Manju Kachuli
There was a big and worn out old house in the middle of the city. It was of course extraordinarily huge in size. It was the only house of that size in the community. It stood strong and looked stout for almost two and half centuries smearing colors over and over from time to time on special occasions. Its owner was a demon who lived inside it. Once and often he looked around him and saw only lean and thin, poor and hungry people all like beggars. He became happy and proud of himself of his status and his voluptuousness.
There was full sunlight outside and also the sparse rain. Some children were singing the song of rain: “Sunlight and rain…sunlight and rain…a jackal’s wedding…”
The big and worn out old house missed its roof a few days ago. Some people were looking at the physical feature of the beheaded house from the balcony of their little houses a little distance from there and imagining about the possible happenings inside that demon’s old house. A large group of people in a frightened and dismayed appearance stood outside the building in their dresses like daura and trousers and some had wrapped their thin towel round their head like a turban and some were in their dirty and clean but mostly worn out clothes of the cultural importance of their various regions. All were scared of the extreme dictator who lived inside the huge building. However all of them were equally busy and active in demolishing that huge demon’s house. Wreaths of innumerable small sweat-beads round their necks were scintillating.
At first all those people attacked the uppermost part of the building, its walls, floors and windows by making the best use of their hammers, hook-knives, garden-spade and other tools. They harnessed their source of energy to the central theme to demolish. Rhythms of hitting of the hammers and other tools over the walls echoed the atmosphere. It was an immense grapple with the walls and windows with their limited weapons and tools as a symbol of revenge of a century’s long enmity.
The large group of people could demolish the upper storey of the building by harnessing their hard labor and intelligence together. After all, they all reached the first floor, in way of their continuous effort of hitting the hammers over the bricks and cements. The sky scraping size of the building reached to the lower size of first floor in a joint adventure of the people in their invasion. At the moments of demon’s hazard no gatekeepers were seen over there. Perhaps all of them ran away to save their lives or might be in way of finding a better place of security for their future lives with their master but they were beheaded to death inside the compound in its periphery. Nobody knows who killed them. But the old house’s floor being static and rooted to a grand depth didn’t have its hands and feet and so couldn’t move away. Some neighbors and a group of other people thought so. All the effort of the people was towards bringing the voluptuous size of the level to the ground. The whole things pertaining to that huge building like bricks, wooden structure of doors and windows, sand and cement, mud and iron rod were disintegrating in the process of demolishing.
With utmost resentment, the gigantic pillars of that huge looking building were trying to stand channeling their whole energy of the body and brain for the support of its existence to the last breath. Against them, a large group of human beings were behaving like a big colony of ants. As if they could even hold the building in their hands, carry and throw it out to the bank of a river or stream. They had excessive strength and strategy of a colony of white ants so as to demolish the building down to hell by making it hollow inside it at first. They were bearing the high blood pressure of revenge towards the whole materials of the building and expressing it with their tools like hammer and so on. Actually the appearances of the people of that big group looked very small before the size of the gigantic pillars. The saying, ‘United we stand divided we fall’ could be applied to that situation. The vigor, energy and intensity of the people became so intense that even the smalls in comparison with the pillars could collect their energy/enthusiasm and ventured to fell the big pillars easily.
