A childhood lost

A boy with a clean shaven head walks rather slowly and makes his way among the crowd. The house is full of people, mostly his relatives . He keeps constant vigil on the dining arrangements and inquires if all the food items have been cooked sufficiently for the guests. Seeing his immaculate arrangement, people gossip about his late father who himself was known for throwing lavish parties and feasts. They talk about how this quality had brushed onto his son. The 12 year old manages to smile at them and proceeds towards his 7 year old sister who looks like she hasn't slept for days. She is surrounded by a lot of older women trying to console her. The young girl, indifferent to the condolences, just keeps on staring at the wall. Looking at her predicament, the boy requests the surrounding women to leave him alone with his sister for a few minutes. They silently oblige as they know that the little girl had no one else closer than her elder brother. He sits beside her without uttering a word and hugs her while caressing her long black hair. The eyes of the little girl suddenly erupts with tears as she embraces her brother tightly. The sound of sobbing only grows louder as all the 50 - odd people attending the Sraddh of the kids' parents join in. While the women are more vocal, the males can be seen trying their best to hold their tears. Some people start lavishing praise on the boy for his strength and the way he has taken responsibility after the misfortune hit the family.

But he was not always that responsible.

Just 2 weeks back on a winter evening in the CST station, he was whining to his parents to buy him the book on astrology he had spotted in the store on the CST platform. He was stubborn on his demand and refused to get on the train until they oblige. While the negotiations between the parents and the boy were in progress, they missed the train and so decided to succumb to their son's demand and catch the next train. The boy was happy and started hopping to the store and his kid sister followed his rhythm. He knew how to manipulate his parents to get what he wants. Suddenly, a bang was heard just out of the station. It seemed like a wall had fell down. The crowd started running wild. Suddenly two heavily armed men appeared in front of their eyes and started firing indiscriminately at the unsuspecting crowd. The girl scared with the sudden noise pressed herself to her mother's legs while the father guarded the son in his arms. The parents showing immediate reflex forced their kids on to the floor and laid themselves over them fully covering the kids' bodies. The boy could only see in between the tiny opening of his father's bent arm and his head. He saw the armed men spraying bullets for some more minutes and then running away from the place. He was so shocked that he didn't realize the warm blood flowing on his face. The first realization occurred when his father didn't move even though other people lying beside them had already stood up. One of them helped the boy out of the heavy corpse lying above him. Looking at his father's white shirt reddened with blood, he realized that his fathers blood had trickled onto his face. He looked around and saw people with hurt limbs crawling on the blood splattered floor. The look of horror in his eyes only matched the eyes of his kid sister who was standing beside him. Her yellow frock which was gifted to her on her birthday by her mother was only a bloody mess. Before he could ask his sister if she was alright, he watched his mother's body lying in a puddle of blood. He ran towards her but it was already too late. The parents had succumbed to the bullets but had saved their kids. A sacrifice worth taking but for what reason?

The loss was huge and irreversible. Everything that gave the boy his identity till then had been snatched away from him in one fanatic act of terrorism. Something more had changed in a moment. He had turned the eldest in his surviving family of two and he had to take care of his sister. The boy had lived a decade in that single moment. A boy had been forced to become a man against his will. A childhood was lost. But for what reason?

P.S: Above is a fictional account of real people who died in the terrorist attacks that rocked Mumbai on 26th- 29th November. I am shocked, ashamed and highly enraged by the incident and my heart goes to all the men who lost their lives to this highly deplorable and despicable act. May God give the strength to their family members to tide through this incident.