The Nicobarian Tale of Love and War

                                                         A Nicobarian Tale of Love and War

Hope,
it was present in her eyes. Even though it looks pale, the hope blended
with love made her sit there. On the bank of the Nicobarian Sea, under
the shade of a great white tree which they used to call as the tree of
love whose large thickets touches the waves which pushes the portion of
the blue transparent water to the soft white sands. Her eyes were
checking the sky making a roof with her right palm to avoid the direct
hit of the molten rays of the sun. But she could find nothing but the
clear sky and the clouds that shapes warriors which changes constantly.
It’s been so long since she flew her carrier pigeon with a message to be
delivered to him, her love whom she call as Taney. Even though her ears
could hear the sound of explosions and screams from her land, she tried
to remain calm and clenched her hope tightly. The time was very
dangerous even to be recollected as a memoir, the most violent time the
poor nicobarian free settlers faced in their lifetime, the Japanese
outbreak in the time of Second World War to evacuate the British and
take control over the regime. Many British soldiers were killed
brutally, some were burned alive and others who tried to escape were
tortured and kept alive to be tortured again.

It was luck she
is sitting under the shade of the great white tree. The Japanese
soldiers were killing everyone who passed their way, especially the
women’s have been raped and tortured. Her father Madanapala is an
inspector of British police who later befriended with the Japanese
(actually betrayed the British’s) due to the fear and the lack of strong
spine. It was a mere chance she got due to the urgency of his father to
do a traitor’s job which cost her, her life later.

Everything
started in a very fine morning, in the dawn of the Second World War. The
war was very alien to the nicobarian free settlers until the sun
gleamed that morning. The fisherman who was pulling their small boats to
the sea were fallen to death before they could enjoy their last breath.
At the final closing of an young man’s eyes, he saw a flag of yellow
color with a blue circle swaying in the wind. He died before he could
realize that it is a ship, not one a legion of ships approaching there
shore to take hold of it. The British soldiers with their limited
weapons attacked back to restrict their entry, but bombs do great things
than a rifle. It was an unexpected visit of death to the nicobarians.
Blasting’s and shoot-outs were heard constantly everywhere in the days
followed. The bombs exploded the famous prison of kala-pani later known
as “The cellular jail” and two blocks of it were completely destroyed.
Many inmates including many freedom fighters of India were killed, and
along with them was Shurapala, Taney’s father.

Shurapala was a
brave man in the island. He was a farmer before the visit of Tiwari, a
revolutionary from India who jumped the great wall of Kala-Pani and
exiled in the house of Shurapala. It was because of the humanitarian
consideration he decided to provide him with food, shelter and dress. He
stayed there in exile from the reach and vision of the guards who were
sent forth to recapture him. During his exile, Tiwari told him the tales
of the great freedom struggles happening across the sea, in India. The
disasters and abuses of the Britishers and the struggle of Indians to
eradicate them and free themselves from living as slaves. The tales made
a revolutionary born in him. He decided to gather many men to strike at
the British soldiers and Tiwari promised to help him if he board him
back to India. After some days, Shurapala arranged a wooden boat for the
Tiwari to escape to India. But he was caught and later hanged by the
guards in open as a lesson for other inmates as a punishment for escape.
The days followed were the days of gathering local men to fight against
the rule of Britishers. But he failed to identify the fact that, there
will be a traitor in every group who betrays in chance.

Taney and
Chutty, they were a great couple together. They both shared a love more
intense and divine. It has been said that they can communicate through
their mind, their thoughts, and their hands and even with their eyes.
They both had many skills in them. She being a daughter of an official
and he being a son of a farmer later caught as a captive loved beyond
their boundaries and customs. In the deep water and in the deep caverns
they made love and explored many things, still remain as secret only
known for them. She fed the birds of the islands and in return they
bought her gifts of stone, pebbles and sometimes pearls. Tanay spent
most of his time in thinking of the creation of the nature and the
decoration of the universe. He didn’t believe in the belief of the
existence of god, but he doubted. Who can balance the things around us
in such a way that it is designed for humans? Many contradictions and
conclusions has been derived by him which has been noted down and put
safe in a cave they discovered together in the root of a hill.

