In Memoriam, writes Shweta Bachchan Nanda

In memoriam: an article written in the memory of a dead person; an obituary

When tragedy strikes, it always catches you in the midst of your most mundane moments. You’ve gotten out of the shower and are getting ready for bed, when suddenly a plane has flown into the Twin Towers and the world will never be the same again. You are finishing up a TV dinner when the rat-tat-tat of machine guns tintinnabulate across the Oberoi, Trident lobby, a teaser to the terror that was to follow. You never watch the news in the afternoons; it’s a downer and you usually leave it for the night, when sleep will claim all memory of it from you. However, on that day you do, and are first introduced to images and faces that will crowd your nightmares for a while to come. I am no innocent, I have witnessed a fair amount of grief, the bulk of it vicarious — on the news or via the Internet. But the savagery in Peshawar on that December morning hasn’t stopped shadowing me.

At first, you refuse to accept the brutal legitimacy of what you are watching. Then you see it, the image of a mother, her body undulating in a way that you recognise as one of two things. She is either rocking her child to sleep or swaying with grief. You cannot take your eyes off her while she performs this macabre dance, swallowed whole by sorrow, her face contorted in silent pain, for she is most definitely mourning the death of her young.

As the dust begins to settle, the magnitude of this horror reveals itself. Young boys who should be downloading music or playing cricket are patched up with gauze, strung up to I-V fluids and lie on threadbare hospital beds. Some haven’t even been removed from their bloodied school blazers, quite a few still have their shoes on. Earlier that day, they were carried pell-mell to the nearest medical facility, fielding questions by reporters, whilst bleeding out into the arms of volunteers their eyes searching for a familiar face, a parent. Forget the politics of it all, the rhetoric of hate that went into planning this tragedy! That is best left to the people who understand these intricate equations and I hope they find solutions for them, and fast, though my faith is flagging. Truth be told, the families of these hapless victims will never recover; their lives are altered in perpetuity. 

As a child, I was told such stories of the proud and fearless men and women of Peshawar, men and women I have seen crumble and fall in despair as tiny coffins make their way to the graveyard. It is all too predictable; grief will congeal into anger, forbearance will give way to revenge. Solutions may be a long time coming or not severe enough for the bereaved - what is the appropriate punishment for the murder of children?

As if on cue, the news replays a shaky clip. In it, a young boy, voice hoarse with pain, declares he won’t spare the perpetrators of this violence. He has seen two of his friends shot down; he vows retribution. The teachers who would have taught him otherwise, lie dead in a morgue. Elders from his community have paid too heavy a price to counsel him with reason.

In Memoriam: 16.12.2014 - The day peace died.