Yusuf

I

The guns from other side had fallen silent as the dusk approached an ominously dark, moonless night. Yusuf, trying to conceal his heavy built behind a withering walnut tree, slid himself on the dry patch of grass. Despite his inexhaustible strength the day had been long and tough. The men hiding inside the two-storey house had proven to be much better trained and battle hardened than he had expected. 'Bloody Afghanis' he cursed, irritated at not being to find the pack of Gold Flake in the multiple pockets of his borrowed army fatigue jacket. For a fleeting moment he thought of Junaid, his cigarette buddy, it was Junaid who had made him take his first puff while walking back home from the riverbed after their daily game of cricket. He suppressed the urge to go back to those early days knowing well how vicious the storm of emotions that accompanied such memories could be. 

Major Venkat, the lean framed commander of the operation, was getting restless wanting to get over with it quickly. Even after spending three winters in Kashmir his south Indian skin hadn't managed to befriend the torturous cold here. A swig of rum from the steel grey hip flask would only keep him going for a while more. It had been a week since Reema had called. Today, he had decided, he would make a call to her and had even thought of an alibi if her father answered the call.

Like Yusuf he had also anticipated the operation to be short and quick one. The informer had pointed out the right house but the idiot had got the number wrong. Only two militants couldn't have held up the force for so many hours. The motherfuckers had even escaped the mortar shells that had brought down two houses and within minutes had started firing from a third house. Left to him Major Venkat would have the got the whole mohalla brought down. But now the orders were to avoid collateral damage, every operation had to incisive and clean. Things had changed in Kashmir.  

His eyes, bloodshot red with exhaustion and impatience, were now combing the house for any movement. Though he was certain that they had decimated them but his experience wouldn't let him take any chances. He looked towards Yusuf who had managed to light up a cigarette and seemed to be lost in the tiny rings of smoke. You could almost mistake it for non-chalance till you noticed the finger firmly on the trigger of his Ak47. Taking position behind the mud brick wall barely a few feet away from Yusuf, he motioned to him to move towards the bullet-pockmarked house. Yusuf ignored him and continued forming tiny circles of smoke. He didn't care. A thick air of unease and hostility surrounded the two but Yusuf knew he weighed higher in the equation. At least for now. Venkat was indignant but didn’t want to waste more time arguing with him. He will settle this by pumping a hundred bullets in his arse, he promised himself. For now he just wanted to get over with the damned operation. He now asked his two men to do the reece; both of them swiftly followed the orders and started moving towards the house. Major Venkat had also got the rest of his and Yusuf''s men to take positions. In this business you had to be prepared for the surprises. Unlike the pleasant ones that Reema would come up with these were morbid and annihilating. Death seemed to have a perverse liking for suddenness here. 

Yusuf took another long drag from the cigarette butt burning it up till the edge. The intense heat at the tip that seared his fingernails leaving a tiny black spot, gave him an unusual pleasure. It left him with strange sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.  The smoke had soothed his nerves and the whole day had started wearing off into a blurred background. Just then a sound of a single bullet shot pierced the uneasy quiet of evening. An identical one followed which was followed by two simultaneous loud screams. Both the soldiers had got hit when they were about to storm into the house. 'Behenchod maare nahin saale' shouted Venkat lunging ahead in rage and rushing towards the house opening a burst of gunfire. Yusuf who was standing a few steps ahead instinctively leapt on to him, a bullet whizzed past as they both fell on the ground. The unexpectedness of his act surprised Venkat and for a while he remained frozen to the ground. 

There was something about the accuracy, the measured precision of those three shots that disturbed Yusuf.  What made the whole act so familiar? Why did he know about it from the gut before it happened? Why did it feel as if he had known the script, as if he knew who had pulled the trigger? A volcano of emotions erupted in his heart. Could it be Junaid or Mushtaq inside the house?  The thought stifled him with its mercilessness. The volcano of emotions that had erupted inside him tore through his defenses. A flurry of vivid images, words, sounds, smells from the past swirled around him. He could see Ibrahim. He was there in front of him, pushing him, shouting at him, imploring him. The blot of blood growing bigger and bigger on his white kameez. Yusuf couldn't move, his limbs were numb. Could if be Ibrahim? No it can't be him. Ibhi, his friend, was dead. No not dead, martyred.

There is a reality, an uncomfortable truth that you dread to face. You evade it; deny its existence but it lives, parallel to your own reality like a shadow. It deprives you of yourself and enslaves you, slowly and quietly. You live in fear of it. And then there is a moment when it confronts you. It challenges you with all its nakedness. To conquer it you have it to acknowledge it, its power over you.  You have to face it, your soul unclothed and naked.  It was that moment for Yusuf. It unhinged him. Suddenly he started to run towards the damaged house, towards the injured soldiers. Their groans dying under the noise of the machine gun fire. There was desperation and a purpose to his run. Venkat asked his men to stop firing. From the other side too the guns went quiet, again.