The people in the attires and tongues of their various cultures stood in eight different vertical lines. They were holding very fast eight thick ropes in their hands in the style of the tug of war. Those eight ropes wrapped the pillars of the building tightly in full strength of the pullers. There was a man beneath the pillar who was so much emaciated to the figure of a skeleton but very strong and brave to break iron support of the pillar at its bottom with the help of a small electric appliance. One after another, of course the pillar- bases became weaker and more fragile with the electric stroke at their appropriate bottoms of each pillar. As the men pulled the ropes which tied the pillars frontward, they attempted to save the thin man from the possibility of any kind of mishaps. Each and every parts and particles of walls, windows, pillars, ceilings and floors of the big building turned into pieces and fell onto the ground with the forces and skills of the people. That was the very moment in which they had to think and act immediately with patience. The onlookers from the roofs of the nearby houses, some advisors and all the well wishers around them looked more aware, hurrying and a little horrified as well. Those several groups of people standing in lines collected all their energy and strength actively and were engrossed in felling the pillars. They knew very well and also aware that if they became inefficient in that act and failed it they might even lose their lives pressed by those pillars. Centre of the attention of their act, the moment was only to fell the pillars by providing safety to them by themselves. Some others who didn’t hold the rope were out of patience and still waiting to see the fall of demon’s house. A new group of people came to help them to pull down the pillars with the ropes. They imagined that if some demon’s legs fell down its body would automatically fall down with it. They knew that sometimes a demon can take the form of a grass hopper as well. However one could make it pieces, it might not collapse, rather expand and increase its presence in multiple existence.
All the people were raising their voice that not a single particle of debris, ruins and rubbles of the demon’s house should remain on this earth. Someone among them puked a note of retribution,” As he is a demon he should have known he should live in a den, not in a building because a demon’s house is a den, not a building. If a den living demon comes to live in a building in the town it’s quite natural to happen such sort of things.
Some one’s heart melt in pity abruptly in a note of expression,” May be, he is hiding himself in a nook in the basement covered in a sack. Any creature wants to save his life and he has right too. We can inject sedative drug inside his body and leave him in a den in the forest. He can live there with excess freedom of his will. Everybody should get to live in democracy. The other person turned furious and replied, “If we leave him in a den in forest he won’t live there. How can a tiger like man, who has been living in cities and villages with plenty of amenities and exploiting people, live in the den in forest? He will be like an angry wild elephant coming to attack and kill the village dwellers in Assam.
The other person seemed to be more annoyed than any others and turned his morose countenance, ” In case of him, he is to be burned alive. He has not to be alive. If you leave a snake by killing him somewhere, some other snake can see the killer’s face in the eyes of that dead snake and he will pursue to kill the killer.
The other person like an activist of some civil society articulated, ”This land belongs to everybody on this land. It belongs to demons, animals, birds, insects, plants and human beings like us. Nobody has the individual ownership or individual authority over it.” Someone interrupted, “Is a demon human being?.” Everyone laughed hearing his question. A slow and serious note of some other person blew in the air like a heavy stone, “Everybody has to live in his own place and position.”
An old man addressed in a tone of experienced agedness, “All the creatures on earth behave in the way that God has bestowed wisdom upon them. How can you blame the demon?” A stubborn boy replied to that question boisterously,” When a demon comes to live in human’s territory things can happen like this.” All the above mentioned words were being spoken by the general people as onlookers standing in front of those laymen who were catching ropes with hands and physically ready and mentally prepared to fell the pillars. At the same time a very thin and tall fellow as if he was made of bone and skin and the other fellow, well muscled and heavy said in unanimous voice, ”One, two, three!” All the rope catchers pulled the rope forcefully at once, supplying their utmost energies. They pulled the rope in such a way that, that was the best time for best expenditure of their excess vigor and liveliness for the whole of their remaining life. They thought they would never have to do such a heavy task in their life in the years to come. They would never have to repeat it again.
The clothes of all the men in adventure of demolishing the demon’s house were undergoing deformity, full of dirt, torn and worn out but the strange and unique sparks in their eyes produced every moment renewed flashes as if it was a unified signal- light of imminent victory being predicted.
A huge crash was heard and the pillars supporting the house broke down and collapsed. All the workers viewed the corpses of the pillars lying stranded before and a large scenario of onlookers around them. The people raised their voice repeatedly, “Down with the demon. Long live demo….”
At the same time, a big hurricane or tornado arrived and took away the rubbles and debris like vultures carry away the carcasses in river banks and sea-shores. Some were killed and many were wounded with that commotion but the clever ones among those who remained began to choreograph the land next day in a new sunshine.