This article has been submitted by Shivangi Bajpai for the CLATGyan Blog Post Writing Competition. If you think it’s a good read, ‘Like’ the article on Facebook (the button is at the bottom of this piece) or post a comment using the ‘Comments’ section below.
While she lay naked under the sheets, her body burning with fever, the only living soul she desires to lay eyes upon is her dearest child. As taut and riled as she is by the previous days’ happenings, she gathers her rugs with a sense of dreariness. Her blouse is tattered and the skirt is faded, due to rough use. Covering her modesty, she for the first time, since the disaster struck, moves out into the air stinking of death and gloom.
Her infant child is in her arms, in all likeliness out of his misery. Nevertheless, she has pulled her baby close to her chest and is tugging her clothes, pulling them closer to her body apparently as a response to the chilly wind.
It has already been three days and no help has reached her. Jaunting on the naked ground, she finally reaches a desolate spot and sits down with her baby in her lap. “Oh! Mathuri, we will soon be healthy again.” She whispers and began humming- “Ishwor Prabhu nahi antorya.”
The wind is beginning to get colder and the sun is setting while life is draining away from her body. At the sight of the dead and dying, the sun is seemingly shedding tears while the earth is melting away. The birds have stopped singing the songs of the dead but the woman still sits waiting for the rescue team.
It is midnight and the sun has set down into the horizon, the earth has grown cold and stony. The baby is already dead and the woman is dying piece by piece. With the little strength, that remains, she struggles to murmur-“Prabhu”, and a few minutes later, she is bereft of life, into the oblivion and away from all misery.
The next morning, the rescue team arrives and removes the inanimate bodies including the woman’s. The memories of the dead are not placed in the chirruping birds, in the blazing sun, in the weeping earth and the living.
Nepal is devastated.
Some are dead and the others are dying. Stretch out a hand of help, and let the memories remain.
to pen down is easy but to put an emotion is creditable !!!!