THE CHAINS Read online

  The crowd and guests remained silent. King Bazil seems upset and wipes his face with his hands time and again. His face turns yellow as he feels a great fear and also repents over his mistake and curses that he should not have given Rahas a chance to speak, but now he could do nothing because all of the guests and the crowd was listening to him very attentively.

  Rahas speaks again after a short pause.

  “What was my sin? I established a school for little girls of the town who I wanted to give the light of knowledge to your upcoming generations - what else? Nothing, nothing at all”. He said it and again took a short pause.

  “What was my sin just to show you the fact that neither in ours nor in any other religion, women education is banned and is discouraged to treat women as slaves and animals? These fake and ruthless ideologies are being promoted by some other kings like your king Bazil. I know that I will be dead in a short while but my words will run in your blood forever, and a few of you may not enjoy sleep at night after my death and some may feel their throat sored. Did you ever think why he, the king, your king, Bazil kept you away from the light of knowledge – so that he may keep his throne for longer time and to rule over you as his father ruled your fathers and his grandfather ruled yours’ and of mine grandfathers. Tell me - you the followers of brutality which religion or prophet or saint or book commands you to kill those to whom you do not like, to cut the noses and to throw the acid on God made pretty creatures. Just think for a moment about this brutality and ask to your hearts that how will you face your God, your Lord and the king of the kings”. He said and takes a pause again but a pin drop silence could be served even to the moment and the crowd remained silent during his pause as if they desire to listen him more and waiting for his words to be delivered.

  “What is my sin; just that I am against the slavery and slave trade and believe that everyone is equal. I do not want myself and you to be treated like animals by the army of the king. I am not against the hard work, yes; I will love to work in the fields or in the mountains and in the farms but not at the cost of myself dignity and honour. What I said, just that I do not want the food provided by the king’s army and reject the way they distribute the food. You do not remember how proudly, they give you food, like bread thrown to a mad dog, from ten feet away. You may bear this insult but I cannot. Do you not know that respect and dignity is one of the most important needs of a human? You can be silent to send you sisters and daughters to the king but I cannot. You may lead your life like ignorant idols but I cannot. You can change the spirit of human values but I cannot”.

  He spoke these words with a very high pitch like a lion king of the jungle. It felt he knew he will be dead in a few minutes so he tried to speak maximum he had in his heart without any fear and threat. His all of ambiguities and fears had vanished when he made a decision to die for his free will and revolutionary ideals. So he kept on speaking. His eyes shedding tears continuously and the cracking voice from his throat giving him more strength and power.

  “I am Rehas, the symbol of freedom, bravery and light that is going to be die out and I am proud of it (he laughed for a while) the air, the birds, the clouds, and the sun everything will be a witness of my bravery and your slavery. Let me shout and say that you all are slaves and coward and I assure you that your God will not be happy with you because you made the king as your God (he shouted) my and your God does not allow anyone to kill any human. My God does not like ignorance and gives equal rights to all of you, (he took a pause) what you are doing, is entirely against the will of your God and you are mere following the king, the tyrant and the brutal. But remember that God will never spare you and also your conscience”. After a short pause, he continued his speech.

  “I am Rehas who used to teach you and your children, not only how to read and write but also how to live with respect and dignity. Today, you all turned against me just to enjoy a good royal dinner where you will have tasty mutton curry and special rice, how great price for you have set for me. If King Bazil kills me and even makes the mince of my flesh, I would not been worried because I know that I have done nothing in his favour and have never supported his tyrant acts but my heart broke when you people got together to see the game of my death as I always fought for your rights, loved your kids, respected your women, and supported you whenever you needed. I cannot understand why you became so ruthless and ignorant”. He shed some tears which spread all over his face because his hands were tied up in chains and he could not wipe his face. But he continues his speech.

  “Let me clear you of your destiny my people, remember you people will always be slaves, your daughters, sisters and wives will always remain be raped by the kings, your children will always been killed for the sports of the kings - crying at the back of the camels, your youth will always been bowing down their heads to the kings and your kings will always been the slaves of their own desires and instinct. Their lust for power, their greed, their pride and their fears, they will never be free from all these odds because they are following the path of horror and terror and of the devil. The way they wish to rule is based on tyrannical and inhuman. So they always put their fears in your minds to force your hearts to follow them rather than to win your hearts with love and respect. So you may follow the kings by your own free will and without any fear but curse on you and on the kings you did not want to understand the path of smiles, peace and love”.

