After Annihilation: Would you want to survive?

by Gauri Mittal

  Before I could object, Roshan scurried off to take Pranav’s seat in the back. Vishwaroopum had been watching the whole scene. He came towards me and grunted. I looked at him expectantly. For a while he looked like he wanted to say something, but then he turned back around and started to walk away.

  “Wait. Vishwaroopum,” I called after him. He stopped.

  “Pranav said we’re changing our route,” I ventured cautiously. Still he said nothing, but he did turn around.

  “Do you know about it?” I asked.

  “No, we’re not,” he answered.

  “But Pranav said we would,” I stated.

  He did not deem my statement important enough to respond to.

  “How much distance would it add to our journey?” I asked.

  “Sixty kilometres,” he said and went off.

  Getting back up in the truck, I took my usual corner place by the exit. Yashika gave me a small smile. I started to move to sit with her when I heard a ruckus. I craned my neck out from the side of the truck. Pranav and Roshan were standing facing each other. Vishwaroopum’s hand was on Pranav’s chest, holding him back.

  “I can throw you out this second,” Pranav shouted. “You are going to sit where I tell you to and do what I tell you to if you want to remain a part of this group.”

  Roshan’s hands were balled up in fists, but without a word he turned around and went to the front. Pranav said something to Vishwaroopum, and the latter nodded, following Roshan to the driver’s seat.

  When Pranav got to the back, he saw me sitting with Yashika. He said nothing and took his usual place.

  Within an hour’s time, we were driving on the road, lined on either side by what had once been a thick forest. Now a leafless, blackened, and charred land was all that remained. Yashika told me her mother was a physicist and her father a famous psychologist. Her father had been told by one of his high-profile clients of the inescapable war. He had then privately researched ways to protect his family. The safe houses they had been counting on had been destroyed, and the only group that had helped them in the end was an inconspicuous small one her father had signed up for on a whim a few months back.

  By the next morning, I started recognizing the landscape as the outer border of Varshi. The truck took the turn half an hour later, away from the border of the city.

  Vishwaroopum had been right. But Pranav had said otherwise. Wasn’t he the leader of this group?

  “Pranav, we had to take the left turn. We are going in the wrong direction.” I stood up.

  “Sit down, Madhavi,” Pranav said.

  “No, please, we are very close. It’s just sixty kilometres. Please ask the driver to take the left turn,” I said.

  “I am sorry, Madhavi. We can’t,” he said.

  “But you told me we would!” I cried. “I promised you a favour in return. He is alive, I feel it. We have to get him.”

  “Don’t you see the level of haze in this area? The amount of radiation will be very high. I would be risking exposing everyone to radiation sickness if we go into the city. We have to make it out of this area, moving along the outskirts until we reach the mountains.”

  “But but you already agreed!” I said.

  “I told you to sit down, Madhavi,” Pranav shouted. “And stop being so selfish.”

  I looked around. All the others were staring at me with angry faces. I sat down and spoke in a softer tone, “You said we would go in. Vishwaroopum told me it is barely sixty kilometres out of our way. Please, Pranav. Please.”

  Pranav kept looking in front and said nothing.

  “Fine, then let me out,” I said.

  That made him look. “This again? Are you crazy?”

  “Let me out, Pranav. Stop the truck,” I said and got up again. “I will go into the city myself. I have to find him. I… I can’t survive like this. All alone. Please stop it, stop the truck.”

  Pranav grabbed my arm and pulled me down again. “Listen to me, Madhavi. I will not let you off this truck. You have lost reasoning and do not understand that everywhere is a wasteland. Every second of exposure is killing you and everyone else. You will stay put. I will tie you up with a rope if you try to escape.”

  I looked at him with disgust. “Bastard. I have nothing left. I do not want to continue living this life! For twelve days, we have been in this godforsaken truck, seeing nothing but fires and death everywhere. Aarav would know what to do. He will help me find my parents, and he will stay by my side.” I looked at Pranav beseechingly.

  He spoke slowly and hesitatingly. “I too am alone, Madhavi. I gave up my personal safety for this mission, for the sake of my conscience. Stay with me. Please. I will help you find out what happened to your parents and… to your friend. I promise.”

  I could say nothing. Pranav had saved my life. Now he was requesting I stay with him. I felt an obligation to return the favour, and slowly I realized how stupid I was being. Even if I did go into Varshi, there was no transportation to bring me to Aarav’s place. I had been in the city only three months and did not know the directions well enough to walk. Moreover, I would have no food, no water. How would I find him after I left the truck?

  And what if Aarav had already left for the safe city? He must’ve known about it. He was a part of this Double A group all along.

  I gave no reply to Pranav, but I did not fight him any longer. His tone became softer to me from then on.

  We reached Shunya on the night of the thirteenth day.

  On the morning of that day, Pranav went to the front of the truck, and Vishwaroopum took his place at the back, taking up responsibility of the supplies. On one side, at a considerable distance, were high mountainous peaks, and on the side we travelled, smooth barren land. The temperature was much colder here, but the burning smell in the atmosphere was less.

