Elegy for my Grandfather

Two years have gone since I last saw your face.

Tears stream down as I think of the bygone days.

When I was but a child, you respected me as an adult.

And spoke to me at length of many a fear and guilt.

I loved to stay around you; your stories never bored me.

They never failed to move, thrill and inspire me.

How I had hoped your dementia would go away-soon.

And that you would talk sense to me someday –soon.

‘When I die, I need none of you by my side’- you often said.

You died with no one by your side just as you said you would.

I am glad you died alone,infact your most preferred way

But I tell my self 'he should've stayed on'- on many a day.

Especially today, your eighty seventh birthday.

A story

Martyred

Prema was making tea for all at home, when her husband came to the kitchen door and said “Tea with cardamom today please”. So she added cardamom to the tea filtered it into a glass and called out to him- then she broke down in to tears. How the dead tease their beloved by visiting them in flashes and visions!! Her husband’s latest prank on her was fresh in her mind and made her chuckle. Alas! The body of Major Mohan, Prema’s husband was to be brought that morning, to the military quarters in which his family lived. Prema wiped her tears and began sipping her tea; her son joined her quietly and drank his cup of tea. Soon both were dressed in mourning clothes and were ready to receive the cadaver.

Draped in the national flag and carried by uniformed men, the coffin was lowered from the van and placed on the ground. Prema and her son were joined by many families of soldiers, captains and majors. Each family wondered if their dad would face the same end and sobbed profusely. The district collector, the local army chief and many military men who knew Major Mohan stood in silence and mourning. Tears swelled up in the Prema’s eyes as she clung to her son in grief. Major Mohan’s battalion was summoned to the war zone two months ago. She knew, when he left that he may not come back alive. He had been killed twenty days ago, but the body could not be retrieved immediately because of cross firing. Heavy snowing in the war zone had preserved the body very well. Now at last the Major had reached home. Wreath after wreath followed and mourners lined up to glance at the face of the Major one last time.

It was a cloudy day, dark clouds seemed to get darker by the minute and the rain threatened to fall anytime.

The guns boomed, the trumpets sounded and the Major’s body was solemnly saluted. The officials took the microphone one after the other. The collector said “The Major gave his present so that we may have a future”. The army chief said “He was a brave soldier, he has laid down his life for a cause” A neighbor said “Major Mohan’s name has entered into the book of war heroes”. It was the turn of the family member s to speak a few words about the dead Major.

The son of Major Mohan stepped up to the microphone. His mother gasped in anguish. Still a mere boy at fifteen, the little fellow seemed very resolute as he began to speak. Perhaps knowing of his father’s death long before he could see his body had emboldened the boy.

“When I was five I saw the bullet injury on my father’s leg and asked him who had hurt him, for my father was a loving man, jovial and kind. I hated the man that hurt my father, but my father said the guy who shot him was just like him”. “He must have been a loving father and good friend himself, my son”, he told me. I was surprised. My father explained to me that war is shameful; men of war follow instructions not convictions of their heart. “Every man who trains for war has a heart that can love, he kills not out of hatred or reason but out of duty”, my father said. “You my son must seek peace and pursue it”-my father often told me. That’s why he gave me this strange name Shantham, which means peaceful”.

“You all speak of a brave man of valor who did not dread to die and lost his life in battle”- Shantham continued. “I am speaking of a man who hated war and was ashamed to be a part of it. I speak of a man who firmly believed that, he who shot him was no wretch, but another soldier like him obeying orders. Countries win war after war and take back lost boundaries, but the lost lives of fathers and sons cannot be regained. I do not hate the man that shot my father dead; I only hope he can make it back home alive to be with his son”



“I have lost my Father!” – Shantham chocked as he spoke. “A man of love and a man of peace” he continued. “The madness of war has eaten up the man that taught me to spin a top, to ride a bicycle, to whistle aloud and to hate war”. Tears streamed down Shantham’s eyes as he spoke. “Who will fill the emptiness he has left in my life”. Shantham wept bitterly.

The sky joined him and shed her tears-the rain came pouring down.

Thanks to the rain, every man in the crowd, uniformed and civil wept shamelessly, allowing their tears to fall. Each knew that he played a small but sure part in the great shame of mankind –WAR.

No one knew how to wipe away the shame from the face of the earth.