Snippet 4

Karan’s mind was a veritable battleground. Of images and smells and sounds and tastes.

Anita’s screams. The white sari with the huge maps of blood. The salty taste of his own tears. The prickling wetness of his father’s face. The prick of the doctor’s needle plunging into his hip.

The five gunshots in quick succession, their multiple echoes resonating forever on the empty second floor. The smell of gunpowder. Vikramaditya’s serene face -- the nostrils plugged with cotton wool, the blue immobile body.

The sounds of silence. The vacuum within. The blackness around.
The thronging crowds. Their continual chatter. Eulogies for the departed souls. Sympathy for the solitary surviving soul. Commiseration with each other. Barbs and venom for everyone else.

The white-clad priests. Smoke in their eyes. The smoking butt of the double-barrelled gun. The holy fire in the havan. The incessant chants of the Gayatri mantra. “Om Bhoor bhuvasuvaha tatsa viturvarenyam. Bhargoho devasya deemahi. Diyoyonah prachodayaat.” The brown copper pots filled with ashes.
The fragrance of incense. The pungency of gunpowder.

Anita’s tear stained face, a fleeting memento of the agony within. Anita’s ever smiling face, the eternal memento of the ecstasy that once was that would never be.

The cool soothing touch of her cold fingers on his burning forehead. The hot scorching flames of her maternal care that engulfed his troubled mind. Cold hands. Warm hearts.