  Still, the sun was hidden under a thick layer of smog. After around twenty-five kilometres in the area, I started seeing vehicles. Mostly dark-green army trucks. Around three of them, travelling ahead of us. Two of the trucks suddenly disappeared down a slope in the ground. The third one followed. It was an underground tunnel. We and the two other trucks that had been part of our crew throughout the journey followed the trucks for almost three kilometres.

  At some distance, two other civilian trucks joined in, some army jeeps and four civilian cars along with a motorbike.

  Riding on, I kept my eyes on the sky. Who knew when or if I would ever get to see it again? My last vision was of unending mountains lining the horizon, as we started to descend down the tunnel inside the belly of the Earth.

  Chapter 6

  The only light in the tunnel was that from the vehicles. Our trucks were moving along the queue at a slow pace. I started seeing other healthy people around, a rare sight. The three trucks belonging to Double A were stopped at a barrier. Four of the men from our truck got off to see what was going on, and the others peeked out to get a look. Vishwaroopum was at the helm, talking to a group of army men with rifles strapped around their shoulders. Three army men came, and all of us were asked to get off the truck. The women were taken to a small outpost at the barrier, and the men stood outside.

  Two women officers, masks across their faces, frisked us and passed a metal detector over us. Once they were satisfied, we were brought back out across the barrier, where the rest of our group was assembled. Roshan handed over the key to the truck to the officer in charge, and the four drivers of the other two did the same. From here on, we were to go forward on foot.

  There were 295 of us in total. All rounded up, we were taken to a small building. Here, inside this building’s lobby, sat at least a hundred other survivors. All were covered in dust and had small bruises or cuts, some were vomiting, some lay down on benches, holding their heads in agony. But there were still some healthy.

  In another wing, some survivors lay on stretchers. Their wounds were being cleaned and tended to. Among our Double A group, the ones with wounds had been separated. Kirtani’s boy with th
e fractured leg was being carried inside on a stretcher. He’d had a tough time, and I was glad to see an expression of relief on his face.

  All the healthy survivors in the lobby were grouped according to genders. Our women’s group made up almost eighty women. We were directed inside the building to a shower area. Here, we were asked to wash up with soap and water and were given a change of clothes and a hair tie. All our old clothes were to be discarded. The new set of clothes were arranged in packets of two, with three sizes available, each having a white kurta and a salwar in different colours. I chose the smallest size with a black salwar. The kurta was loose and fell an inch above my knees. I was impressed by how systematically something as small as clothing had been arranged.

  Among the group, most were middle-aged women with small kids. One girl around my age came up to me and introduced herself. It was such an ordinary greeting that it made the events of the past twenty days seem bizarre. I suddenly had the crazy thought that I was at a new job and was meeting a colleague.

  “Hello, I am Ayesha,” she said.

  Her hair was tied in a ponytail, which fell to her upper back. She was taller than me by two inches, around five feet four. Dressed in the same short white kurta but with a light blue salwar, she had a wide smile and a pleasant manner of speaking. I felt an instant affinity with her.

  I smiled. “I’m Madhavi. Where are you from?”

  “I am from Matsyar. I arrived just an hour ago. The army saved me, but not…” She faltered, then continued. “How did you come here? I don’t think I saw you alight from an army truck.”

  “Yes, well, I came with a survivor’s group,” I said. “They picked me up from a cave, and now here I am.”

  “A cave?” She looked at me, puzzled.

  “Yes,” I said. “Are there people from Rajgar and Varshi here?”

  “There must be, probably inside the city,” she answered.

  We were being rounded up and directed back outside in queues. Ayesha and I kept talking.

  “Are you alone?” I asked her.

  “Uh… yes…” she said, her eyes welling up.

  “Yeah, me too,” I replied empathetically.

  Neither of us wanted to talk about what was inside the city. It felt like a different life would start, and somehow we wanted to hold on to this one with all its memories for as long as possible.

  “How did you…?” I waved my arms around.

  She understood. “I have no idea. I was knocked out when the explosion happened. Fell back almost three feet, but no injuries.” She held up her arms. “My…” But she could not bring herself to say it, and I changed the topic.

  “What did you do back there?” I asked.

  “I was a musician. My family had a great legacy of being this country’s greatest musicians. I… all of it is gone.”

  “You’re still here,” I said.

  She smiled slightly.

  “I need to find somebody,” I told Ayesha. “If you come across people from Varshi or from Rajgar, please let me know. I am looking for my parents and my friend.”

  “Your parents? Are they still alive?” she asked.

  I did not reply, and she was intelligent enough to understand not to ask anymore.

  The women from Double A group rejoined their family members. I, too, went and stood with the rest. Soon, Pranav returned, and due to the surrealness of the situation, I once again had a bizarre feeling, this time imagining we were the part of a tourist group.

  He had cleaned up. His face was relaxed, and he was dressed in a fresh set of shirt and pants. Pranav came to where I stood alone.

  “From here we will have to go on by foot,” he said.

  The ones who were still under treatment at the clinic would be brought in later. From among our truck, the farmhouse family was left at the clinic, along with the two rowdy boys, who had been vomiting since yesterday.

