A Journey to Adulthood...

A lone white ambassador car was speeding along the highway…. Its beams penetrated the darkness that had descended on the moor…Tall trees on either side of the road made it as eerie a setting as any…. The wipers struggled hard to beat the downpour descending down upon the glass with great ferocity to deter the passengers from their perilous journey.

The passengers had among them a 22 year old IAS officer fresh out of training deputed under the district collector of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, an area that has forever been under the grip of local uneducated feudal lords…..Me, Rishi….I was off to Thenkasi from Palayankottai to mobilize the local groups and persuade them to cooperate with government efforts to develop the infrastructure. There was great civil unrest and I was being made the scapegoat sent off to assist the local government authorities…

My young city slicker’s blood was showing its true colors…. I personally felt responsible for all the bloodshed and took it upon myself to teach the rioters a lesson… the single biggest reason why I left the lucrative software company offer for the civil service…

Ssscccccccccccreeeeeeech! The sudden brakes threw me forward…. There was an old man and his wife bang in the middle of the road crying for mercy….. 60-70 years…I couldn’t tell clearly….. the rain blurred my vision…. I lowered the windshields to talk to them…. Immediately, as the light in the car shone upon the old man’s face, I felt a kick in my guts…. This was none other than Karuppaiah, one of the very feudal lords I was advised to fear almost from the instant I set foot in the district…. Soon, a distant roar diverted my attention away…..Was it thunder??? No… more like a stampede… “They are Maruthamalai’s men… please save me.. I am on my way to thenkasi to see my little granddaughter who is sick….” I went cold with fear…. “Saar….” My driver seemed to have a word of advice…. “Don’t involve yourself in this… This is a caste feud…. You wont get any mercy.. This has been going on for generations now…. “ But soon enough, my instincts came to the fore… RISHI!!! Get a grip on yourself… You are an IAS officer….You are supposed to be a decision maker… “Quick, get into the car…” I encouraged the old man and his wife…. They waited with trepidation for the crowd to close in from all directions…. I was nervous, my throat went dry… I lit a cigarette in a weak attempt to soothe my nerves….. “You want one?” I tossed one across to the old man…. He returned with a look on his face that showed he thought of me to be a lunatic!!! I hated that…. Actually all of us do… We don’t really fancy to see our deepest expressions mirrored on another’s face….

The light was soon visible….Hundreds of men…. All with flaming torches….. The heat and the humidity due to the rains made me sweat….. or was it just plain cold anxiety… 4 lives now depended on my judgement… I could wait for them to close upon us and set the car to fire…Or….

I gripped the handle of the car….Karuppaiah soon realized what I was upto and cried out aloud….. It is quite interesting to observe how differently people can behave in some of their most important moments in life…. As I got out, three people walked up to me…. Their leader ironically enough seemed to be as young as me… “Stop… what you people are doing is not correct…. You have no right to kill these two people…” I finally seemed to find my voice…. “We just want to travel with you to Thenkasi” The menacing tone was unmistakeable…. I had no option but to yield…. Soon, I found my driver thrown out of the car… On top of that, I was now traveling in pitch dark with 5 strangers, and the only person who had embarked upon the journey with me was nowhere nearby….

“We are not killing Mahatma Gandhi… Ask that cock sucker how many of our kith and kin he has murdered in his lifetime… how many women had their sindoor wiped off their heads…. How many young girls were pushed into prostitution because of his villainous sidekicks…..” Incredibly enough, I somehow began to find logic in what he said…He seemed to be quite educated…. But I could not let any violence happen in the area under my control… “Be as it may, who gives you right to take his life? We have all been created by God…” I suddenly realized that the young fellow was as confused as I was… He too seemed to recognize the ill effects of this mindless bloodbath….The conversation continued…. The older thugs were the young chap’s sidekicks… Maybe the young chap was the next leader of their caste… It was quite evident they did not have the patience for this gibberish… All they were interested in was in splitting our throats wide open…The old man and his wife seemed to have lost all their will to live…. They cowered in the back seat…. All that stood between them and death was my negotiation skills… I knew no matter what we were talking, I had to go on…..

Dawn descended…… And in a matter of moments, the balance of power seemed to be shifting…. police barricades came up and the car was surrounded by armed policemen….. An inspector halted the car and said, “Sir, we got the news just now. I’ll handle these ruffians.. You’ll obviously file a FIR…?” The expressions on the faces changed… The old man was overwhelmed with hatred….The two sidekick thugs had resigned looks on their faces… But the young man puzzled me…. There was no fear on his face… just a request to understand…. “No.. there will be no FIR” Two young men came of age that day…