It is some time since I wrote. Dussera is as good a day as any to resume. A few days ago I had written a topical short story The Silencing which was my tribute to a recently murdered journalist. Can you imagine my surprise to receive a reply from the editor of a journal I had submitted it to? The learned Editor said:-
'The problem is that the plot and the incidents are known to all through newspaper and other media. There's no novelty as well as very less elements of fiction. Kindly write another story dear sir.'
Perhaps he does not recollect what he must have learned long ago that Truth is stranger than Fiction; perhaps he does not feel the courage to put out something based on real events and shields himself by calling it controversial and therefore to be abhorred. But I cannot let it go unread so here is the whole story:
The Silencing
Chandashekhar Sastry
I wish I’d been
there earlier. It might have made all the difference. So all I can tell you is
why he was murdered. Gaurav was the fearless editor who would challenge every
untoward idea and cut through superstition and blind faith to reveal the truth
behind the veil of false belief and awkward myth. He had been made to pay the
ultimate price for his bold stand on the side of the verity that many preferred
concealed. He brimmed with bold unconventional ideas that revealed an
underlying humanity unbridled by any trace of bigotry. He was an idealist who
brooked no compromise. I had sensed the looming threat and was on my way to plead
with him to be extra cautious but I was a little late. They had shot him. As he
opened the gate to his house and before he entered, they shot three bullets
into him and one bullet which missed him had lodged in the front door. Two men
masked by full helmets on motorcycles, each with a loaded country made pistol,
had sped away after their murderous mission.
We
all knew they had threatened him and he would laugh at the threats. Gaurav showed us some of them which he
considered really crude.
If anyone tries to demolish a
temple, attack the Hindu religion, kill cows, or wage love jihad, our yodhas
would deal with them.
That
was one of the quotes in a rabid pamphlet that was thrust under his door. Such
things only hardened his resolve to fight the forces that upheld an unreasoning
fundamentalism and thoughtless superstition in practice. It was not an ideal of
reason ruling over faith and it was not a passionate desire to emancipate
people from darkness; it was just a desire to uphold truth. That was a simple
yearning in his uncomplicated mind.
“Atheism
is the highest form of spiritualism he thundered,” at his public meetings, “for
it is the force that places humanity above all and gives reality the essence of
truth. ‘Satyameva Jayate’ is not merely a philosophical idea but needs to be
lived in practice and demonstrated in life.” He would go on to claim that the
extravagance of piety and a blind faith in godmen transforms into its
dialectical opposite and makes a sin of such worship of the Babas and Sadhus
who cynically draw followers, transform them into devotees and reap a rich
profit out of their gullibility. He proclaimed that, in a sense, the amorphous
nature of the Hindu faith had proved ineffectual to protect its simple,
trusting flock and these easily misled souls placed their trust in devious men
seducing their minds with high sounding ideals and arabesque sermons. Some of
these charlatans masquerading as learned gurus claimed to have gleaned their
pretentious high philosophies at the feet of those immortal Rishis who haunt
the high reaches of the Himalayas, invoking the immortal deities presumed to be
living on those peaks.
Last
month he had torn into a Pretender, whose long hair and hirsute face was dyed
black to hide age, whose awkward obesity was hidden behind encircling white
robes, enacting the role of a wise seer. Trying to use a modern analogy he was
the Guru who likened spiritualism to petrol that would drive the car of life,
which when exhausted needs to be again restored for fuelling the car, leaving
his followers astounded at such high philosophy. That it also enabled a
continual and repeated spouting of recycled wisdom as the driving force was the
hidden bonus, extending the shelf-life of his platitudinous preaching.
The
meticulous demolition of the Pretender’s claims to having received spiritual
wisdom following a visit to the Himalayas outraged the virtuous believers. Some
of his followers would not suffer the editor’s diatribes in silence and were
raring to reply, their offended sense raising a shrill clarion rather
vengefully. Those who were articulate filled social media with protests and
rabidly vile comments, whereas those who had made the taking of offense a
principal occupation were inclined to stronger remonstrance. Groups had been
formed and their discourse was filled with more hate than reason. In some such
extreme group it was first suggested that a permanent silencing of the Offender
was a pressing necessity.
“Take
him out,” someone said hesitantly in a closed door meeting of the faithful, but
it did not then receive much support for his murderous suggestion.
