Bhanu gaadi sodhi kaburlu...

Inglourious Basterds

So many faces, with too many colors on them, like a detailed work of some painter perfectionist. So many noises, yet every noise tries to scream louder than others, and all unaware, that all are being heard by every other. As squeaking noise approaches me, red palms dripping with gulaal are in front of me coming from right behind me over my shoulders and paint my face crimson.

As my instincts take over, My already wet hands feel something wet and something thick, perspiration takes over as i realize it to be Blood!!! and open my eyes in middle of the night. This disgusting dream takes me through a stroll of thoughts which pass via guilty lanes and end up at a feeble state of mind.

Its been more than a decade since this dream has started to haunt me in sleep, night after night, almost every night!!! as exaggerating as it may sound, I had to go through those painful thoughts and feelings every night or after every interrupting dream.

It was typical "HOLI"day of Hyderabad in 1997, and we were Sixteen boys to be precise, all in late teens and were the craziest gang happening around!!! As each one of us was trying to make his presence felt by suggesting craziest and wackiest of ideas, am not sure who! but one of us came up with an idea of going for a swim in a lake which is 50km away, only to wash the color!!! Sounds crazy enuf!!! that's what happens when you put 16 crazy guys together. And for some fucking insanity, every one thought it was a killer Idea!!! and we 16 set on 7 bikes for a 50km ride to swim in a lake, and what beats above all is the fact that only 1 among us could swim and there were another one or two, with some amateur abilities.

Lake was not looking good enuf for anyone's liking, but as there was lot of labor involved, we started getting into those dirty green waters, and one after the other all Sixteen were in it. people who could swim or thought they could swim were showing off by moving away from boys like me who stuck to knee level water. We were merrying around and everyone was lost in their world. its only after a while, when one of us realized that Srinu was missing!!! that's when all the frenzy began !!! We frantically looked for him around and that's when most us realized that he was the only complete competent swimmer among all. It was hard to keep away the unfortunate thoughts, but harder the mind tried to shoot them away, stronger they seemed to hit back.

It was not long before we had to take some local help to rule out the unfortunate option. But the dreaded moment came when one of the locals came out with proof of misery, for Srinu, his Family and to Us. We were still hoping he was alive and some thing could be done to restore his breath, but our hopes were diminishing as we were all struggling to get him out of the lake. The locals moved Srinu's body onto a rock in middle of the lake. While all this was happening, one of us informed the police and they arrived with a tractor tube. They pulled the body out of the lake, and treated it as a Corpse, Yes Corpse!!! and sent it for postmortem.

Then i realized, it only takes a moment, for breath to stop, for a soul to leave the body. In utter shock i was trying to digest the events around me, my brain still trying to feed itself the shocking unfortunate event and come to terms with it. That is when i realized... I merely knew Srinu for couple of hours, He was full of excitement and joy this morning, He was about to join his first job for Indian Air-force next morning, and now all that is left of him is flesh!!! Just flesh!!!

That's when guilt started to creep in, Not even one of us 15 had the common sense. Our arrogance and audacity costed one life. Though Srinu was a part of the crazy idea, I really can't blame him as he is no more.

At teenage, all think that they can win the world no matter what!!! nothing could beat them, but.... when fate stabs you deep inside with guilt, that's when you feel life can't be anymore miserable.

I can't run from this guilt, It keeps chasing me and haunting me, we all (rest 15) try and act like this incident never happened, what a cowards we are !!! we don't even have the guts to face our cowardice, we talk about all the good things we do, or have done!!! exaggerate them, glorify our minuscule achievements, no one including me has ever brought this topic, such a monumental example for insanity and cowardice.

I have few last words for my partners in this incident... It's time to remember, retrospect and reflect this collective fuck-up of ours. We guys should have the guts to acknowledge the stench of the mess we got into, the extent of the misery in which we left Srinu's family and above all, the sheer boorish, senseless, mindless juvenileness that we then wrongly perceived as macho machismo. We have to admit that we are a bunch of soul sucking, rat fucking Inglourious Basterds.