It Couldn't Happen To Him- A Short Story

Sandip was standing in the balcony of his home. Suddenly, he saw people, young and old, running helter-skelter in the street below. He did not react. In the three years he had spent in Srinagar, he had understood that such sights were common in Kashmir. In the beginning, he had been a little apprehensive about living in a place like Kashmir, but now he was used to the terrorist activities around him. He had even started going easy on his armyman father for pulling him out of his Delhi school and bringing him to a place like Kashmir, instead of, say, Goa.

This was Kashmir. Things happened everyday. People got used to it. It was a lot like watching the same horror movie again and again until it inflicted no more fear.

The only difference was that this horror movie was much too real. It could not be contained in the screen of any multiplex. It couldn’t be contained even in thousands of newspaper headlines. Thousands of people had reviewed this horror film, and none had given it a positive review.

Sandip sighed. His breath made the air around his mouth for up.  He went back into the house. This was probably the fifth time he was seeing terrified people running down the street. He sighed. The air around his mouth fogged up a little. Slowly, he wandered into the TV room and switched on the television.

A certain rock star from a certain rock band was singing a certain song. He listened absent-mindedly. Then he started feeling thirsty. He wasn’t going to get water himself. What were sisters for? “Sameera! Water!” he called out, without even shifting his gaze from the television. As the song blared, he dreamed of the day when he would be back in Delhi and would be able to go to a real rock concert.

He got bored and changed the channel. Tom and Jerry was on. A loud shriek coming from the street below pierced his ears. He drowned the sound of the frightened shriek with the sound of Tom flattenning poor Jerry with a frying pan.

His water still hadn’t come. “Sameera! Water!” he called out again. He was not a child anymore. He did not have the patience to watch Tom and Jerry for too long. He turned to a news channel. Ah! So there had been a minor bomb blast. Oh, so the blast had been in the nearby market.

“Sameera! Water!” shouted out Sandip, more frustrated by now. Sameera had gone to get potatoes hours ago. She should have been back by now. There was no way she wasn’t home. Why was she not answering?

He got up and angrily marched to the kitchen. If Sameera was not going to bother, he would just had to quench his thirst himself.

As he poured water into a glass, he thought of what was going to happen now. On Monday, he would observe a minute of silence with all the others for all those who had lost their lives in this particular bomb blast. He would have to take an oath to fight terrorism, even if he had no idea how to do so.

But he knew that no minute of silence and no oath could stop what was happening. That was why people were still losing their lives. But that did not matter to Sandip. After all, terrorism could not touch him. Being victimized by terrorists was something that happened to other people, something distant. He had never been in the wrong place at the wrong time. What were the chances that he would be even in the future?

Realization and comprehension struck him like a fatal bolt of lightning.

Sandip’s legs must have started shaking, because all of a sudden the kitchen seemed to be swaying from side to side. He could hear his own heartbeat and feel the gush of adrenaline and blood through his veins. A dizzying array of thoughts made it impossible for him to think rationally. He was breathing hard. Reflexively, he ran to the door and opened it with more force than necessary. The next thing he knew was that he was running down the stairs.

Once he was out in the open, he started running towards the market. The others were running too, but in the opposite direction. He fought with all his power to push back the crowd and move forward. The sounds of hurrying footsteps, terrified shrieks and police jeeps merged into one common blur. The only sound he could hear was that of his own accelerated breathing. As long as he kept breathing, he could make it to the market. The market.

He tripped on a stone and fell down. His chest touched the ground first with a loud thud. He tried to plop himself up with one elbow, but his incoherent thoughts made it impossible to do so. He let himself lie on the ground. He knew it was already too late.

Sameera would never come back home with a bag of potatoes. She would never walk in through the door ever again. She was gone. Gone forever. Terrorism had finally touched Sandip.

(The above story was the first prize winner of the Navi Mumbai Seaside Rotary Club Youth Festival- 2009)