who was he...a terrorist ?

About 2 months ago while I was on my way back to home I‘d met a boy named Muzammil, We were in a shared auto heading towards Delhi on National highway No.2 at about 6.30 pm and at that time no other passenger was there apart from the two of us. The boy is wearing ragged clothes; his body was almost turned into half skeleton, many cut marks on his face, some nail less fingers on his lean hands. But the most mesmerising thing on his face was his blue eyes full of innocence and an unknown fear.

      I’ve started the conversation with him in order to collect some information about the local area; as I thought he might be a local and abruptly stopped in between, finding him a bit disinterested in talking to me. He was continuously and keenly watching towards those vehicles that are passing along. Usually the distance I daily cover between my workplace and home took around 50 min; therefore I again decided to engage with him. 

This time he looked back with a very impulsive and hesitant stare towards me and said, “aap log kitne khushnaseeb hain” and turned back again to take a plunge into his own desperate world. It was a strong hypnotism that I felt around him, which leads me into being engaged with him again to discern what I desired at that time from him.

He stopped the auto and dropped himself somewhere at the midst of the highway and started walking. At some distance ahead, I’ve also let myself came out of that auto to walk and wait for him. After few minutes I’ve managed to merge my way into that of him to continue my desperate chat. I’ve asked him his name and this time he replied in a very compressed and dull voice without even facing me “aaaa...Muzammil....kya ap mujhe kuch khane ko de sakte hain”. I offered him patties from the nearby shop and accompanied him, since I was also feeling famished from the very moment I’ve left my workplace. “Tell me something about yourself Muzammil?”, I resumed the chat. The very first sentence muzammil began with was, “What was the last thing you had wished from God for yourself?” I have no answer at that time. He than continued to answer my question, ‘I had a very good friend of mine ‘Saqib’ maybe a year older than you. They have abducted us when we were enjoying the best days of our friendship. They first took us to some mosque to divulge that concealed faith for Islam within us and torture us till our utmost limit to churn out that undue hatred for mankind from the deepest of our mind. I gave up but my friend ‘Saqib’ stood till the end. They let us eat raw meat forcefully by putting hot iron rod into our mouth, forced us to drink urine and whenever we ought to refuse, they’ll beat us till we got faint”. He added, “They snatched our nails to give electric shock to our fingers followed by dipping the same in brine. In order to earn money out of the kidnapped people, they use to sell the kidneys by brutally operating the bodies. On a journey to an unknown faith, they teach us the chapters of mankind hatred dipping us into that dark sea of brutal harassment that somehow acts as a catalyst for us in that haunted journey, in order to make us reach to an anonymous destination while travelling on a road to nowhere.

Finally, he broke up into a loud cry yet with no tears in his eyes. I left him alone and moved on, with that isolation indeed. I was not able to sleep properly that whole night, thinking about that guy. "Is it the humanity that left him behind or vice versa...?" This question is still unanswered for me after so many days of that instance, waiting it to be answered...     

roAD tO noWhERe...a poetic autobiography of a terrorist.

On a pile of debts I took a premature birth,

They left me soon and gone somewhere far from this earth,

I grew up alone in that shady alley with less than ordinary worth.  

On a verge of this globe that is full of hatred,

My soaring dreams hatched with that utmost urge to get fade,

Within the hands of many, my existence often got preyed.      

On the streets of my childhood, I began learning in misery

They offered me haunted teachings, full of unknown faith free

And roots of my notion began to flourish, to hold my chaotic hatred tree.   

And the day came when I first met with those innocent eyes,

Emotions erupted and expressed within that moment disguise,

Those days were astonishing, when with no wings I can dare to fly.

Amid the beginning and end, it was end who dominate

My love deceived me and lost abruptly in dark to get fade,

At last I’ve left with the word ‘Love’ as a synonym of ‘Hate’.

My life’s road was long and destination undefined,

Those chilly nights were cruel and my dusky days blind,

Into me when they incubated seeds of ‘Jihad’, the divine.

They tortured me up till those limits, where humanity ought to fade

To train me how to liberate terror for which I suppose to get paid,

It was the moment I first realized that, “Devils are not born they are made”.

On that untoward dusky evening, amidst a crowded track,

I killed myself through, with thousand others in a suicide attack

On that road to God’s place, the mournful soul of mine never looked back.

I always desired to set myself free but not at all in this way,

Where my soul left with guilt and debt of those innocent lives to pay,

“The true meaning of Jihad is within your innerself”, is what thy holy Quran say.

Now those blood soaked cold ruins of mine are lying here and there,

With that obvious guilt, agony, insolence and abysmal care,           

Thus, my life concluded in the midst of that deserted road to nowhere…    

-unbound mohit