THE DEAD SOLDIERS OF INCA

Evenings like this are very common in Kolkata. …suffocating, hot, humid, muggy, sweat dripping down in streams drenching dehydrating, de-energizing …clothes sticking to the body, have to be wrenched out to let the scanty air, blowing as per Nature’s whims and fancy, pass through, marginally cooling the skin scorched with heat and clammy with perspiration. An indefinite stranded existence on one of the thoroughfares of office-pada.

Never ending queues of black and yellow taxis, hordes of dilapidated almost pre-historic looking buses emitting black smoke, trams - the modern-age dinosaurs still marauding the metroscape, now standing silently bumper to bumper, and then suddenly the engines are revved up and the wheels rotate a few inches and then again stop dead. Clutch, gear, brake, neutral…………..the caricature of movement goes on interminably. Evening gives way slowly to night. The handkerchief is too wet to absorb any more water….

The engine starts again. A slight change. Clutch, gear, a soft foot press on the accelerator. Passage at last!! A few inches gap between our vehicle and the cab next. Our driver swerves the car neatly towards the left and takes a short cut to circumvent the congestion. We enter a side lane. At the entrance there is an ancient Shiv Mandir. The lane is narrow. Only one vehicle can pass through at a time.

People…..people……people… everywhere. Strange people. People who shun daylight. Weird, scarred faces, ogling eyes, dark demeanours………night creatures. We are told to pull up the window- screen. Some pedestrians, taking a short cut through the lane, walk by with their heads held down.

The serpentine lane is flanked by windowless structures which seem to be housing innumerable faces and bodies. Lean, lithe, thin, fat, beautiful, grotesque, old, middle-aged, young, teenaged, children, infant. Figures, some with babies in the crooks of their arms, stand expectantly at the threshold of their doors beckoning, smiling, luring, cat calling. Faces caked with make up. Eyes thickly lined with kajal. Lips dripping crimson. Huge daubs of red on the cheek. Foreheads, cheeks and necks plastered with white powder. Short skirts…tight bodices, exposed thighs, skin, arms, legs…….many clad in six yards.

The lane is brightly lit not by the street lights but by the stalls and shops bordering the street. The drive seems never ending. Suddenly there is a bend and the lane gives way to a circular opening. An opening with rows and rows and rows of bodies standing with feet apart,, hands on their hips dead pan faces ………….an amorphous, infinite parade of young, juvenile, old bent bodies, toothless smiles, shrewd eyes scanning the passers by………. they don’t speak or call out, they don’t breathe, they just stand there watchful, silent, still. I look on as the car moves past slowly. I look on………… till my limited retinal capacity allows,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I look on………….as I can’t take my eyes off the children…………..the infants…………..the babies……..the new born………….



I close my eyes ……….and see them there………the dead soldiers of Inca guarding the residual treasures of their plundered lives………. …………..they stand there embalmed………..entrapped………….waiting………….still.