  He was just fed up now and wanted to be killed soon, so he roared again and said:

  “When after a short while I am dead, the rats and the insects will eat my flesh then you will hail the king and yourself because you killed the symbol of self-respect and dignity. You will enjoy the music, the dance and above all the royal dinner. Curse on you poor slaves. Let me die my people I myself do not want to live among the people like you, the cowards. After my death, I will tell your story to the dead souls and also to the God that how these people chained and crushed my body”.

  Then he took a final pause in his speech and said, “He (the king) said that I blasphemed the religion, can you tell me which religion allows killing of innocents, which religion allows a man to be ignorant, which religion allows you to rape the women and force them to be the slaves of traditions and customs, which religion gives you the license to kill the followers of other religions. My dear, the verdict of my death is not for the religion but to save the king, tell me now who blasphemes the religion – me, you or your king but you will not understand because you will have delicious mutton fried and free sex tonight. I do not want to say anything else to the dead souls, come on you people, hurry up and play your game out of my death, come on hurry up, come on hurry up, do it”.

  He shouted and closed his eyes, it could easily be perceived that he was fed up with the world and wanted to get peace and does not want to wait any more to embrace his death.

  Destiny played a strange when the death game turned into a mutiny and a revolution broke up against the tyrant king Bazil. His (Rahas) speech proved him a true leader and the savior. Crowd hails Rahas this time. King ordered his soldiers to give a safe passage to him and the guests before the crowd became violent against him. A group of young boys from the crowd rushed towards the rock where Rahas was enchained and then they broke the chains and let him free from the chains. Rahas was so happy and his eyes becoming wet and face turning red to see the dramatic change.

  Thousands of soldiers with arms and ammunitions suddenly marched in to the ground and without any intimation; they opened fire to the people. Everybody was trying to find a place to hide. Main doors were locked by the soldiers and they have been ordered to cope with the mutiny and to kill everybody in the ground.

  Death game was then played by the soldiers that day. The sun died along with the thousands of sons. Rahas successfully managed his escape along with some other boys who climbed over the boundary wall of the ground. When they escaped, Rahas said to the boys to go back to their homes to take care of their families. The boys went away and Rahas was l
eft alone at a cross roads.

  Rahas thought about the blood game and said to himself how many people would have been killed brutally and how many would have been injured and remained disabled for rest of their lives who knows if they survived or not, but alas I could do nothing for them, he was cursed on himself. Then after a pause, he starts walk towards nowhere because he decided to leave the place. So he walked for the nights and the days for months and years. He passed one town to another, cities to cities and countries to countries and continents to continents.

  While he passed through a town where he saw a strange thing that made him breathless because he had never seen it before in his entire life. He saw a group of human beings was walking towards a certain direction but to his surprise was that the donkeys were sitting with pride on the shoulders of human and the men were walking like the donkeys, it seemed that they had exchanged their duties. He was anxious to resolve the riddle and when he tried to dig in the issue, he came to know that from the thousands of years, the donkeys provided services to human but over a few decades, the human did not care of the academic services in this town and even a time came when there was not even a single educated person left in the area however these people were regularly practicing their religion, so the donkeys made a plan and bribe a religious leader to deliver a sermon that anybody who puts extra burden on the donkeys and will not love donkeys, will be punished by God. So a senior donkey one night visited the religious leader at his house and offers him a few grams of gold to persuade his mind and make him agree. So in a couple of days after this meeting, the man did so and said to the people in a weekly session that donkeys are the most refined living creature and have been serving human from the ancient times but it is our turn to give services to the donkeys. He further said that it is the order of the God to love donkeys which he received this particular order one night in his dream. When the donkey came to know about this, they get completely shocked as the preacher did a lot more beyond the agreement. The donkeys just wanted to have a bit of relaxation but the preacher has done a great job. Then from that particular day, everybody started to treat the donkeys as very sacred and pious, there was special food for them, there were special rooms with central air conditions and heating systems for the donkeys. The ride on the donkey became an unbearable sin. It became compulsory to kiss the foot of the donkey every morning and the one who does not kiss – he was considered as the infidel he was treated as non-believer, and then may be killed later on. The donkeys play cards, chess and other games in the luxurious rooms for the whole day long and at the night, they enjoyed the beautiful dance of the human and enjoy the hot tea and snacks with the music.

  “What a strange town, the most ignorant and the great followers” Rahas said to himself and then decided to leave this place immediately.

