A  NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER

P. KRISHNAMOORTHY

It was 9 a.m. on November 3, 2001. The Sunset Boulevard in the lower bay area of Los Angeles was busy as usual.  I entered my office on the 9th floor of Landmark building, that housed the Weekly “Los Angeles Explorer”. My nameplate “Dean Martin, Reporter” on the cabin door glittered in gold backdrop.   The first call on the telephone was from Susan Hayward, the Chief Editor, asking me to drop by in her office.  I could sense a kind of remorse in her voice.  She also said I should see her immediately.  I came out of my cabin and walked the distance of a few yards to her Editorial office.  I was shocked and surprised to see her face suddenly sullen on seeing me.  She offered me the seat across from her chair.  Slowly she said “Marc is dead in Afghanistan.  We just got the news. I have informed all staff to meet in ten minutes for a condolence meeting”. 

“Susan! I hope what you told me is not true.   Even yester morning I spoke to Marc, and he said everything was fine over there. How did this happen?”

“Marc was killed, not at the bombing site but in his house where he was staying... Around 2 am three masked men, two armed with rifles and the third carrying a jungle knife entered the house.  After they spoke in their squeaky voices, the first one shot him straight in his chest and the bandits escaped with their booty of money, satellite telephone and camera equipment. By the time the medical help could reach him, he was already dead.  Before death, Marc wrote a gripping account of his latest findings on the bombing, supported with clear and captivating pictures.” Susan maintained a pause and focused her attention on me. “Dean!  In his place I would like you to continue that assignment”. That was a quick shot at me, which I least expected.  She wanted a straight positive answer. It was difficult to respond to her immediately.   I was also unable to give her a negative decision, as I must go on any assignment as per my contract with the weekly. “Susan. Just give me a day. I would get back to you on this” I thought I bought some time from her to think about it with my wife Laura. “Dean! You could take a day’s time. But I expect you to come out with a positive answer as we had already made arrangements for your travel”

The solemn prayer meeting observing a minute’s silence for Marc’s soul to rest in peace was well attended by all staff.  The whole official mood was desolate and depressed. I could imagine the ordeals his family had to go through now, as Lucy, his wife, was expecting her second child.  Marc worked with me in Bosnia.  He was too good to others. Seldom one found him unhelpful. His sudden end was certainly not the one he deserved for all his best qualities. 

War against terrorism. This war was not confined to one region in the globe. It might certainly be extended to any part of the world when the terrorists identify their targets. This would mean that the traditional and conventional entry and exit plans of a war would not be in place. Also, there was no time frame agreed upon to it.  During the cold war period when wars fought like the Vietnam, they were fought against an ideology.    This time, America was fighting an unprecedented unique war – a war against terrorism coated with religious color and targets all over the world.   In this backdrop, no one was sure as to the period of one’s assignment to cover the war stories.  Today may be Afghanistan and tomorrow some other country.  Any assignment I would take over now would mean that it would be followed up with other targeted locations. 

It was a turbulent time during dinner for Laura and me when we discussed the assignment issue.  I had to accept this assignment in all fairness, as the same was offered to me a month earlier when Laura was on a surgical table for a stomach ailment. Due to Laura’s medical condition, Marc instantly offered to go on the assignment instead of me. Poor Marc was no more now. After deep deliberations and no options left, we had to reconcile and decided that I should proceed as required. 

“I would certainly take care of Lucy for her delivery and after, as Marc helped you to stay during my surgery” Laura was graceful in committing this to the bereaved family.  I was on the next day’s evening flight to Islamabad via Karachi.

 From Islamabad I scrambled to get onto one of the U N flights to Kabul. I had to take a ground travel from there to Taliqan near Kunduz in the north. The bone-jarring long travel was in a dilapidated land cruiser for the whole day.  En route at many points we were flagged down by camouflaged men for interrogation. It was difficult to differentiate between such men. It was quite an experience of life and death each time when they checked and questioned us. The narration of incidents I heard from the driver, who spoke broken English, was bone chilling. 

Many journalists and cameramen found themselves caught in the middle of the shifting enmities of Afghan clans. The bandits made their heydays with the looting of cash, cameras, and other expensive equipment of the journalists.  One of the photojournalists was shot nine times by a gunman as he was cowering himself in a drainage ditch. When he jumped out for fresh air, he was shot in the back. Fortunately, his vest saved him but he had to run for hours for safety. It appeared that there was a high price offered by local chiefs on the heads of westerners, which was the incentive besides the booty for the bandits to go after them. 

By the time I arrived in Taliban, it was late evening when the setting crimson sun silhouetted the mountain range and provided a spectacular splendor. The roaring sound of the F16s in the sky continued, disturbing the tranquility of the beautiful mountain area.  

I just got into the same house where Marc was living. It was quite an effort to acquaint myself with the new environment; I tried to get some sleep. It was a nightmare with all the stories I heard enroute and the death of Marc in the same house.  My counterparts of other media revealed that despite all these high risks, the drive to put a spotlight on events in Afghanistan with every journalist continued.  Of course, the professional competitive pressure to test the limits of safety to get a story did exist.  

