After All I Am A Daughter
"Today also the work is not done" my father spoke through phone from Coimbatore in a sad ton..
The morning began just like any other in my usually mundane life. Wake up. Frantically make myself suitable for human presentation. Go to college. I am not exactly an extrovert but I don’t even come close to being an introvert. I have one or two friends who mean a lot to me and I don’t really care about the rest.
As I was walking on that pavement from the hospital at night I couldn’t stop myself from taking a mental step back and wondering about the contradictory absurdity between my life in the morning and the night in one same violent day. If someone had told me a person close to me would be battling for life I would have scoffed at the very notion. But fate and destiny have a way of changing their spider’s web of colors and trap you in that very web like an innocent insect and that’s when you know you are fate’s dinner.
The students had already gone back and I was probably the last one to leave, the remaining persons being members of the staff. When I was leaving I saw aarash who was sort of my closest friend along with urzaan, both of them my classmates. They approached me with identical beaming smiles and aarash who was a year elder to me slapped me on my back. “Weren’t your parents supposed to come to college today?” asked urzaan, her eyebrows shrinking with a quizzical expression. She was beautiful and radiant in a way only she could be. And aarash, well, he was her diametrical opposite with pockmarked face and a slightly protruding nose. One wouldn’t really call him ugly but he wasn’t handsome either and had the most beautiful heart I had ever come across brimming with ceaseless generosity and a genuine compassion for fellow human beings. “They are on their way. How was your exam??” I asked them. “I don’t really know, do i?” aarash said with a satisfied smile edging at his thin lips. He was always the witty one although lately after the death of his brother in a brutal motorcycle accident he hadn’t been his usual self. Still he was recovering.
And urzaan was the epitome of cheerfulness. Her naturally auburn hair gave her a deceptive appearance, that of a foreigner but she was every bit as Indian as I was. We found our self in domino’s which just happened to be a walking distance away from our college having pizza at urzaan’s insistence.
“So what is up with all those fights?” asked aarash. “I don’t know what the situation is right now but frankly I am tired of all these stuff. Why do they fight for such stupid reason? I have never been able to figure out”, I replied. “What are you guys talking about?” urzaan looked confused. “Don’t you know?” we both asked, almost simultaneously but in different words. “Know what?”
I began explaining. “Three Muslim guys assaulted the Krishna temple yesterday night in retaliation to the district commissioner’s explosive comments on the Muslim population in Udupi so the Hindus are asking for blood.” As i remembered our snippets of conversation, i couldnt help noticing thye irony lurking behind the shadows of this whole situation.
Article Source :
http://www.veethi.com/articles/the-night-on-road-article-1550.htm