The Rendezvous – Jasvinder Sharma

I was a Hindu of the first kind who was buried in a grave along with
many other people. There were bomb blasts in numerous crowded areas of
different cities killing more than four thousand people. Thinking me to be a
Muslim, I was buried hastily in a forlorn graveyard.

I had now reached a stage where there was no conflict in my mind, no
want or worry. The exclusive solitary 6×6 feet grave had become my exclusive
property now.

On one doomed night I heard the pounding sounds of digging right
above my head. A new dead person was lowered to my right side in my small
grave just beside me. For a few days I lay there silent in anger and fear. To whom could I have complained? But I could not control myself for long. I asked the dead man lying on my right side, ‘Hello, which place you belonged to before your death? ’
My new neighbor replied sadly, ‘It is of no importance now.’ My mood
was spoiled. I damned him. This foolish man is sad and unhappy even after his
death.

Many years rolled by. We remained dead silent.

The silence between us became so profound and critical that one day I
asked him, ‘Well, after all, how the hell you died, any illness?’
That man remarked as if in great pain, ‘In the riots of 1984, I was
employed to throw bombs on public, and then in 1995 I was hit by a policeman’s
bullet. For years I was kept in a mortuary since no one came forward to claim my dead body. Now that mortuary had become full with unclaimed corpses of riot
victims and then in the gloomy darkness of one dismal night they threw me
unceremoniously here beside you in your grave. You don’t know how famous
and dreadful terrorist I was. I was the mastermind in the serial bomb blasts thatclaimed more than four thousands deaths.’

Saying this he started laughing boisterously like Satan. I murmured,
‘My killer lay buried along with me in the same grave and it is a pity that I am talking to him in a friendly way. I am afraid the end of the world has come.’ I turned my back and started sobbing for the first time.