42

The head constable Nihal Singh had ordered his breakfast at a run down dhaba around 9.30am on the Himachal Punjab Highway when suddenly his smartphone rang. It was the call of duty for the Himachal cop, part of the highway patrol for a year. There's been a pile up about ten kilometers away.

"Major hai ya minor," he asked.

It's a major one, it seems. Nihal Singh asked for the location. It's the LHS-62. The cops work in tandem with the patrol units of 'Una Highway Authority', the group that built and manages the Expressway. The two have worked out their own code of communication. The Chandigarh side, as they understand it is LHS (Left Hand Side) and the Pathankot side is RHS (Right Hand Side). The numerical indicates milestone 62 from Chandigarh.

Nihal Singh's Dial 100 vehicle is a black Innova with dancing strobe lights. Eerily the spot is 300 yards from the site where a family of four had died and two were badly injured in a crash last Saturday. The area had been cordoned off with the ubiquitous orange cones by the Una Highway Patrol unit which had called up Nihal from the spot.

At the crash site, the scene is surreal. A mini truck carrying apples is lying sideways. Dozens of sacks and cartons are on the road, apples strewn all over. The bus in which Ramu's mother was travelling had rammed either into the truck, both seriously damaged. A disoriented group of women and girls were sitting on the road. Some were crying; most were too dazed and confused to talk. One of them was lying on the ground, her head on somebody's lap......presumably she was dead. There was no blood but this was a shocked and battered lot. On the front side of the bus the head of Ramu's mother was hanging lifeless out of the window, and there were atleast fifteen more casualties inside the bus. Ten minutes later, eight ambulances arrived. The injured were moved to the medical vans. One young girl howled as she struggled to stand. A stretcher was sought, but she was made to walk gingerly to the ambulance. Three of the eight ambulances were full with the injured, and the other five were to carry the dead. There were going to the PGI Hospital in Chandigarh.

Shortly, a second vehicle filled with cops arrived on the scene. One of them started making detailed notes. Once the injured and the dead had left the clearing of the debris began. One speeding truck oblivious of the cordon drove into the restricted area. Most cars and trucks passing by slowed down for a peek at the wreckage. One onlooker barely escaped being hit by another speeding vehicle. Quickly the sacks and cartons of the apples were carried off the road and placed on the divider. Kilos of split and crushed apples were shoveled aside. Una Highway Authority's quick response vehicles and cranes came immediately and carried the damaged vehicles off the road.

At the PGI Chandigarh the dead were identified by the conductor of the bus, who had a miraculous escape while sitting on the rear seat of the vehicle. Ramu's mother too was identified by him as he belonged to the same village as her. Soon the message was flashed to the bus terminus in Himachal with a request to forward the message to all the households where the deceased lived.

It was 3o'clock in the afternoon. Tara was having her afternoon siesta lying in the bed with her little child tucked closely in her arms. Suddenly she woke up with a start as there was a loud knocking and thumping on the main door of her house. Quickly she opened the latch only to find a stranger with a grieved face.

"Yes please, what do you want?" she asked.

"Oh! Nothing sister. I'm from the HP Bus Services and have come to inform you that a major accident has taken place of the bus in which your mother was travelling and I'm sorry to say, she's no more, and her mortal remains are at PGI Chandigarh," lamented the stranger and walked away slowly avoiding the eyes of Tara.

For Tara it was as if Death had knocked on her door by surprise who had taken away someone who was very important to her. She was left with an unfathomable pain and grief. She started crying loudly and after sometime her crying turned to sobs, because crying is alright in its way while it lasts. But one has to stop sooner or later, and then one has to decide what to do. Instantly she got up, grabbed her child in her arms and rushed to Badri's house to convey the news.

Badri and his family were dumbfounded to hear about such a tragedy that had befallen Tara. All of them solaced her. Badri rushed to his room to get his mobile phone and immediately dialed Ramu's number which he had stored when he had caught Ramu with the phone. As soon as Ramu heard the news, he started weeping on the phone itself. "Where is Tara?" he asked while crying. "She's here with us," muttered Badri, giving the phone to Tara.

"Hello, hello, Tara can you hear me? Where is she now, and what was she doing in that fateful bus?" asked Ramu sobbing quietly.

"She was coming to give you a surprise visit and now her body is lying in PGI Chandigarh Hospital," replied Tara, tears flowing incessantly from her eyes.

"Okay, I'm reaching Chandigarh Hospital by tonight," Ramu said in a muffled tone.

Tara too, wanted to go to the hospital.

"Brother, will you accompany me?" she asked Badri.

