That Night It Rained II...

Dark clouds..overcast sky..covering the atmosphere under the deep dark blanket of warmth and joy..it was obvious that its goin to rain. Sitting here and admiring all these beauty of nature and struggling to point a single star out there shining brightly in the sky, we looked out for a shelter under a tree. We two..me n Disha..my childhood sweetheart..I always wanted to marry her here itself at Banaras Ghat.

Banaras Ghat, a place you can see the circle of life at the same time..Mundan ceremony of a child..Man & Woman tying the knot..and Cremation of dead body.

Suddenly something hit me so badly, may be an iron rod, on my head and I collapsed there itself . I could just hear Disha crying "Dad please dont hit him..he will die." So many hits I had got one after another. My bones were beaten to pulp.

Dont know how many days I lied unconscious. I opened my eyes..wasnt able to move from my place..craving for food earnestly.

I could see it was raining outside through the window panes. Lightening bolt and thunder, so loud like an explosion, made me shiver with fear. Whenever lightning struck I saw the corpses lying evrywhere. I was thrown in a morgue. Seeing them and rotten smells of dead bodies induced nausea and I tried to vomit but nothing came out of my mouth. I cried as loudly as i can in a hope to live again..would ve better died there. Started cursing God for this day i had seen in my life. Didnt know when I felt asleep.

Opened my eyes again..remembering the last day i had seen through my eyes..went back into my life where I could see Disha waiting for me like any other day at Ghat of Banaras. The stories she used to tell me about her parents and they would never agree for our marriage. She used to cry in my arms and telling me to elope with her everyday. One day she was telling me about Aghoris and how they take dead bodies, those which are not burnt completely, to the jungle and eat human flesh and they are fond of human fingers. She was very scared of Aghoris. One day I asked her to meet after the daily worshipping at Ghat in evening to the place where we used to meet each day. I put ashes all over my face and came from behind to her. This scared the hell out of her and started hitting me.

Remembering all these put a smile on my face and after I got over the shock, I was left with the rage and hope to live again. Thinking of Aghoris I started eating dead bodies and human fleshes lying in the morgue. I was getting better day by day. I could now move my limbs. I could see days and nights goin by through the panes hearing to growls of wild animals. This morgue was situated far out of city near the jungle.

One day again I could see dark clouds..overcast sky..covering the atmosphere under the deep dark blanket of fear and sorrow, not warmth and joy, this time. I heard some noises like some one entering into the morgue through under ground. When they entered I was shocked to see people wearing nothing but ashes all over the body. I could see and firmly believed aghoris do exist. Exactly same what Disha had told me. Everything in this morgue had already been rottened. Still they took few corpses. They took me along with them and told me about this secret way into the morgue and was used only if they couldnt get anything to eat. They named me another aghori and asked to stay with them. I had no other option left so I went along with them. It was raining heavily outside. We all took a shelter in the jungle where they had a cave.

They all were searching for food in different groups. Those who went to Ghat of Banaras returned with a dead body half burnt. Now I could easily eat a human flesh. I saw them chopping the fingers and keeping it separately. Everbody started hogging on the dead body. After finishing it they all distributed fingers evrybody each.

I went on to eat the finger, in the lightning I saw a ring on the finger. Ohh..I had seen this ring..Taking it out from the burnt finger and remembering the day I had given Disha this ring and seeing her finger in my other hand..I sat there all frozen...so numb.