Nevertheless, that proved to have been a seminal proposal and the vicious
thought had found root and grown; it was repeated more robustly after a few
sessions. There was no dearth of volunteers, no dearth of ideas for the
execution of the plot to take him out. I had been forewarned by someone who was
revolted at the thought of assassination and therefore sneaked the cooking of a
wicked plot. He did not have much detail but only knew it was imminent. I was
frightened by the possibility and thought I should meet with Gaurav to warn him
that he was creating enemies.
“Welcome friend,” he said as he opened the
door and saw me. “This is a surprise.”
“I
am sorry Gaurav I did not wait to telephone and rushed here as soon as I heard
about it,” I said. “There is evil afoot and some people who have been agitated
by your editorials want to kill you.” I
held his hands and in a quivering voice told him to stop, to go away on a
holiday and forget these frightful things. But he was stubborn. He did not seem
perturbed.
“Yes,
I have received warnings on the telephone and even in person. A turbaned man in
dark glasses called on me and in a very soft tone asked me to beware as some
people had taken offence at my writing. ‘They were powerful people,’ he added,
‘they are quite capable of doing you in.’ It was insinuated in a gentle voice,
sugarcoating the threat.”
He
confessed that the vicious threat delivered in person, had resulted in a couple
of sleepless nights and then he had ignored the whole thing in order to conquer
the insomnia that followed from fear.
“Please
inform the police and ask for protection,” I had pleaded but he considered that
unnecessary. “Don’t go on with those platitudes that they cannot silence you
and your ideas and words will live long after you,” I said. “We want you to
continue writing; we don’t want that stopped. After all, dead men write no
tales. It is only prudent to be practical. Can’t you write without provoking
retribution?”
He
laughed at that, “Galileo recanted to be able to continue his studies and to
surreptitiously courier his researches to lands beyond the reach of the
Inquisition. There was a definite purpose in doing so. He furthered the cause
of Science by succumbing to the Cardinals’ demands. I myself see no such reason
to go back on my iconoclasm.”
Gaurav seemed exhilarated with his relentless
attack on unquestioning faith and undoubting superstition. His purpose was to
have future generations inherit a world unburdened from a demon haunted past.
He would not stop his writings. The vile language used by trolls on his website
and social media at first shocked his sensibilities but he learnt to ignore it
for he did not have the coarseness to reply giving as good as he got.
Later
I came to know that they plotted the attack very carefully. They studied his
schedules and the route his car took on the way home. They timed the distance
from the last traffic lights to his home and made allowances for traffic snarls
which were always an unknown. Someone got hold of a country made pistol and
live ammunition and a team travelled out of town to far off fields to test the
weapon and give confidence to the elected assassin. It was a risky mission and
had to be expertly carried out for a failure would alert the victim. There may
not be another chance; a requisitioned police protection would make it doubly
difficult. It may even compromise the would-be killer who may not be able to
withstand an interrogation if he were apprehended.
It
happened as evening approached. It was 5 p m on a winter evening and dusk was
setting in when I set out for his home. I chose the scooter as I could weave
through traffic and reach his home before a car could. However, I was late and
all the risks I had taken on the road speeding to meet with him had been in
vain. As I turned the corner I saw the motorcycle with his killers roaring away
and Gaurav was lying on the porch before his house in a pool of blood. He had
not been able to reach up and ring the doorbell. They got him even as he closed
the gate behind him. He was first hit on the front of his chest then the second
and third bullet hit him in the back as he turned running to the porch and a
fourth had lodged in the front door.
They
shot him up. Dead men write no tales. They shut him up.
Note
on author Chandrashekhar Sastry
The Author is a widely travelled
engineer-scientist now retired and living in Bangalore. He has studied in
Bombay, Germany and in the UK and worked in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and
Bangalore.
His first book The Non-Resident Indian published in 1991 by Panther Publishers was a pioneering work with an unorthodox treatment of a contemporary subject. His second book The Tanjore Painting (Penguin 2014) deals with the cultural imports that the diaspora carries to their new found homelands. His latest collection of short stories Long and Short Tales has been published by Sanbun Publishers in 2016
His first book The Non-Resident Indian published in 1991 by Panther Publishers was a pioneering work with an unorthodox treatment of a contemporary subject. His second book The Tanjore Painting (Penguin 2014) deals with the cultural imports that the diaspora carries to their new found homelands. His latest collection of short stories Long and Short Tales has been published by Sanbun Publishers in 2016
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