A dream en route from Bangalore to Delhi
It was crimson. Dawn was just breaking. The sky was patched with orangish flames and deepest of blacks. Clouds hung about. The air was cool. In the faint light, the patches of grass on the ground were as black as the earth. I do not remember who were travelling with me, but they were familiar faces. People I had travelled with, before. Perhaps as a child, going to the school. The path was familiar too. The same road I had travelled with the same people for fourteen years of my school life. Yet the moment did not inspire warmth. Nor comradeship. It was as if the morning air chilled every emotion. There was a sense of unease I detected in myself as my eyes scanned the ground, catching patches develop shapes as my eyes adapted more to the faint light. My unease turned to dread.
It was only last night that I was here. There was a three day black metal concert being organized at the spot. My companions and I had not been able to secure tickets. We had stood outside for a while, listening. Of course we were not alone. Several others stood with us, scanning the list of bands that would be playing on the remaining two nights. And though I do not believe in God, I remember having remarked that a “God-like” band would be playing the next night. The place had been very much alive last night, I thought, as my eyes scanned the horizon with increasing dread.
I had already seen it. Even before the others had a clue. Even before anyone else had a clue. How or why it took them so long to find out what had happened was something I do not understand. The patches of black on the ground were bodies impaled with spears and sticks. There were severed heads mounted on pikes. The arena where the concert was taking place last night was burnt to cinders. There were ghastly outlines of bodies lying around. I knew they were dead, even as my fellow travellers saw what had happened and let out gasps. It seemed that the vehicle we were in was travelling in a panoramic fashion. It led us closer to the burnt arena. I could see that the bodies were piled thicker ahead. Mercifully it took another path.
By now I could gauze and understand that the heads and the bodies were of boys not more than 25. They were faces I had seen going inside the arena last night. We crossed a pile. There were arms and legs sticking out of a shroud made of tarpaulin. People stood nearby, in shock. Some were severely injured, their faces bloodied. Perhaps survivors of whatever had transpired last night. Suddenly someone led out a terrible gasp. It was too loud and echoed all around. Apparently they had found another shroud of tarpaulin from under which dozens of severed heads rolled out. There was a haunting, howling sound all through the while in the background.
I woke up sometime later to the same sound. The sound of an injured animal yelping mixed with the sounds of a faraway ambulance, the crying of dogs at night and other similar sounds that can sometimes get dreadfully disturbing. I woke up to the sound of a train passing through the outskirts of some forgotten place in the dark of the night.
- Parekh, Pravesh
December 19, 2013; 12:30 PM
