A short Story : No Man's Land

Short Story : NO MAN’S LAND
and the love of Sultana and Kesar

writer : Jupinderjit Singh

It wasn’t love at first sight. It wasn’t even care, specific care, for her. It was just an alarm from a fellow member of the species to the other. A warning in the form of a
growl that danger lurked ahead. It was some danger indeed! It was pure 4400 volt current that would have snuffed life out of her in seconds.

Sultana would not have liked dying that way, with her body burnt or twisted from the impact of the shock. She listened to the alarm, looked once again towards the direction from which the voice had come, her eyelids met as if blinking in gratitude, her head lowered before she turned and walked away in the opposite direction.

That was the first time she saw Kesar, a tall and well-built Labrador, whose big frame the tall and ugly sarkanda grass could not hide.

Sultana sashayed through the wild grass and some shrubs, jumping coyly above a narrow drench and carefully past a little disturbed patch of barren land. It is at such places, she and her species had learnt laid the mines, the one which had blown away her mother and three siblings, one of whom had the dubious talent of courting trouble. That time it was deadly for him and family.

Sultana had survived the blast and, despite being an orphan had grown into a medium height blonde Labrador herself. Among the small number of dogs living in this goddamn piece of land, she was surely a princess, her gait unmatched by any among the mixed breeds. No wonder, she looked down upon them and no one dared come near to her. Even, in those days, when she felt unusually warm.

She walked for a while looking towards the setting Sun. It was moving slowly behind the tall minarets of a Mosque from where a man called on loudly for the prayer. Close by was a tall watch post on which behind the sand bags sat a burly man in a long kurta pyjama.

The shadow of the post and the man was growing bigger with each moment and lurking towards what the humans called the ‘No Man’s Land’.

The direction from which the Sun came did have similar expanse of land, the same vegetation of wild grass and across it the same fields of barseem fodder for animals and wheat-food for humans. There was no difference in the topography and the animals. The humans too spoke the same language but there dresses were world apart from each other.

Towards the setting Sun, she could see large expanse of unhindered land but towards the
rising Sun, was a barbed wire before a raised wall of earth and several other watch posts. Humans on this side wore olive green clothes. No matter what activity they were indulged in, their eyes were always fixed on any activity, even the movement of a reptile- a harmless snake in the context of the tension among the different humans- in the No Man’s Land.

They had their reasons, Kesar would explain to her later. For it was from this side the messengers of death came, trying to sneak past the barbed wire , by cutting them first to avoid electrocution about which Kesar alerted her. Dogs, used to bark at any such movement elsewhere on the planet, but not here. They lay quiet at night here. This wasn’t their fight and they were not watching anyone’s back. They were no one’s pets. They were free denizens of the No Man’s Land.

Sultana- the name given to her by girls , all covered up in black robes and who were seen occasionally at a mazaar, chose neither to go towards the setting sun or in the opposite direction. Instead, she walked in the direction of Kesar. Her sixth sense told her he meant no harm. She trailed him trying to resist the intoxication of his odour she picked on the way. Something was happening to her.

Kesar kept going ahead just pausing in between and looking back to ensure Sultana was following. He had taken care to piss in-between as warning against the mines. Sultana was not the only dog who was new to the area. Rains for last several days had turned the land marshy near the Gharana Wetland and animals had moved towards Suchetgarh village, where many men in Olive Green clothes lived. There were farmers too-
both men and women- seen in the fields. In between the fields was a straight and wide line of clean black earth- that is how the dogs described a road.

This road between Jammu and Sialkot had witnessed much activity for several decades, Happy traders used to move here and there. Families came over to dance and have fun and frolic twice a year when the crops were harvest.

Today, grass had forced its way through the road carpet on which Sultana and Kesar were walking. Behind them was a small brick structure bathing in the seductive light of the half moon. Ahead of them was a large iron gate with lines of Saffron, white and Green paint on which was interspersed a circle with many spokes. Ah! Men and their distinct identities, she wondered.

Kesar sat near the door. She tiptoed closely after him finding a cleaner place to prostrate. Females, Kesar smiled, would never leave their elegance even if they were hungry for a couple of days. The rain had subsided since morning but the chill was still there. Monsoon was dying and Winter was not far away. Soon there would be fog and then each movement in the grass would invite a spray of bullets or even small orange ball, which exploded with loud noise and reduced big stones to pieces. I have to make Sultana aware of that, he thought.