  Then Rahas pass the town and continue his journey on and constantly he thought for a couple of days about the ignorance of the people. Then after a few weeks travelling, Rahas reached a place of the black and white people, it was anoth shock to him when he noticed that the human body was half white and the rest half was black even it can be seen that the half nose was black and half was white. One eye, one cheek, one ear, one arm, one leg was black and one white. It was a strange nation for him. Later he came in to the city and tried to solve the riddle about the two colored human beings. He then came to know that the king of the land always believed in equality when the king saw that some of his people have dark complexion and some have white, then he decided that everybody will have to go for skin surgery which he brought in from China. The therapists had the ability to change the color of everyone in half body will be black and half will be white. Everybody will have to go under the process of this surgery because it was essential to promote equality in the country and also it was the strict order of the king. Rahas noted that it was the finest form of equality where even the private parts were also half white and half black. Rahas could not get the concept and ideology of equality of the king.

  He left this place after learning the new but strange concept of equality and after a few months of travelling, he reached a place where he saw great educational institutions, universities, colleges and schools everywhere. He became glad to see such a place as he himself was a teacher. He wished to stay long in this place. One day he visited a college which contains a grand purpose built campus with latest design and equipments. The college was famous for the business and ethical studies. The highly qualified faculty had been appointed for the students, young boys and girls came to this college to seek light of knowledge but he could not understand one thing that on the top roof of the building, there was a luxurious rest room furnished with latest water bed, modern television screen, centralized heating and air conditioned systems, refrigerator and a wardrobe, a great fascility for the guest lecturers but soon after he saw that a very handsome man whose age was about 50 years, came to this room with a teen aged female student who was student of bachelors of religious studies, he saw through the window that the man was raping the girl in a very brutal way then he came to know that the college chairman use this room to enjoy the sex games with the students. His eyes got wet when he saw this incident. He thought what type of knowledge is being delivered by these teachers. He left the college with a heavy heart and reached in a school where the little kids are taught in a very creative way but unfortunately this school was only available for the rich elite class and for the poor class, there were various schools which were not properly built up and also did not have proper equipment and even some schools did not covered with the main boundary wall. In a school he saw that a teacher was kissing a little kid of 8 years old in the class and in front of all the other students and even the teacher put the kid in his lap, he (teacher) was molesting the little boy, then he came to know that in this land, it is strict order of the king to teach the children with love. After the visit to this school, Rehas wanted to leave this place as soon as he could.

  He continued his journey and cursed on the academic institutions of the land. After a few months, he reached a state which was very cold, totally covered with snow. He found that in this land, the people did not build their houses on the ground but the whole city was built under ground. It was a well-developed state; everybody was happy and free and can do whatever they wished. Rahas was impressed from this land and find it an ideal society but after some time, he saw another strange thing in a market where a teen aged boy was beating his parents when his parents asked him to not smoke a cigarette and not to drink alcohol. It was unbearable for Rahas that the parents could not even guide their young children to stay away from the evils and they had to be beaten by the young generation. At night, Rahas saw that the whole country enjoyed music, dance and sex for whole night. It was a good feeling for him to see the people who were smiling and enjoying.

  Spending a few days in this land, Rahas decided to continue his journey. A couple of months later, he reached a beautiful land where the weather was neither cold nor hot. The people were neither tall nor small, neither white nor black. They dresses were neither naked not covered, their food was neither meat nor vegetarian. It was one of the most strange community, he ever seen that the people often could not be judged whether they were male or female. These people could eat everything available without any discrimination even the alive animals and dead human. These people were very hard working and all the time they love to do something with their hands. Rahas found another strange thing that every couple can have only one child and to produce the second was banned by the authorities. He spent about a month in this land and he noticed that the particular land expands its boarders by every night, it was magic of their hard work or some supernatural powers that every night a dark cloud appeare on the sky and in a few minutes, the land is enlarged by a few miles, then clouds vanished till next night. They people believe that the clouds are the special gift by supernatural powers to them which has been awarded to them in return to their hard work. Rahas found this place good enough where p
eople were generally happy, hard worker and simple. These people have strange rituals, one day he saw a great musical show in the town where everybody was dancing with joy, he thought that there must be a good reason of that, then he discovered that the grandfather of the party organizer died and a party had been arranged to say good bye to his soul. He was impressed that the moments of grief could not even make them dejected and the reason could be of the people to become the inventors as they always keep themselves busy in productive work.

  His journey then led him in to a new land where he saw a funeral of a group of people who had been killed while they were performing their religious practices, another group belonged to the same religion killed them thinking that they were not performing the rituals in the right way so they had to be killed. It was extremely strange for Rahas to kill someone for such illogical reasons. He discovered later on that in this land, it is a common practice to kill them who do perform the religious and social rituals in a different way than the most powerful group. He would not think how these people could kill someone in the name of God though they belong to the same religion and kill each other for a minor difference. He saw everyone either holding a heavy gun or a sword or a dagger in his hands or always willing to kill the others. Rahas could not stay in this state anymore and just left the land as soon as he could.