories. 

The cruel justice of nature...!

By Jijo Joseph N