"Yes, why not? You better hand over the child to my mother. She'll take good care of her and we'll leave in another half an hour," responded Badri affectionately.

Forty five minutes later they both took the bus to Chandigarh which was good five hour journey. It was almost 10o'clock in the evening when they reached the Chandigarh bus terminus. From there they took an auto rickshaw to reach PGI. They rushed to the reception in the hall to enquire about Ramu's mother.

"There has to be a post mortem done and then only will we release the body. You get your name registered with me and you will be called as soon as the procedure is finished," the nurse the reception told them very coyly.

Both of them came out of the hospital and stood at the gates of it. In around half an hour they saw Ramu coming from a distance in hurried steps. Badri stepped forward so that he could see them. Choked with emotions, Ramu couldn't utter a word.

Waiting for more than an hour, Tara's name was announced on the speaker and all the three rushed inside to retrieve the body.

When the body was brought after the post mortem, wiping his unceasing tears to clear his vision, Ramu stared at it endearingly before he fell on it unconsciously. And that set, Badri and Tara shaking with grief and the rest of the people in the vicinity sighing in pity as the nurses shifted him to ICU. While Tara cried no end, Badri, too shocked to react, sank onto his knees.

However, as it became clear that Ramu was physically exhausted and mentally weary, the doctor in the ICU declared that there was no cause for worry. While Ramu was being drip fed for his recovery, it was felt prudent that he may be spared the sight of his mother's cremation. Thus, in a way that reflected the reality of life and death.

The body was transported back to the village in a mortuary van with all the three sitting besides the body not uttering a single word to each other. Next morning, the body was ritualistically consigned to the flames even as Ramu was nursed back to normalcy. After the obsequies, that custom ordained, the near and dear stayed back to share Ramu and Tara's grief.

By the evening, everyone who had stayed back, left. Tara's mother had come with dinner and coaxed them to have atleast some of it. The neighbors too had left a pot of milk and some eatables at their home. With loads of heaviness and despondency in their heads and hearts Ramu and Tara got up to have a few bites of what Tara's mother had brought for them. It was going to be midnight and they decided to sleep.

Suddenly she was leaning on him, her small head resting on the center of his chest. The long skeins of her hair draped everywhere, entangling him in a fine russet web.

Alarmed Ramu lifted his hands to ease her away. Instead his arms slid around her until she was pressed against him length to length.

"Tara..............." She nestled deeper against him, muffling her gulping sobs in his shirt front. "It's alright," he said gruffly. "Everything is fine. Don't cry anymore."

"But what am I going to do now as Ma is no more. It's a feeling; I have been left all alone in this cruel world."

"Tell me, why Ma suddenly made the program of coming to Delhi even without informing me?" whispered Ramu in her ears.

Tara started crying again and making loud convulsive gasps and while whimpering she told Ramu everything what Badri's mother had narrated to Ramu's mother.

"Because I've been on the receiving end of infidelity, I know how much ot hurts," mumbled Tara.

"No, I 'm not cheating you. It's you only who made the deep seated gap in our communication by not even sending a letter or two fortnightly about yourself or even trying to come to me. You had become so busy with your child as if I never existed. You didn't understand the gap and the feelings for your love got confused and entangled in my mind. Gauri has given me all what I was missing from you. And now, she's got pregnant of my child. I'll marry her soon. And mind it, I'll never spare Badri, cause of him my mother is no more with me. I'll kill him!!!" called out Ramu raising his voice.

"But you have deceived me and our child!! Your betrayal had been like paper cuts that had stung badly at that time, but I promise, they will heal and then I'll show you how strong a woman can be," cried out Tara in exasperation, looking at Ramu with wild eyes full of tears.

"I'd been trusting you all along but never knew you were manipulating me. You were just using what I felt for you always to get a free pass for your nefarious activities. Loving you and trusting you were two different things, which I should never have done, had I known before. I can love my child but never trust her with matches or knives. That's the biggest blunder of my life what I'd done and now I'm being punished for that. I never knew that there was always a chance of things going this horribly wrong," blurted out Tara, raising her voice too.

"Okay, okay!! Don't start screaming now. I'm here for just another 2-3 days and then I will be going back to Delhi. I'll also see how you fend for yourself without me sending money to you now. Then you better start showing your strength to the people," spoke Ramu getting a little violent.

"Who's bothered about your money Ramu? My hands are sufficient to feed myself and my little child," replied Tara in the same way, got up from the bed and walked away to the other room with her child clinging tightly in her hands.

Three more days passed, but Tara and Ramu barely spoke a word with each other. On the fourth day the final rites of the deceased were done in the morning and the ashes submerged in the Beas river flowing around two kilometers from Ramu's house.