Indus

Karif held her baby in her arms, pressing the child against her swollen breasts. She looked across the river and far off in the distance like a tiny clay toy, she saw her village. A village she was forced to flee, she and the rest of her community. “Amma, amma” her son called out to her, tugging her hand. He was pulling her hand, trying to pull her with the rest of the trail. She looked up, a trail of thousand walked through the road. The road... created by her ancestors of old, and maintained by them now. Maybe if they had not built these roads, the white devils, the invaders would not have come. But then neither would they have prosperity.

Her son was pulling her hand with all his might, trying to make her move. Her husband, his father had given the family responsibility to him, and he was trying to live up to it. The child did not truly understand what was happening, yet he sensed it, the great evil that had befallen on them.

A trail of thousand mothers, children, grandparents, all fleeing their village. Some had donkeys on which they mounted a  few of their belongings, while the rest carried a few pots, or some food in their arms. A special cart carried their seals carved with their sacred cows, goats and their animals, maybe they could barter it, use it to build another village. Their God, Shiva Pashupati, his eternal statue was on that cart. Maybe he would protect them.  She had only her children.  “Karif, come on. We have to leave; it won’t be long before they catch up with their brown and black horses.” She looked up, it was her father-in-law. Old age had made his skin seem as dry as the leaves, she had tried to fatten him up, but his body seemed to be of skin and bones.

She took a step forward, allowing her son to drag her forward, with his little strength. “Maybe they will be stopped” she muttered trying to sound confident. “Stopped?” retorted the old man, “You have heard as well as I have. These white devils have swords that cut through our axes like butter. And when on horses, they are immortals that charge through everything. No... Karif, it would be cruel to give you false hope. My son... your husband, everyone’s sons and husbands, they are all doomed. They will only buy us a few minutes, before they are all cut down.”

She wanted to cry, she felt her eyes water, she felt the despair. They all felt the despair. She wanted to rub her eyes, clear them of the water filling up, but with both her arms she held her child, and like a dam that overflows, the tears trickled down her cheek.

The road, a simple path cut through a deep and thick forest. In the night, they would have to make camp, they would have to light fires to keep the animals away, but that would just attract the white devils. A trail filled with children, mothers and old persons... they would tire by night, and even if they did not make a camp and continued forward, the fearsome animals of the forest would attack them. They say the white devils fear no one, they do not need rest in the night and they easily cut down any animal of the forest. She looked at the dark-skinned hands, only they all looked the same except for their skin colour, she wondered is this what offended them, their skin-colour... is that why they killed them.

They were doomed, doomed, doomed, doomed, she reaffirmed to herself. Yet through all this, her baby in her arms, slept softly, her warm breath blowing on her breast, oblivious to the world.