The next morning after a quick breakfast, I was scheduled to cover a refugee camp that was five miles north near Kunduz.  After familiarizing myself with the directions to reach the camp, I followed a group of refugees who comprised of young and old - men and women, children, and infants with their meager belongings. Their adversity was written all over their wrinkled and depressed faces.  Even when they had lost everything in life, they have  not lost their undaunted faith in their religion. Their suffering dated back to two decades of war with total devastation. All they had inherited as legacy from the wars was maimed people who lost their limbs in the land mines. The quantum of violence they had witnessed during the long periods of war, had immune even the children against fear, leaving indelible impressions of violence and severity without any sense of their meaning. 

After walking a couple of miles, we had to cross a hanging bridge with broken wooden sleepers.  The gushing river under the bridge roared with its speed.  We tried to cross the bridge in smaller numbers; of course, the preference went to the old and maimed.  When I was in the middle of the bridge, I heard a creaking noise from the sleepers; obviously they were unable to bear the weight of many people.  In some places there were some sleepers missing and one had to be very careful in crossing these gaps. When I encountered one of them, by my side there was a little boy of five years. He had to limp as one leg was maimed on a land mine.  I knew he would not be able to cross that gap on his own.  I helped him by carrying him and crossed to the other side. By that time, we were at the end of the bridge. I carried him through to his father who was waiting at the other end.  I was so happy that I could help him to reach his father; but I was surprised, as the father, a middle-aged man, in rags with heavy beard, looked strangely at me and snatched his son from me. To my shock, he slapped the boy on his right cheek so strongly I could feel the pain myself. Tears rolled by from the young eyes and through silence he begged his father to forgive him.  It was more a puzzle to me. After all I helped the boy to reach his father, as otherwise, with his incapacitated leg, he might have slipped into the gaps between the bridge sleepers. Instead of thanking me for the timely help, he frowned at me. Above all I was pondering over the reason for his slapping the boy so strongly. The boy’s father spoke in his lingo very harshly looking at the crowd and the boy. I could not even imagine as to what his words could have meant. This was witnessed by many in the crowd. A young guy from the crowd, who spoke broken English, understood my predicament and embarrassment.  

“I know how much you felt at the behavior of the boy’s father”.

I am so happy I found somebody here to understand me and asked him:  Could you please tell me what the boy’s father meant in his lingo”.  The stranger nodded his head. 

“You know, we people here we cannot afford to live in the luxury of dependency.  Any suffering or danger, we had to handle them independently. If you had not helped the boy, he would somehow found his way to cross the bridge, that meant he got strength and confidence to handle situations of this sort. If God’s wish was that he should reach his father, he would certainly do even with his maimed leg.  Now that you had helped him, the boy’s father felt that his son had become a dependent and he would expect in future external help in such instances. This was what he did not like. By slapping the boy, he made him understand this concept of their life”. 

It was a totally new experience for me. Even though ethically, it appeared to be a senseless attitude on the part of the boy’s father, it did contain some sort of unusual and undermined truth in it.  It unfolded the concept of molding somebody. Of course, this would vary in each environment. Even in an affluent society where adversity was totally unknown, one still get molded with other types of disciplines to survive in society. Even though individual strength was equally well stressed in affluent societies, they were not insisted upon through hard learning as the boy had gone through.  But in societies of such people filled with downtrodden, illiterate poverty-stricken masses, their only source of courage to face any eventuality would be only through individual strength and hard learning.  It was more required in such an environment as the risk of death always haunted them all the time.  Such individual strength could well be developed only through strict norms of religious faith.  That was there with them.

While the boy’s father was complacent to see his son reaching him safely, he was more concerned with the ultimate weakness with which the boy would get molded with. No amount of convincing to the contrary would replace their immense faith in such concepts connected to life.   For a while I felt proud of such people as the boy’s father who had the courage of conviction and who still would like to live for tomorrow even though they were not aware of what tomorrow had for them. They lived in fear all the time and to alleviate fear from one’s mind, prayer to God was the best panacea they found which was provided by religious faith.  

It was late evening when I returned home.  I called up Laura on satellite telephone and narrated my morning’s experience.  She was equally moved by that and informed me that Lucy delivered another girl and both the mother and child were in good shape.  Tears rolled in my eyes as I thought of Marc who was not there to see the second child. 

The next day I had to cover another refugee camp in Khulum, a small village on the west side of Taliqan.  I was fortunate enough to get a lift in a jeep heading towards that direction.  After an hour’s grueling travel, I found a big camp in Khulum for the refugees moved from Chardara, a southern village. In the first tent I met an elderly lady in the 70s holding her both hands to her head, looking down at the mother earth; obviously she must have been pondering as to what kind of suffering she had still to undergo.  With the help of a local interpreter, I initiated my interview:

“Madam, you looked like you lost everything. Are you alone or you have your family also in the same camp?” 

The interpreter translated my query to her in their lingo. As a response, there was a sudden outburst from her.   She started crying loud. I could see her eyes filled with tears. 

“My son, you are asking about my family. I am alone now in this world”. She maintained a pause. I was thrilled when she addressed me as her son. I could feel a sense of human values being exchanged there. 

