eFiction India eFiction India Vol.02 Issue.09 | Page 17

STORIES

16

The neon signs at the New Delhi Railway
Station garishly beckon me inside one
evening, but I am first apprehended by
an old beggar. I look down quickly to fish
inside my pockets for change, and then I see
him in the glossy marble floor, pinned by
two security guards, his skull being bashed
open repeatedly by a large rock. I let out
a little scream and jump and look up –
the beggar gives me a quizzical look and
wanders off into the crowd.
Once, I stepped in a puddle, on the
streets of South Delhi, and I thought for
a moment that I saw crusted blood on the
edges of my sneakers, it melted and oozed
in the heat, the blaring traffic around me
shrieked like babies being dragged by the
hair, the garbage by the road smelled like
rotting meat. Then I’d shake my head, wipe
my eyes – it was gone, the ghosts were gone.
Delhi is a haunted city. If you listen closely
you may hear, in the middle of a popular
item number on the radio at the barbershop, an interference in the frequency, only
for a moment – the sounds of the National
Anthem mingling with the sounds of
slaughter on the streets – then the song is
back and your brain brushes it aside irreverently. The ghosts of 1947 wander ceaselessly in and out of our limited perceptions
– they are more alive than most of us in the
city – and live inside moments, inside little
passing flares of sunlight that blind you,
inside fleeting sounds that pass unnoticed
within a cacophony, inside the uncertain
and hazy gleam of your reflection.

Photo courtesy: Josemi_Lezana, flickr

The events described in the reflections above
are real incidents that took place in the stated
locations, recorded by historian Gyanendra
Pandey, of the riots of 1947 – the year of
India’s Independence and the Partition of
India from Pakistan – when thousands of
Muslim men, women and children were murdered in plain sight in the city of Delhi.

eFiction India | June 2014