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Short Story:
No greater love
Jeannette CABRAAL
Ramya tossed uneasily on her bed. Sleep had simply evaded her. How
could sleep that soothing balm of restfulness descend on her, when her
mind was a turmoil of conflicting emotions.
Wasn’t her tryst today, the culmination of several years of desperate
hope, devotion to the object of her affection and a continual battle to
win over the parental consent and to achieve happiness the way it should
have been.
But she had only faced a blank wall, and this was to be the
inevitable and irrevocable step she was going to take and it racked her
puny frame. Now it was almost dawn and she was to meet her lover this
morning and complete at the registry what had begun as an adolescent
affair.
Arul and she had developed this friendship on their way to school
during their school days. At first it had been a mere friendly
association which had later developed into love, backed by that dear
devoted bosom pal of Arul’s – Nizam.
He had been the go-between, the buffer that prevented the young
lovers from too much hurt from their respective tradition-bound parents.
Ramya’s parents knew Arul to be a most reliable young man but the
question lay in the communal difference and the creed.
To Arul and Ramya neither mattered. They had learnt to accept each
other’s religion and one would accompany the other to the respective
place of worship, and try to understand the tenets of the other’s
belief.
Neither had the desire to give up the faith of the fathers’ nor
expect the other to change the faith, for after all every religion
teaches the correct path and no religion whatsoever had ever, ever,
taught nor ever will, that which is wrong.
The ethnic difference however was the veritable stumbling block where
their parents were concerned. Not so much for any marked cultural
differences; there had been ample mingling of the communities over the
years. It was just that they were tradition-bound.
There had been a time when their parents had almost relented but with
the ethnic disturbances they had hardened again. In the circumstances it
wouldn’t do to yoke two different categories, or so they thought. Best
remain within one’s own fold was their notion.
For seven long years Arul and Ramya had dilly-dallied awaiting
parental blessing and consent but with the way things were shaping out
in the country that possibility was very, very, remote.
Living in these parts was hazardous. Militant groups were on the
prowl bent on carnage and occupation of villages that did not conform to
their way of rabid thinking; and Arul was pestering her into a secret
marriage at the registry.
She was sorry for his rejection, sorry for his patient wait so long,
in spite of innumerable marriage proposals brought forward by his
parents, for in his clan even males married early. And so she had
consented to this clandestine arrangement.
A few hours more and he would be at the banana grove waiting to take
her to a friend’s place from where they hoped to proceed to the
registry. She had merely to slip out as the first crimson streaks of the
morn caught up in the skies.
She could hardly wait for the first streaks, for it had been a long
interminable night.
A quiet ticktock on her window startled her, for this was not part of
the plan and she wondered who it could be. Then she heard an urgent but
stealthy whisper of her name, in an all too familiar voice and a request
to open the back door.
She rose stealthily and did as she was asked, wondering what all this
was about: this sudden change in his plan. She was further nonplussed
when no sooner had she opened the door Arul slipped in and proceeded to
inquire about the other members of the family and urgently awoke
everyone.
The marauders had invaded the village and were massacring the
villagers who happened to be mainly Sinhalese. He had been on his way
for his tryst when he had seen the marauders on the prowl and had heard
the screams of men, women and children and had come to warn them and get
them to safety in the nearby thicket.
Waking the trembling inmates he guided them to a thicket at the back
of the house, when faithful Nizam slipped out of the shadows giving them
a fright. He too had come with the hope of accompanying Ramya and Arul
on their secret mission.
Arul realized that he was the only one capable of saving himself,
being a Tamil and that his beloved Ramya’s life and that of her family
were at stake and so was Nizam’s. Chiding Nizam for his ungodly
appearance at such an ungodly hour and anxious for the safety of these
several people, Arul pushed Ramya and the various members of her family
into sundry bushes and shrubs.
He suddenly realized that he had left the back door ajar and that it
wouldn’t do for the murderers to realize that their prey had escaped.
One glance at the door ajar would give them the clue. He went back
hoping to get in, close the door and get out through a window.
He had just latched the door and was about to open a window when the
marauders came equipped with weapons. Angered at seeing a Tamil here and
guessing the import of his presence they questioned him about the
inmates. He replied that he was a Tamil and that he lived there.
“How come you dog you aid and abet them! You are a traitor to our
cause!” they screamed as they hacked way at Arul before they went
further on their annihilation spree.
Nizam in hiding, watching over Ramya’s family, on hearing the
commotion waited till it partly subsided and rushed back to the house,
where a hacked and bleeding. Arul was gasping out his last breath. “Niza
Niza what you doing here! Run! Run! The murderers will kill you. There’s
no hope for me,” he managed to gasp out. “Take care of Ramya for me.” |
