Ra'rak

Girl: Please, for God sake don’t go, I won't live without you. She helplessly falls down. He wanted to lift her up but was reluctant to expose his weakness as well. The best option right now was to ignore her. He moves ahead. Deep inside, something gets broken, it might be the heart, he thought but it was just a flow of single thought. Whatever it was, to consider it was meant to be weak. And weakness for him was the worst thing ever. To him the purpose of the journey was more essential than the people he was leaving behind. And more than this he was going to this odious mission for the sake of these very people. So, there was nothing to remorse. 

Boy: I'll have to leave for the best of us. 

Girl: We don't need this best at the risk of your life. 

Boy: Don't be emotional! You know very well that we need money and power to survive in this village. We have to get our land back. 

Girl: I need you more than anything. 

Boy: But I need many things for you. 

Girl: In your company the rest of the world becomes meaningless for me. 

Boy: But when I am in your company everything becomes meaningful for me. Then I desire to get all the luxuries for you my dear. 

Girl: Your presence is the most luxuriant thing for me. Please don't go away. 

Boy: I won't be away. You will always find me next to you. And now let me go, the other young men are waiting for me. And remember I am going only to be capable enough to give you a pleasant life. Without money and power, we stand nowhere. And this is the direct way to get the both. 

Girl: Won't you meet the father before leaving? 

Boy:  He is in the city. He bid me farewell last night and told me not to wait for him because he might get late. 

Girl: It means you won't stop. With tears in her eyes she says, "Goodbye and come soon. Life won't be life without you."

Boy: Just take care of yourself for me. He moves ahead with a heavy heart. The girl runs after him grips his wrist. The boy feels the warmth of love, looks in her eyes, the dark eyes were loaded with tears and a few were kissing her cheeks. He softly picks the rolling tears like the pearls and releases his wrist with a jerk. Rab Raakha! The only sentence he could utter and went out. She took a hasty jump towards the outer door and had his sight for the last time. He was at the corner of the street. Rab Rakha, the last words came on her lips. 

Time was hard enough to spend. With him, her vigor had gone. Now the meaning of life for her was to wait and pray for his safe return which seemed her impossible. Hours had spent since he had left and she was sitting in the same posture beside the door as silent as a stone. Meanwhile she heard a very slow voice as some soft bell was ringing somewhere far away. And the next moment that slow voice became louder enough and she realized it was a hard knock at door. Someone was calling her name loudly and beating the door violently. She summoned up all of her courage and opened the gate. Chachi Sughraan-a distant relative of her father- entered the house followed by a noisy crowd of village people. A few had lifted a cot on their shoulders. She couldn't get the situation and before this she would try to guess, Chachi Sughraan embraced her tightly and in broken words told her about the sad demise of her father. She fell down near the cot without saying a word. It seemed words had lost the importance for her. Water was streaming out of her eyes in silence. Someone was narrating how her father met to a sudden death. He was coming home from the city. She knew where her father had been. He went to see the local landlord Lala Raamnaath Lahoriya to beg for some time to pay back his loan. Raamnaath warned them a few months earlier to pay the debt otherwise he threatened them to grab their land. This land was their sole source of living and was very dear to them. They didn't want to lose it. It was the same reason for which her fiancé and cousin went to the war on German front. He wanted to earn enough money to get their land back from the landlord. Her father had already told her his fears of the loss of the land. He knew Lala won’t accept his request this time. The noisy crowd became silent to listen to the story of her father's death. The man told them what he had seen. He told them, "I was standing at the bridge of the village canal, when her father crossed me. I tried to talk to him but he passed as he hadn't listened to me. Soon what I saw he climbed the bridge's fence and threw himself into the canal." The man said I knew he didn't know how to swim. So, he hurriedly dived to save him but it was late. When he gripped him to swim towards the brink of the canal, he felt he was no more in this world. The man was wondering that what made him to commit suicide. Only she knew what might be the reason. The reason might be the final threat to evacuate the land by Lala Raamnaath, the landlord. A wave of utmost desperation flew through her body and she lost her senses. She didn't know when she regained her senses. 'How long I remained unconscious' was the first question when she came to consciousness? Chaachi Sughraan and another distant relative of her mother were with her. They told her, "You remained unconscious for a day and half". The village people had performed the last rituals of her father and he was buried beside her mother's grave at the village graveyard. Chaachi Sughraan was advising her to be brave. Because now she had to live on her own. She had no one in this world now to look after her except her fiancé and cousin who had gone for the war. With these words a face appeared before her eyes, the serious, grave and confident face of her beloved. She implored him for returning back. She hysterically shrieked and tears rolled down her cheeks. Chaachi Sughraan embraced her compassionately and tried to soothe her. Oh, my poor child! Please don't weep. While saying this Chaachi Sughraan, herself couldn't control her tears. 

It was the second month; he was fiercely fighting against the Germans at the front. Much had been changed since then. Almost half of his friends had become the victim of the fire of the war. And the last night proved a nightmare for him as his childhood friend Jaggu had had his last breath in his lap. He was shot during a fierce fight with Germans a few days earlier. He was a strong nerved guy and didn't lose hope till the last breath but he couldn't defeat the dreadful death. He could recall the sweet dreams his friend had seen for his future life. Now the thought of uncertainty of his own unfulfilled dreams started haunting him. The two eyes with tears were the only refuge he had now. While sleeping or waking, in the trench or on the front, in fire and in peace these were the only eyes which made him to believe that he had to live. But somehow his heart had lost the hope to see those eyes again with a smile in them. Desperation and disillusionment were quite visible in his hopeless eyes. Early in this morning he had a dream. In that dream he was after a golden deer. The absolute wish was to grasp her and he did his best but the deer got an escape and he too had lost the way. He was standing at the edge of a rock and there was a deep pit ahead. He got scared and turned back to have an escape but there was no way to go back. In fear he woke up suddenly. 

