End of the World, Ashfaaq [recommended books to read txt] 📗

"And what about eating?" asks Kanchi. "You would also have to eat together, out of the same plate, with everybody else. How would that suit you, you Bahuni? You who won't even eat your food if you suspect somebody has looked at it?" Mitthu, who was a fastidious Brahmin and refused to let people who she suspected of eating buffalo meat into her kitchen, realized she has overlooked this point.

"And then they make you work until you drop dead." said Kanchi. "Don't tell me I didn't think about it. I would rather prefer to live like this, where at least I can have my son by me at night. I heard the Communists take away your children and make you work in different places. And then they give you work that you cannot fulfill, and if you do not do it, they kill you - Dong! - with one bullet. What's the point of living then?"

"Well ..." Mitthu does not want to give up her sympathies so easily. Besides, her husband had died when she was nine. As a lifelong child widow she had no reason to worry about being separated from her children. "Well, we'll see it when it happens, won't we?"

"Like the end of the world." said Kanchi, checking out the sky. "I heard that they have taken the big Sadhu who predicted the end of the world and put him in the jail in Hanuman Dhoka. He has said that they can hang him if it doesn't happen. Then some people say that he was performing a Shanti Hom and the fire rose so high he was burnt and had to be taken to the hospital. Who can tell what will happen?"

Eleven am. There is a sudden shocked silence. The whole world stands still, for once, in anticipation. Then a sudden cacophony shatters the midmorning silence: cows moo tormentedly, dogs howl long and despondently, and people scream all over the tole.

The sky is flat gunmetal grey. The sun shines brightly.

A collective sign of relief wafts over the Valley of Kathmandu after the end of the world comes to an end.

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Publication Date: 05-02-2011

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