No Guns at my Son's Funeral by Paro Anand

Author:Paro Anand [Roli Books Pvt. Ltd.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 81-86939-17-2
Publisher: Roli Books
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

10

Their dreams were souring before

their very eyes

Feroze saw the sign. ‘At long last,’ he sighed as he broke off the bent branch of the chir pine. This was the signal that only Akram and he knew. When they were unable to contact each other by any other means, the third branch of the third pine that edged the lake would be bent, till it was almost broken through. The recipient then broke off the twig completely to indicate that the message had been received. Feroze now inhaled the pungent smell of the freshly broken twig that lay in his hands. He was relieved to have the fall back sign that he’d been waiting for so anxiously. The silence after Akram’s disappearance had been unbearable. He never knew where he went during these long dark periods of silence. And this time it had been worse because Feroze’s body had deteriorated more than he could have ever imagined. He had not realized the extent to which his dependence on Akram had grown. Akram was almost an extension of his own self, the way he fulfilled his every little need from lighting cigarettes to mending his clothes. Now Feroze looked down at the cuff of his kameez, hanging loose at his wrist for the button had fallen off. And there was no way that he could even pick up a needle with his trembling hands, let alone thread it. And the tremors were worse because he couldn’t light the cigarettes that helped calm him.

But that wasn’t the worst. It had become imperative to contact Akram. Things had taken a turn for the worse. Their dreams were souring before their very eyes, and he didn’t know how to stop the downward spiral. The chir snapped in Feroze’s trembling fingers as he held onto it tightly, like a drowning man pulls down his rescuer. His mind swirled around the awful events of the last few days.

The IED planted in the cantonment area had not been daring, it had been rash and foolish. So stupid and pointless that it made Feroze suspicious.Who had been so stupid to risk so much, so close to the army’s stronghold, just to kill one innocuous man and his driver? Certainly, insignificant people dying in the crossfire, well, that was just part of the job. But not like this when a small time shop-owner and his driver were the only victims. But there was worse to come.

As Feroze made his investigations into the IED blast as well as Akram’s sudden disappearance, terrible truths were emerging. There was a connection being drawn between the blast and their outfit. It seemed that someone from amongst them had perpetrated the act. And now the army was going all out, sparing no effort in ‘Nipping this new emerging gang in the bud ... ‘, said the newspapers. ‘Gang‘: as if they were a bunch of petty thieves. Not a ‘militant outfit‘, the way they described the others. But who could it be? Not Akram Bhai; this wasn’t his style at all.

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