At
the time of the Japanese outbreak, Madanapala locked her daughter in her
room to protect her from the dangers happening outside. But they
communicated though her carrier pigeon who carried love letters to him
and his reply back to her. Even in her absence of feeding the birds,
they circled around her house to free her, but the winged creature has a
limitation in their strength than the loyalty they show. It was in that
time, Taney heard of his father’s imprisonment by the Britishers and
the attacks of the Japanese on his homeland. The rage of him turned to
revenge, but the fate was something different. But his biggest anger was
the death of his father by the Japanese soldiers which made him a wild
beast who thinks now of completely destroying the flat face soldiers. To
increase his rage, the Japanese decided to burn his village and planned
to construct Japanese temples and monasteries in his farmland. The gold
and the equipment’s for the construction are on their way to the shore.
He decided to destroy the ship that carries the galleons of gold and
the resources for the construction. He somehow needs to escape from this
cursed land along with Chutty, but only after seeing they die.

Taney,
was planning to strike at the ships when the carrier pigeon again flew
down to him with a message tied on her left leg. It was a poem written
by her of their love and her grief of not seeing him. In return Taney
wrote her to be in hope and wrote her about his plan to destroy the
ships and loot as much of gold needed them to live, someplace far from
their sight. He promised her to return back to take her and elope with
her, till then he asked her to be in hope.

After some days, when
the ship of gold came to his view, he decided to attack. Meantime came
up with a plan and he accompanied with his tribal friend of Jarawa tribe
swam toward the ship of Japanese with rage in his eyes. He carried with
him the remaining bomb made by his father’s company of revolutionaries
in fighting with the Britishers. They made the bombs in secret in a
jungle nearby their village. But the British soldiers were following the
revolutionaries who was betrayed by their own men due to the fear of
death when caught. Other men who flew from the raid were caught hiding
in the skirts of the hills when they destroyed the bombs by throwing off
which too made an explosion in the surrounding places. Tanay, had the
remaining bombs, with that and his friend Boolcha, they attacked the
ships of the Japanese. The ship had very few soldiers and it was very
easy to kill them with the bomb as they were in the dock with their
binoculars watching the safety of the shore and the happening there.
Tanay, looted some sacks of gold and swam back, not to the shore but to
the forest of Jarawas, the tribes. He hide his treasure in an
underground cave of the isolated island and came back to shore of the
 open sea to swam back to his land to free and elope with Chutty. But
the Japanese soldiers was waiting for him at the opening of the Jarawa
land and he was killed there with bullets all over his body which is
uncountable.

The pigeon who carried the message of the plan of
Tanay, on her way was met with another trouble. The eagles caged of the
British soldiers, who was free from their cages was circling the sky all
above enjoying their freedom and witnessing the blood spills and
murders from the sky. The white pigeon was seen by them and they flew
towards her to attack her. The pigeon, very intelligently dodged all
there attacks and reached Chutty and handed over the message. She hide
it in the pocket of her gown. On the day when Tanay looted the gold
there was some unnatural events happened to the land. The clouds at that
time became dark and gloomy due to the attacks and the black smoke
shooting above of the explosions. The intolerable nature started to
react to the event with strong winds and storms. Rain started to pour
down very heavily and the wind was very strong. The windows, doors,
plants, leaves, and clothes, everything was taken away by the strong
wind and drenched in the rain. The letter too was taken away from the
pocket of her gown and covered the face of Madanapala who was hiding
from the atrocities happening outside. Some things are meant to be
happened, no matter what we do, it will happen. The content of the
letter shuddered him and with it he ran to the Japanese officials. There
was no time for him to even frown at her daughter, so that he put that
for pending. The Japanese officials send many soldiers to the shore of
Jarawas and they waited for Taney to return from the island to the open
land. There they shoot at them with their rifles till the blood cover
his body.

