The Love Letters - Rahul Agarwal
While he was still lost in these thoughts, he heard some
known voice call out his name followed by footsteps running towards him. He
turned to see Parmeet’s father rushing at him with open arm blabbering
something about his still being alive. The old man seemed to have grown
older and weaker. But he still had his gun slung over his shoulder. As he
ran his fingers over Sukhbir’s face and tried to embrace him, Sukhbir turned
his eyes towards the groom. The groom did have a pretty impressive figure,
more than six feet in height with broad shoulders and sharp features.
From
all the preparations of the weeding and the large crowd around, he seemed to
be rich too. Little wonder Parmeet dumped him for this guy. As he turned his
attention back to Parmeet’s father, he heard him trying to explain the
circumstances of this wedding, etc. but Sukhbir was oblivious to all that.
His eyes seemed fixed on the shining nozzle of the rifle on the shoulder of
Parmeet’s father. Suddenly, on an impulse, he snatched the rifle from the
old man’s shoulder, pushed him back, turned and before anybody could react,
shot the groom. He heard people shrieking around him as there was utter
chaos in the place. The poor groom lay on the ground in a pool of blood.
Next Sukhbir turned his stare to Parmeet. For a brief moment he gazed into
her terror stricken eyes and then shot her down in cold blood.
He turned around to see people struggling to get out of the solitary exit door and discordant cries of `Murder’, `Police’, etc. His instinct told him to run. As he started running towards the exit, he found the crowd scattering to make way for him. People fell over each other to get out of his way. He ran out of the Gurudwara and kept on running. He ran and ran, out of the village, through the nearby forests, through the next village and on and on. When he could run no longer, when his legs refused to carry him any further, he took shelter in a dilapidated deserted building in the village he was in at that time. He sat there on his haunches, shivering, holding the rifle tightly in his hand. He was sweating heavily and his mind was in a turmoil. He couldn’t think. All he could see were random scenes out of his life, his tent in Kashmir, his father working in the fields, the dead bodies of Parmeet and her groom, the news of his parents’ death,…………… suddenly he would wave his hand sharply in front of himself as if to wipe off this images but they refused to go. He had no idea of the time but when it was dark outside, he heard some voices outside, on straining his ears he found his name being mentioned. He pulled himself into a corner and waited without breathing. He heard somebody enter the building, he felt a pair of eyes searching the room. Then a voice, ‘Daroga Saheb, yahan koi nahin hai’ As he heard the receding footsteps, he let out his breath with a jerk and discovered that he had nearly suffocated himself out of fear. He waited for good hour in that position and then ran out of the building and into the night. He ran for hours till he found himself at a barbed wire fence. It was pitch dark as he realized where he was. He knew crossing this fence would mean joining those people who had once murdered his innocent parents. He knew crossing this fence would mean killing pleading mothers and helpless babies. But then he looked back at the world he was leaving behind, the society which had given him just misery and sorrow, the people who had let him down, the love which has been turned into hate, and all he could think of was revenge. He took a deep breath and worked his way through the fence and disappeared into the darkness of Pakistan.
Maybe he wouldn’t have taken that unfortunate step that turned this die hard patriot into a ruthless terrorist. Maybe he could have forgiven Parmeet. May be he could have found answers to all his questions had fate given him a chance to take a peek into Major Singh’s office in Kashmir, where the Major hurriedly scribbled army secrets on a paper to be given to friends from across the border and where, in the little wooden drawer of his table, lay all of Sukhbir’s love letters, unposted.