“I lost my first son, who fought the war against Russians a decade ago.  After capturing him, they tortured him for information on others. They severed his hands and threw him in the open field.  When I reached him, he was still alive, and he told me about the torture they inflicted on him. He promised me that he did not divulge any information to them. He was alive barely for few minutes and then he died.    Though I lost him, any day I am a proud mother of such a son who fought the war and reached God ahead of me.”

She wiped her tears with a pause to recollect her memories.  Obviously, she had something further to say.“After his death, I moved to Chardara to start a new life with my second son. .  It was a long struggle to live there. Continuous drought badly affected our agricultural produce. There was no work in the village to earn any money. We hardly had anything to eat for days together. Obviously, misfortune was not inclined to leave us alone.  I thanked God for sparing him at least for the rest of my life. The other group controlled us and imposed a lot of restrictions on our day-to-day life.  My son joined them, and they trained him in their camps to be their warrior for the war.  In the last few days, one evening I saw the whole village was ablaze. Thick dark smoke engulfed the whole area. People were running for safety.  As I was outside my hut, I ran to a nearby cave in the mountains.  I saw my son coming towards me with others to pick up guns and ammunition from the cave to fight the enemies. Before he reached me at the cave, there was another hit and he was killed. I cried for help to save him; nothing was possible as everything happened very fast. Probably the Lord had left me to live to tell the tales of my two sons who fought the wars and became martyrs”. As she uttered these words, a peaceful smile appeared like lightning in her wrinkled lips that obviously countered her tragic feelings inside her.  

What a soul-stirring story. I was spellbound all through her narration. A soul trying to balance the extremes of life. Another example of undaunted faith which disciplined her mindset to convert a negative phase into a positive one. Probably only adversity would be able to provide this uncommon courage and not affluence that always instilled weakness.  

That night in my home was more of an inquisitive time to check on the comparatives of life on the planet earth.  For a moment I thought as to why this animosity among global people. They all belong to planet earth. Then why the boundaries and barriers between countries? I remembered the famous interview of the first astronaut after his return from space.  When he was asked as to how he viewed the planet earth from space, he replied that he was so happy to see the whole planet earth without barriers and boundaries marked that was unlike shown through various colors in maps.  Could such a living be possible anytime? If so, when? I know I would never be able to find an answer to this enigma. I hit the bed to sleep that night. 

The next three days were punctuated with bursts of gunfire. I had to stay in my place as the unrelenting heavy carpet-bombing continued near our area. Corpses of soldiers and some civilians were lying splattered in the fields. I was very cautious to take my every step for fear of land mines and of any retaliation from any rival group. I took pictures of the ghastly scenes like the scattered face of a young child staring with dazed eyes. It was sad to witness horrific scenarios.  The awful smell of the dead was getting momentum. As I was walking my way into the fields to see the devastated village, I could see a lonely mud-walled hut with minor flames around it. As I reached the hut, to my shock I heard a child crying.  The flames were still bright. I wanted to get into the hut at least to save the child. From the entrance I could see a horrible scene of a family of three lying dead inside. Obviously, they were the victims of the morning bombing. I could see the crying child next to them profusely bleeding in the right hand. The child might be of two years old.  The fire at the entrance barred me from reaching the child. With all this, a mouse appeared from the rear side of the hut and started playing in front of the child.  When it was circling the child, I could see the child stop crying and started laughing at the mouse’s game. The scene was vivid in contrast combination.  I suddenly remembered the biblical lines - agony and ecstasy.  I saw those lines being enacted before me.  Even amid agony through a bleeding hand, there was ecstasy in the child at the mouse’s game. When the mouse stopped circling and making screeching noise, the child started crying out of agony. By this time, the fire slowly got into the hut from the entrance. Before it reached the child, I wanted to save the child. As I made my first move to go into the hut, there was a sudden high flame from the rear spread into the hut and charred the child and the mouse beyond description.  

I regretted my belatedness that was responsible for the child’s death.  I became sick at this very thought and cried myself for the sin I committed. Though my eyes had witnessed earlier many ghastly scenes, the sight of the little corpse of the child never faded from my memory.  The weeping and the laughter of the child – agony and ecstasy – still lingered in my ears with all intensity as it happened. 

I returned home totally depressed. I called Laura and conveyed the contents of my guilty conscience.  She remained a silent listener to my confession of a sin unknowingly committed by me. Besides this, the scenes I witnessed during this assignment included images of civilian victims and thousands of people displaced from their homes massing at the neighboring borders to save themselves from further onslaught. If we all remained mired in our partisan definitions of what constituted terror and what constituted a genuine struggle for freedom and dignity, we would never see the light of the day of peaceful coexistence with global morality.  I felt I should return home and if necessary, I was prepared to relinquish my job. 

On the next day, I got a call from Susan recalling me to headquarters. This action was prompted in line with major media organizations that pulled out their correspondents in view of the many deaths of journalists in a short time. Immediately I called Laura to inform her of this news and I could imagine her happiness on my homecoming. I would be with my family for Christmas.  I could never forget this November and a November to remember forever.