(Images For Representational Purpose Only)

Not An Indian By Birth Indian By Accident

I was there at the river bank, standing as a helpless kid in school uniform. The over-exhausted soldier of the occupational force was battling against the vicious flood water’s ferocity, for a gulp of air. His bald head, at the water surface, looks like another item assorted by the whims of the fast traveling flood-water (barely noticeable from the objects of plastic, wood and bamboos, of various shapes and sizes, animated liberally by the season’s angriest flood-water) that stirs the human’s curiosity at the river banks to dart the human eyeballs far and wide in a mild competition of talking, finding and deciphering objects, to point fingers to, next, and then again.

“He’s alive!”

In that moment of a shock-driven rush of human hands and muscles for the rescue effort, those able bodied, who stood closest to the one and only boat, volunteered towards the enemy in distress; swift and without blinking their almond-shaped eyes. They so sprung into action without delay because, they weren’t salaried, Indian government’s clerks, by divine providence, if you will.

I was just a toddler then. The visual acuity of the taller bystanders was more perfected than mine. I took my own time to persuasively debate – internally – and figure out what’s unfolding before my almond-shaped eyes.

The worship

The local good Samaritans, who jumped into the boat for the humanitarian deliverance of the enemy from the drowning, had to concentrate their creative energy at grabbing that slippery bald head. The enemy still had his military boots on, which drained the last reservoir of energy in him all the more life-threateningly faster; now, he’s no better than a dead fish, between the infinitely difficult water and the rescue team on the boat.

Manned by the choicest skilled-boatmen, who constantly put the oars to use to its maximal utility, the boat, ultimately, got close enough for them the Good Samaritans to rescue the enemy combatant in distress and make him find a second chance at life again. The enemy combatant drops down in the boat in over-exhausted prostration; and then in his own manner of expression of worship and gratitude, he went for a kiss to the feet of the rescue-team members, who stood still for that moment in time not knowing what God had brought the enemy into their boat. The memory of that day lives forever; although, for the indigenous highlanders (known popularly as "hill people"), the nightmare of living under the Indian-occupation continues.

P.S.: This is my original work so kindly don't flag; I'll be happy to prove - in the event of any doubt - that this is my own work/content. Thanks a lot.