The Last Memoir:-
It was the year of the Dragon according to the Chinese calendar. But I wasn’t a Chinese nor was I Japanese by birth. I had no porcelain white face with slanting tiny eyes.
I was just a 13 year old child who had no knowledge of the world’s hideous facade. I knew not of the shadowy clones who called themselves human beings but performed terrible crimes behind the wall of some piece of construction.
Embraced within the loving arms of my parents; everything to me, to this little girl of age 13 was a rainbow. During that particular year, that time when sins of mankind played their scenes over and over again in some part of the world, the city, disturbing the peace of the nation; even during such chaotic situations I remained immune to everything around me. I saw the world a fantasy land filled with my childhood imagination. It mattered not to me who was good or who was bad; all remained serious to me only for a few seconds and then I would drift to another thought that would suddenly hold my interests.
Now that I come to think of it very few memories rarely come across my mind but that day shall never be erased.
It was confined, trapped, stuck whatever u may call it… It was my only immovable infant reminiscence.
It had been a nice sunny morning, a Sunday ambience flowing along the household.
Everyone was busy being involved in their morning rituals. Mother singing her melodious bhajans, Father reading the newspaper a little too seriously, Cook bustling about the kitchen preparing breakfast, the house maids gossiping in a little corner and the grumpy old gardener scratching his head trying to figure out who ate his flowers.
I remember myself hidden amongst the bushes of our lovely old lawn playing with my little dog Skip.
So lost in my innocent act I failed to notice my parents surrounding me with the gardener tapping his foot impatiently as he looked upon Skip.
“…Was him mam!”
I’ll never forget that gruff voice. My parents looked not too happy…. So what if I let my dog play in the gardens meantime destroying the beautifully planted flowers.
But all was not forgiven. Even though I was allowed to tag along with my parents to the market I wasn’t allowed to marvel the city’s busy market area since according to my mother I had been a naughty girl.
I had to stay inside the car, my face not so very happy then while my parents carried out their errands.
It had just perhaps been to me a few seconds when I felt slow rumbles below me.
I won’t admit but I was fascinated since the quivery movements grew almost as though currents after currents flowed beneath me.
And then it stopped. I was disappointed for my curiosity had not been satisfied….
5 seconds and then came my answer. Like a thousand blasts a huge bomb erupted right in front of my eyes. It was not too very far from the car. People ran about, fear encompassing their forms as death lashed its cruel hand upon the innocent. Blasts after blasts, shockwaves traveling across and the grounds booming with heavy metal the city was in chaos. The cries and screams of loved ones being killed could be heard all over.
I had hidden myself behind the car seat not daring to look ahead. It was like a nightmare walking alive in front of my eyes. I cried inwardly for my mother’s soothing voice, my father’s strong comfort but it seemed in all that confusion nothing was detectable. Everything was shuddering and breaking to pieces…. Thankfully the ear splitting screams slowly as though one was falling asleep died down.
It was at the stillness of the environment that I had the pluck to slip out of the car.
My feet touched the grounds; my eyes had been shut tight. It was too scary to look at.
I had felt my instincts telling me what was ahead was bad, something worse than my mother’s scolding something so horrifically real that it probably had eaten away my parents too.
That thought struck me hard, my parents… I wailed deep inside as a pang of pain shot through me.
I opened my eyes to gasp loudly. The sight was blood curling. It was revoltingly downright monstrous for a child. But I walked for I wanted my mother and my father.
My feet stepped into crimson pools of blood, my tear driven eyes watered more upon seeing the people, people whom I’d seen laughing dead with the ghastly looks upon their faces.
I wanted to run but I just couldn’t. I carried my frightened body further across until I stopped. There in front lay an old man injured, battered beyond words almost as though he had come back from a long battle.
He had a light smile grazing his face. It puzzled me so much so that I ran towards him and sat beside him clutching hold of his bloody hands.
He looked at me with hope in his eyes.
“Thank God I’m leaving this wretched world of sorrows, Live well my child” He had said before his eyes closed shut.
His eyes… They had been the doorway, the opening to a sickening realization of the type of world I actually resided in.
I didn’t understand then for I was a child, but what angered me was what came next.
I waited for help to arrive and when it did it came in huge white vans with red signals bellowing loudly wide across.
I was taken care of by the nurses; my father and mother were merely bruised thank the heavens they were safe.
What I had seen had been nothing easy to watch.
Even today I can see it happening right before my eyes….It isn’t the river’s water which flows in front of me; it is blood which once flowed through the city’s streets.
Today as I write this essay I cannot speak nor feel the pain people might have had to suffer due to the terrorist attacks which recently occurred.
We are yet too young and inexperienced to actually understand the true meaning of life and death. It won’t come that easily. Even as I write this I probably myself am too immature to know what true pain really means. I hope that in this forsaken world people will try to cease the conflicts which arise not just within themselves but within the society. In time I pray that not just the youth but even the elders will see through the mistakes of the past and will try to rebuild a better and safer future for us… The younger generation…..
.....................Naintara Gurung