  “It’s not very far. We’ll be following all the others to Shunya, the main city. Everyone has to maintain the utmost decorum and follow the rules to the mark, or they will throw you out. Any rash behaviour on your part can threaten the survival of others.”

  “What do you mean by rash?” asked a man from our group.

  “I don’t know,” Pranav stated.

  Once Pranav seemed less busy, I got his attention. “What about the people from my city and Varshi? There must be survivors from there?”

  “We’ll see,” he said.

  I will have to find out on my own, I thought to myself.

  “What about the supplies?” I asked him.

  “They will be scanned and tested for contamination.”

  Vishwaroopum was at the front of the group, and Pranav was at the back. The supplies had all been submitted at the barrier outpost. Roshan was directly behind Vishwaroopum, trying to keep up with his long strides.

  After a walk of fifteen minutes, we reached a small building. This was an office that kept a record of all the people entering and leaving the city. The woman sitting at the desk asked for my name, age, my parents’ names and ages, and if any of my family members were alive. I told her I didn’t know. After this, she asked me what qualifications I had and the professional skills I could help out with.

  “Have you now or ever in your life done farming?” she asked.

  I chuckled, considering it to be a strange question. “Well, not really, I helped out one day on my grandmother’s farm when I was a child, but that was just for fun.”

  She looked at me without amusement and ticked “no”.

  All twenty-seven of us were issued papers of residence in Shunya, identity cards, and a unique number. I was number 333. We were to hang the identity card around our neck. The barrier was lined with around fifty men in uniforms, all holding rifles. There was a long line to cross the barrier that we had to join. Each of us passed through the barrier one at a time after another security check.

  Once through the security check, my heart started racing. I felt as if I was abandoning my home, my parents. I wanted to run desperately all the way back to Rajgar, to the broken buildings that had once been my home. I slowly took a few steps forward, thinking, trying to decide what to do. But the palpitations were increasing. The anxiety of the unknown that lay beyond the barrier I had just crossed and the guilt over what I was leaving behind was catching up to me. I could take it no more. I turned around and started walking briskly back to the barrier. The guard I approached stood alert, his arms outstretched, asking me to halt.

  “I need to go across,” I told him.

  “You will have to return all the documents before you go back out,” he said.

  “Okay. Fine.” I started to walk towards the outpost, the guard accompanying me.

  Pranav saw from the other side of the barrier. I saw his eyes get wide from the corner of mine, but I kept walking on steadily. I had just entered the office when there was a commotion. The queues broke up, and a man shouted as he was pushed to the side. I saw two men, both aiming straight for me. One on the left, from the gateway beyond the security check and the other on the right, from among the survivors’ line queued up for registration. I recognized them both. Paralysed at the sight, I stood unable to move. Pranav and Aarav.

  The latter reached me first, and before I could comprehend what was going on, I was in his arms. He was hugging me and looking at my face alternately. He was saying something about looking all over for me, but it did not register. I looked at Pranav, who had stopped midway and was staring at Aarav’s back. When his eyes met my blank ones, he turned around and allowed the security to move him out beyond the barrier.

  “You’re here! You’re here! Do you have any idea how much I looked for you?” Aarav’s hands were cupped around my cheeks. I was looking at his face, but I felt dazed, still unable to comprehend he was in front of me. Looking into my blank eyes, he registered something was not right.

  “Madhavi! Madhavi, what’s wrong?” He started to pat my right cheek lightly, trying to wake me up from my trance. “
Madhavi, why aren’t you saying anything?”

  The shock of the last twenty days broke over me and I had a meltdown right in the middle of the crowded government office. I fell down. Sitting on the floor I let myself go and started crying.

  “Oh God! It’s fine Madhavi, I am here, I am here.” Aarav was caressing my hair holding me close to his chest, his arms around my slumped body.

  Some people had come closer, asking Aarav if I was all right. One of the men in uniform came over and handed Aarav a bottle of water, a precious resource not to be taken lightly in these times, but I rejected it and kept on crying for a long time, holding on to Aarav, my head buried in his chest, not conscious of what was happening around me.

  When I calmed down, it was to find Pranav bending by my side, holding the bottle of water. I blinked, and this time I accepted the offering.

  Aarav was still holding me. I looked at him, recognition dawning on me fully. “I thought I had been left all alone,” I said, hiccupping. “How did you…? When did you get here?”

  “It’s a long story. Are you hurt anywhere?” he asked.

  “No, I am fine,” I said. “I don’t know how or why, but I am absolutely fine and everyone else is gone, Aarav. I have to find my parents. I was coming to find you in Varshi. I knew you were alive. I could feel it. In here.” I put my palm over my heart. “I didn’t know the way or how to get there. But I should have. I can’t forgive myself. I abandoned everyone, Aarav. My parents, Peaches, you. Everyone. I don’t deserve to live. I don’t know why I am still alive.” I began sobbing once again. “I have to go back to find my parents.”

  “Listen to me, Madhavi. Let’s go inside the city, and then we will figure out what to do,” he said, trying to convince me. “Maybe your parents will come here on their own. We’ll miss them if we leave Shunya now.”

  “What about yours?” I asked him, looking around, hoping to see his parents and brother.

  He gave no reply.