Many days back, a ship of courier was sent to the India
to collect the letters from the British viceroys and Governor to the
army and guards of the Nicobar, at the middle of their journey, they saw
a legion of ships with the flag of Japan sailing towards the Nicobar.
They smelled of troubles. The ship informed the armies from India and
the Indian regime sent many ship back to the island to provide a backup
if anything unnatural happens. The wind and the cyclone delayed their
journey, but on their arrival, they saw a ship boarded with many
japanese soldiers on the shore of Jarawa. The captain sent one ship to
attack them and the others sailed towards the Nicobar shore. The horns
were blewn informing the arrival of the Bristish army to the Nicobar,
but they received no receiving signals. The single British ship on
seeing the shootout of a man by many rifles throw towards them many
bombs more powerful than the ones used till now in the Nicobar by the
Japanese. They came to board the ship in the island to check the
soldiers and to take back those who are undead. A white pigeon who flew
at the sky, at the very same time saw a series of arrows hitting the
British armies who stepped their foot on the shore of isolated island.
The tribes of the Jarawas uncontrollable of the events happening at
their land, gathered together to evacuate the armed men from their land.
The black men, well built in physique dragged the dead to the jungle as
they are cannibal at that time and still are. They left Taney their
recognizing them as the man of nicobar and the friend of their
tribesmen. There is no custom of burial or cremation for the tribes. So
they left him for the buzzards and vultures as they love the creatures
other than man of other origins especially those are dressed.

The
white pigeon on recognizing the dead man as Tanay flew down to him and
unloaded the message near him, on his corpse. The Pigeon pecked him on
his skin slowly to wake him up, but she failed. Before taking another
move, the pigeon saw herself clenched in the nails of an Eagle which she
dodged before, some days back. The eagle took her and winged to the
nearest cliff of a big mountain where she was pecked to death till her
white feathers are shaded with red.

Madanapala on his haste
reading the letter forgot to lock her daughter in the room as his
urgency to reach the Japanese officials was his prime objective. She
took it as a chance and suddenly flew her white pigeon to Tanay
informing him of her escape from her house and where she will wait for
his return. But she found no trace of him nor her pigeon on that day or
the days followed. She waited for days and days which was of the attack
against the Japanese by the newly came British army and evacuating them
entirely from the shore of nicobar. The British army took back the
control over Nicobar and started rebuilding the destroyed things and
resumed their regime. But she sat there on the shade of the great white
tree for his arrival. The birds that she fed, after some days got her
the feather of her dead pigeon in red and after some more days with the
chain of Tanay lay in the shore of Jarawas left by the buzzards. But she
didn’t went back. She sat there with her gaze fixed on the blue calm
sea till she was died of hunger and thirst. She was least bothered about
her needs as she forget everything for love. Her decayed bones has been
taken by the birds that she fed and gathered it in a cave in an
isolated island. The same birds gathered the bones of Tanay from the
island and dropped it on the same cave of where the bones of Chutty was
dropped.

It was the end of the Tale of Nicobar in an unlikely
time. Everything came back to normal and the Britishers were driven out
of their land when India got independence. The Nicobar Island and the
surrounding places were given to India and the free settlers were given
the right of citizenship. The British left everything behind which still
remain there for the locals to memorize a time of fear and the grief
they carried for the lives of their loved ones. But in the cave hidden
in an island, there lay blended the bones of Chutty and Taney together
unseparated by the death and covered with the stones of many colors and
pebbles and even pearls. The birds still visit them, circle around their
grave and drop things for the name of love. Someday, if rebirth is
true, they will come back and the love will join them somewhere in a
place more peaceful and marvelous to love, to live.