Dec 22, 2024
Dec 22, 2024
In my re-occuring nightmares, I visualize a scene vividly, more so during the traumatic anniversary moments of 9/11."It's the terror of knowing
What this world is about
Watching some good friends
Screaming, "Let me out!"
Tomorrow gets me higher
Pressure on people - people on streets”
My thoughts disturb me. Was it this ways that the horrific idea was born? If it could dwell in the mind of a teenage kid sitting in far flung India, why can’t it take birth in the minds of terror outfits in far flung Afghanistan? I shiver in silence and repeat play the video over and over again on my computer, till my eyes turn red with fatigue and burn with sleeplessness.A dull brown dusty countryside, occasionally dotted with rugged looking men, as rugged as the bare mountains looming in the horizon. The face of the men hardened with radical thoughts in the name of religion, have deep tans from being always under the sun. Guns hang menacingly from their shoulders while in one far end of the dusty ground, other men line up for strenuous physical practice. In a makeshift shack, one olive skinned militant watches the telly with a bored expression on his face. That’s when MTV plays ‘Under Pressure’, and after a minute of watching it, the militant spits on the ground with a delightful thought. Looking up to a fellow militant standing nearby, he casually remarks,
“What if we blow up buildings this way?”
The other militant stiffens to the suggestion and looks more closely at the TV screen. There's death lurking in his eyes as he replies,
“That’s a brilliant idea, let’s do it against our sworn enemies and create the biggest noise we could ever make in the West, at the wake of their new century!”
10-Sep-2013
More by : Rhituparna Chakraborty
its its ..........what will I say! |
True reflection by you through a well crafted short story. |
Your "wondrous dark feeling of déjà vu" couldn't've included memories of Sept. 11, 1973 and what followed because you hadn't been born yet. That was the day President Salvador Allende committed suicide as the Palacio de la Moneda was being bombed and Chile became a nightmare, with the help of the CIA and IT & T. It was a double coincidence: not just the same day of the year but also the number of violent deaths, which was about 3,000 in both cases. About ten times that number of people were arrested and tortured in Chile, and I don't know how many thousands fled the country in order to avoid being murdered. Whenever the destruction of the Twin Towers is commemorated in the U.S., the destruction of a democratic gov't. is remembered down in Chile, every single year. Some coincidences are messages, and in this case the message is so obvious that I shouldn't have to spell it out for you, but regrettably it was necessary to do so. Some days ago, talking about the situation in Syria and his eagerness to fire things at one of the warring parties there, Barak Hussein Obama had the impudence to claim that in the last 70 years the U.S. has been "the anchor of global security", which is exactly the opposite of what his country has been. It has made the world safe for many, many bloody dictators in what it believes is its own "backyard", namely, Latin America. Those dictators tend to settle down in Miami with their North American wives whenever they're overthrown. That's why I didn't "hold my stomach", like you did. What I did was think that finally justice had been dealt out. |
Well written Rhituparna! Everyone around the globe was affected by this day and I'm sure that you were one of many who felt the way you did as a teenager. Thank you for penning down your thoughts and sharing them with us. |