Smiles Are Dead - In memory of my dear sister. 

Dr Brij Premi  

THE moon was dull and he'd seen the dead body in yellowish lunar beams. The body was quite pale, pale as the surroundings around, which were cold. This was the body of the woman, who had beamed with smiles, just a shining star in the sky. A few hours had rolled by. She was cold, pale and motionless.

These few hours were very important. Life and death! Life and end! Motion, but now she could not move. From her face emanated joy, a determination and a firm resolution. It was now an uncanny. mysterious and tragic silence-the silence which pervades graveyards. It was a mourning silence and an uneasy calm that prevailed.

He was in shock with feelings choked. This was the dead body of his sister, whom he loved beyond measure. He wished not to have seen what had come to pass. He wanted to weep, he wanted to mourn, there were no tears. He felt an intense need to pour out his grief. He was helpless. He looked around. He looked at the stars. There was silence, a sadness, a mysterious silence. The elements of nature were He wished a fire to break out to drown everything and to absorb what he saw around.

He had seen his sister in the village, where she had gone with her husband so that she could not be part of a nauseating and exasperating environment. She did not want to be in the city, whose urban influences pierced like daggers through her body, mind and heart.

She was averse to attitudes of man, the man who behaved erratically. The eccentricities of man had jolted her. She was sick of this dollar set-up; she was sick of the society, where people had forgotten values of life and tended to be influenced by mundane considerations.

She was educated and intelligent. She had high ideals and subscribed to progressive ideas and was married to a poor man, a victim of this mundane society who was declared unfit to take up a job in spite of being educated. Hopelessness and despair he came across had left their scathing and burning imprints on him. He had grown pessimistic and whenever he'd see any one setting his lustful eyes on his eyes, he felt crushed under a heavy load, and constraints of the society, which had pulled him down. He often wished for death to come to him and run away from this atmosphere. It was, however, his wife, who had inspired him to live. "We have to live. Fight life and face it", she would admonish. "To run away from life is death. I cannot put up with it".

She would sometimes feel excited. She looked furious. "I will go back there again, when a revolution occurs, when humanity, equality and that brotherhood shall dominate. A time will come, when the vultures and so called sympathisers would lose their sting. My honour is in peril. My husband's prestige is at stake. The haves are out with their swords to strike and kill the poor and the down- trodden. They suck the blood of the poor. These vultures are out to harm me, their lustful eyes are set on me! The so-called good men, the greats, are calling. I will not let my child die. None can kill me, none can harm me.

She had complaints. She looked heavenwards and complained to God. There was an uneasiness, a feeling of complaint against God, who appeared to be unjust. "Man could never languish, Oh God! Man could never be hurtful and murderous! The chastity and honour of women could never be at stake! The innocent would never be harassed. Mahatma Gandhi would not have been assassinated. Oh God! Just have a look at this world where values of humanity have been bartered! Where are you? Why does not a revolution take place? Why don't you turn everything into nothingness? Do you like what the haves are doing? Are you angry? Why have you directed your wrath against the poor?"

Oh! Yes! You will be pleased when milk and honey are offered to you. Could He see that in this milk is mixed the blood of the innocent? This milk is adulterated. The labourer, the poor man is busy but the dividends are reaped by the rich. God will not accept water offered by the poor with sincerity and love.

The poor husband though goaded and urged was surrounded by hopelessness. He had started spitting blood. His lungs ached.

He'd got a job somewhere after a great struggle. He would be busy with his pen in the files. His stamina had broken down. The husband and the wife despite this poverty around, managed to eke out their existence. They just managed to exist. The poor woman was smitten hard by grief. She would feel 'sunk' but prospectus of happy future kept her going on.

HOROSCOPE MAT

The poor brother thought of those happy days, their wanderings around the lake. Now she was no more. When he'd come back, she had asked him to let her know about her mother and others. All these scenes he called up and old memories flashed across his mind. She could no more talk, or smile or tell her brother anything. That joy, Death had snatched. Death had silenced her and sealed her lips. He had, one day before his sister's death, got a letter from his sister. She had written "My husband is not feeling well. There is however some change for good. Console mother on my behalf. Life means facing its ordeals and challenges-Life for us is as it has been".

But she never knew that this was the last letter, which would now be something to remember her by. People, who are to die, don't know what they leave behind a pile of memories which only sting those who survive the dead. The poor mother! She couldn't stroke the hair of her child!

Her dead body was brought. Her husband was almost a dead man now! His nervous stamina had left him.

Her dead eyes seemed to laugh at yet another mischief of nature. His mother had fallen down unconscious. The poor child crawled towards the mother for a milk feed. Everything seemed moaning. The moon was in the sky but appeared dull.

(Translated from Urdu By M.N. Kak)

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Courtesy:- Dr. Brij Premi and 1992 June Koshur Samachar