Shot!

This is a short story I wrote as part of a creative writing assignment in an English literature course in college. I might as well revive my blog with this post.

The beans lay peeled and promised a sumptuous meal. Abebi skillfully lit a small pile of dry wood and rested an earthen pot full of water on it. She knew the men would welcome the meal after having spent the morning hunting some wild boar. Didn’t her father always tell her mother,” What good would a woman be without her gift of being able to reproduce and feed her man?” She then cursed Azrail for the second time since dawn. The first being when one year old Bujune bit her finger to wake her up. Abebi wished she didn’t have to act mother to Bujune. She was nine and it would still be almost five years before she would have had her first child. The Gods had been unkind to snatch her mother in exchange of Bujune. Her train of thoughts was stopped by the sound of footsteps approaching her hut. Were they back already? That couldn’t be. She listened intently. They did not sound like the hunting party. It was only one pair of footsteps approaching the hut and they were not barefoot. It was one person steadily nearing the hut.

The ragged curtain that hung at the entrance of the hut was gently lifted. Abebi looked up, curious. The harsh tropical sun announced its presence from behind the silhouette of the figure, standing still. The sunrays made Abebi wince. The intruder gingerly stepped forward into the hut. The curtain dropped behind him, shielding the room and her eyes from the harsh glare. Abebi could now see him clearly. The sight made her hair stand on end. Her heart pounded against her little chest. This was the second time she was seeing a white man. A thousand memories flashed in her mind in that moment. Not one pleasant. Just weeks ago, her father was livid with ‘outsiders’ killing elephants near their tribe’s settlement. He had described them as being a band of black men as themselves, being led by a white ghostly man. Wanting to stop their rampage, Abebi’s father had set out with his primitive arsenal of a bow and a few arrows. Unable to contain her curiosity about the white ‘ghost’, Abebi had sneaked out of the hut and followed her father. She trembled as the memory of events which followed sucked out all hope out of her. The cruel smile of the white man after having shot a hole through her father’s chest had haunted her ever since. Abebi’s worst nightmares had the man pointing at her face, the tool with which he had shot her father.

Abebi stumbled backwards as the man advanced slowly. He smiled. Abebi grabbed her brother and held him close. Too close. Were all evil men white? Were all white men evil? Abebi found the answer as the man pulled out a gun similar to the one which had claimed her father’s life. Only, this one had a wider nozzle. This probably was because there were two people to be murdered instead of one. The water in the pot boiled. The only sound in the hut was made by the restless water pumping against the walls of the pot. The ‘ghost’ raised the gun to take aim. Abebi shut her eyes tight. Strangely, all fear left her. She felt liberated.

CLICK. A very distinct click. A burst of light penetrated her eyelids. Abebi felt no pain. The transition was supposed to be quick. Abebi felt all earthly worries escape her. Through shut eyes, Abebi saw her mother and father beaming at her. Bujune lay sound asleep against her mother’s bosom. Weightlessness. Azrail had been kind. The burning wood crackled and Abebi opened her eyes. Something did not seem right. The heavens weren’t supposed to look like her hut. What was the ‘ghost’ doing here? Abebi’s parents had disappeared. Bujune felt heavy in her arms. The white man’s gun had a scroll rolling out of it. He pulled it out and examined it. He had satisfaction writ all over his face. He held the scroll up for Adebi to see. She saw herself, frozen in time.

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Azrail – an African God associated with death

Alternate title – Black and White

An Introspection

While a lot is being said or shouted, to be more precise, with regards Galaxy and its implications, most of it comes from two extremely polarized perspectives – the winners and the losers. What we actually need is a totally objective view on the state of things in IITK. Let me make an attempt.
Rivalry between certain halls has long gone beyond being competitive and healthy rivalry. People derive more pleasure out of seeing their rivals fail than in succeeding themselves. We have neither learnt to be humble victors nor gracious losers. The fact that we never consider losing in a competition as an outcome of fair play is testimony to this. At the same time, we never are willing to think of our wins as outcomes of poor judging. Before we begin accusing each other of behaving in a certain manner it might do us a whole lot of good to ask ourselves how we would have acted had we been in their place. Is there really a difference between students that is defined by the hostel he/she resides in??
Halls (including Hall 6) other than the two majorly squabbling ones deserve much more respect than they are accorded. Their apparent ‘inferiority’ when it comes to competition is due to factors that surely do not include the lack of talent. All of us need to be sensible enough to recognize the fact that talent is equally divided amongst all hostels simply because students are randomly sorted into these.
Now that Galaxy has been revived and done with, questions are being raised about the point of having a competition that some say only brings out the ‘worst’ in us. When will we realize that the fault is not in Galaxy? The fault lies in us. Deflecting the blame to something which wouldn’t protest is hardly manly. We need to wake up to the fact that if things continue the way they are, we stand to lose a lot. This is the time to introspect instead of trying to find fault with the way things have shaped up because of ‘THEM’.

When I went to class…

Genuinely attempting attending all classes this semester is one of my latest resolutions. I had never imagined classes being anything but inhuman tortures poor students are subjected to. Those who did attend them were probably seeking atonement of their sins. As the new time-table came out, I was one of the many who groaned on seeing that we were supposed to remain in the classrooms from 8 o’ clock in the morning till 1 in the afternoon. This marathon lecture series was supposed to be devoid of any breaks (unless, of course, I chose to break my resolution).

With much effort, I and my wingies have managed to be somewhat regular in class during the first week. What surprised me the most is that classes aren’t all that dry and uninteresting. Especially when your thermodynamics professor goes on and on and on with lines like, “Only macroscopic kinetic energy can essentially cause mechanical work. Essentially what happens is that this kinetic energy essentially raises the internal energy of the system. I hope you recall that internal energy is essentially a state function unlike heat which is essentially a path function. “ According to a mate who was ‘essentially’ awake during the entire lecture, the word ‘essentially’ was uttered ninety eight times within that hour. To accompany that, the instructor willingly used the air quotes on thirty one instances. Whatever the histrionics be, thermo was my favourite topic and hence this lecture was also the most bearable.

Where Thermo wasn’t much of a pain, Fluid Mechanics a.k.a. FluMech was poles apart. The instructor had had this brainwave of allotting a seat number to every student. Not only did that separate me from my league of last-benchers but also got me marooned amongst completely new people. Also, having no cute girl sitting nearby added another tinge of sadness….These are times when you are glad you have a camera phone. You can always weave a story out of your snaps. Here are some of them….

Empty seats, people catching up on their beauty-sleep and hangman in ‘essentially’ more than half the registers … well, L17 isn’t all that uninteresting!