The breeze had left its gentle pace. It had picked up momentum and was moving with a whistling sound. The barbed wire shone bright with massive illumination while there was not much shining light in the direction to which the sun went long ago. Kesar could sense Sultana was shivering. He moved closer, looking at her intimately. She did not move away as she was used to do at such advances. Instead she gave him a deep look and closed her eyes. She was safe in Kesar’s company.

Kesar came close and licked away the water from her furs. His wet warm tongue ignited a flow of heat through her veins, her legs and arms stretched and she lost herself in his cozy lap.

Sultana woke up sniffing smell of roasted flesh. It was a small pile of spicy chicken. Kesar stood close imploring her to eat. The men in Olive green daily fed him chicken or mutton or eggs along with round rolled out chapattis made of wheat flour. Soon, they
galloped around playing caressing and jumping over one another.

Morning was even more fun. The two made an excellent pair and had great fun scaring away wild boars or pigs or the cranes and even the large cows and buffaloes. The eerie silence of death that engulfed the No Man’s Land reverberated with their joyous mischief.

Kesar had grown up amidst those tall grasses. He did not remember how he had landed up there. But he was there always ever since he could remember. His life was simple. He had to stay away from the mines, the marshy land, and the thorny bushes and had learnt to duck low when men fired at each other in between. Accomplish all that and he was the Lord of the No Man’s Land.

He did not want to live in the village and get chained and fetch balls or sticks by bullying
children. Or worse to die drinking the insecticide laden water from the fields or the nightmare of being crushed under the monstrous four legged loud noise making monster that bellowed smoke from its posterior. The level of noise it made and the black smoke it discharged was directly proportional to the number of humans sitting on it.

The Sun was directly on their head when Kesar cajoled Lazy Sultana sunbathing under it to follow him. The man from the Minarets had spoken recently and that was time to go towards the men in long and baggy kurta pyjamas. Sultana knew the reason when Kesar brought her close to a four walled room with a thatched roof. The aroma of cooked beef hit her nostrils. So that was the secret of Kesar’s huge frame, she thought, good food twice a day and lot of jumping around.

Kesar later tried to educate her why this side of the border never served them pig’s meat
and why the men in Olive green never served them cow’s meat. He told her he better take her to a temple across the barbed wire once to show idols of cow being washed in milk and worshipped there. No way, I am not going, Sultana had told him strongly. Humans and their actions were beyond her understanding abilities.

The night was cozier than the previous. Sultana had a dream after the soft beat of Kesar’s heart had lulled her to sleep. She saw her three pups jumping around Kesar , the ever protective Kesar and running towards her to suck her milk impatiently. Even Kesar, most serious at such hour of night smiled at her dream. Kesar told her he had found a place for the kids also. He had spotted an old tree whose stem was hollow enough to protect the children from vagaries of weather and the fireballs of men. Their clan would grow bigger and bigger.

Sultana’s sleep broke with a start. She heard rustling of some activity in the dark. Kesar was already awake. A group of six to eight men, which she had seen in a house across the post of the baggy clothed men, were behind the tall grass had started crawling towards the barbed wire. Kesar did not growl. He knew it was best to keep quite. Bullets fired from either side always found the noise irrespective of its source.

But Sultana was thinking of the men. They had fed them food and now they were heading towards the barbed wire where the deadly and invisible devil, that electrocutes and kills instantly, waited. She got up and warned with a loud bark to alert the men about the danger.

A swift rat-a-tat of fire balls swung in the direction towards the crawling men from a post across the barbed wire. The crawling men ducked cursing Sultana for making the noise and before a rat-a-tat of fireballs from the long black thing in their hands hit her, Kesar
swung in between, pushing her away. She fell into a small ditch and could only saw Kesar jumping in the air at one of the men. His fiery eyes burnt with such fury that the man threw away the black and long thing in his hand in sheer fright.

Kesar burst open one of the men’s neck in one swash when the long and black things in other men’s hands exploded towards Kesar. At the same time, men from across the wire fired again at the group. There was much smoke and cries of humans being hit and
under the noise the oomph’s of Kesar were lost.

Sultana lay quiet long after the guns fell silent before she mustered the courage of crawling towards the spot where she last saw Kesar. She went past four bodies of men in the loose clothing and there she saw Kesar lying ever so calm but with tears in his eyes. The fireballs had struck him on all sides and pierced through him. She looked towards
the men across the barbed wire and then towards the opposite side. Even they won’t be able to tell which hole in Kesar’s body was caused by whom?

Three days later, a flock of birds was feasting on Sultana’s body at the spot where the ‘would be’ father of her ‘could be’ children lay last.

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