Two months had passed rapidly. She was living like the dead. The sole reason to live was the wait of her beloved. She was told by the landlord to exit the house as soon as possible. She didn't know what to do. Chaachi Sughraan asked her to shift in her house. But she knew it wasn't the genuine option for her. There wasn't any doubt about her sincerity but her son Akku wasn't reliable. He was after her right from the day her fiancé had left for the war and her father died. To shift in her house was meant to step into a field of trapping.  Days and nights were passed sleeplessly. The constant fear of loneliness couldn't let her sleep. After a series of sleepless nights and days on one night the fear gripped her heart and head through a mysterious voice coming from the corridor. Someone was telling the others, "There is no need to fear, she is alone at home. Just hold on your nerves and follow as I direct you". The voice seemed familiar to her familiar. Then with a sudden spark of recollection she recognized the voice. It was Akku's voice. She could foresee the impending danger and was about to faint out of fear and despair. But soon she recollected her vigor because it was the time to save the honor; the honor of the family and the honor of the self. She felt a light pressure on the door. Someone was trying to open it forcefully. The pressure on the door was increasing and the vice versa was the pressure on her nerves. She thought for a second and fixed her eyes on the closed window at the rear wall. In no time she dragged the cot near the wall, put the wooden small stool on it and tried to reach the wall. Soon she was climbing the window. The moment she jumped into the back street of her house, she heard the breaking sound of the door and the mad voice of Akku, "what the hell. She has fled through the window, just going and catching her. She may not run away." In this mad noise, she headed towards the house of her friend that was at the eastern side of the village. After a while she felt that someone was following her. The chasers were getting closer. She realized that she might not be able to reach the safe heaven. She paused, thought for a second and resonantly turned her face towards a near refuge. After a minute's span she approached the village water well, climbed the well's wall and stood at the edge with a resolution. Her eyes were shining with the light of determination as a soldier is going to sacrifice his life for the sake of eternal honor. Right now, her determined eyes could outshine the resolute eyes of Hector who said before death, 'Then welcome fate!' Tis true I perish, yet I perish great', the chasers now reached the well. One of them put his hand on her shoulder. She felt a hostile grip and with a strange smile, murmuring eternal adieu to the departed memories of her martial beloved, jumped into the well. The chaser could only get her stole in his hand with a sigh of desperation he yelled, ' what a brave girl she was!' 

In the middle of the fire and shots he was moving ahead like a rock. The order was to break the mesh of the German wire and to destroy Germany's front line attack trenches, and clear the way for Allied troops to advance forward. While proceeding towards the enemy lines, they found themselves snared in wire and facing fully operational machine guns of the Germans. Above this each man carried sixty pounds of supplies that were to be used during the expected fighting in the German trenches. And further in the trenches a bitter hand-to-hand combat with pistols, grenades, knives, bayonets, and bare hands was waiting for those who would be lucky enough to reach the German trenches alive. The moment, the fire and guns, made him to stop, the memory of the departed brave soldiers of Lahore Division of British Army, who had lost their lives to serve their English masters, worked as a catalyst and added pace to his move. He had witnessed a strange feeling in the morning. It was neither out of the wet, cold, and filthy trench nor out of the stench of the dead soldier's bodies which were being eaten by the large black rats. He thought it might be because of the present, ever-present rather eternally present misery around. But again, he renounced this thought because he had spent two months in this stinking world of sticky, trickling earth ceilinged by a strip of threatening sky. Where the threat of enemy fire was constant and almost 7,000 men were killed or wounded daily. So, after seeing the furious and fiercing hell around this feeling must not be the outcome of the fear of the death. It was because of something else. And then like a flash of lightning an innocent face half veiled by the corner of a flying stole appeared before his eyes. With a long sigh of grief on his lips he lowered his head and murmured, "I am sorry dear, I am afraid I wouldn't fulfill my promise", and then a thick tear fell on the ground, he sat down, picked the wet mud-where the drop of tear fell down- in his hand and with a muffled cry uttered, " I fear I would die while keeping in heart, this Ra'rak of separation." 'Rab Rakha' Mohan Singh, one of his division's stout and revered guys uttered these words and crumbled on the ground. Mohannn could only say these words, looked at him for a moment and then ran fiercely. They had crossed the iron lines; the German trench was a few yards away. With a jerk he felt as fire had entered into his chest. Blood came out like a fountain. The sight was horrible but a smile was playing on his lips. At least, I am near to fulfill one promise, thank God. He with all his might jumped into the trench, looked around, and threw the grenades on the stock of explosives. With a blast, fire spread all around and in cries of enemies he fell on ground. Few moments later, Hari Singh, another guy of the division came to him. We have done our task successfully. It’s all because of you. Subedar sahib would be very happy. On hearing these words, he closed his eyes and murmured, "at least I did for what I came here." He gripped Hari Singh's hands and said, "Neither side had won, nor could win, the War had won, and would go on winning." With dying breaths and a smile on lips he said, Rab Rakha to Hari Singh and a beautiful image standing far away in the corner of the trench. And in his last breath, he had nothing to worry except the one and only the Ra'rak of separation. 

Yet in a mighty Deed I shall expire, 

Let future Ages hear it, and admire! 

(Hector in Iliad) 

(A tribute to the memory of 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in WW1 on British side and more than 74,000 of them lost their lives. Almost half of these soldiers were Punjabi. They all went to the Great War with some expectations but half of them died away with keeping the Ra'rak of those expectations into heart.)