The rusty gate groaned on being opened just at the crack of dawn. Kabir emerged from his ramshackle house and stacked the local newspapers in bundles of ten on the rear of his bicycle. The paper boy was still groggy and rubbed his puffy eyes to as remnants of the previous night’s dreams still clung to them.

Before perching on his bicycle he separated the English papers from the ones in the vernacular. He glanced at the newspaper that lay on top of the rest. Just having learned to speak English, Kabir tried clubbing the alphabets together with a hint of beginner’s enthusiasm, trying to pronounce the words in the headline. That day he noticed the words were written in an usually big font.

A bolder font.

Out of the experience he had gained as the local paper boy, the ten year old had innocently begun to associate the size and boldness of the headlines with the sale of his newspapers. He knew his ware would be in more demand on the days when the huge, black headlines glared up at his customers like dark hypnotizing eyes.

Like the day the tsunami lashed at the coastline, thousands swept away by its fury.

The day the Desi Robin Hood, Veerappan was caught and put to death.

The day the Sultan of cinema, Amitabh Bachchan had sent the media into a frenzy with a sudden bout of stomach infection?

They were not exactly ‘good news’ days but good ‘news days’, atleast for little Kabir who used to contribute to the family’s meager income ever since he was seven years.

As he piled the newspapers, the sun was slowly ascending in the East. He tilted his head to read what was on the first page.

BLASTS IN VARANASI KILL 26.

His gaze softened as he saw the picture below it. One of a man in a blue shirt grievously injured and bleeding to death. Kabir swallowed hard and looked away, wishing he had not let the morbid image on his mind.

He lived in a little town a little outside Mangalore. The population was an amalgamation of folk from all over the district. Hindus, Muslims, Catholics.

But the strange reality in that town was that they were cordial to one another by day. But by sun down a sense of phobia would trickle in. There had been a series of riots between the Hindu and Muslim communities in the recent past. This phobia took its toll on everybody in various forms. At dusk, children were forced to stop playing their games and enter their homes. Shopkeepers seemed to kiss their peace of mind goodbye after sunset. Temple priests prayed to stay alive. The streets would transit from activity to passivity.

Kabir used to often ask his parents why the country had a history of intolerance between these communities. He found it hard to analyse as he was the product of a love that had blossomed between his mother, a devout Hindu and his father, Salim, a staunch believer of Islam.

His mother’s maiden name was Sumitra. After his parents secretly married, she changed it to Neelima.

For fear of ostracism. For fear of being harmed.

Kabir grew up learning the Kuran from Salim and the teachings of the Gita from Neelima.

He marveled at how both the religions advocated the same principles.

Of love.

Of tolerance.

As he propped himself on the seat of his cycle, his mother came out behind him with a tumbler of milk.

“Kabir, wait! Don’t leave without drinking your milk.”

“Ammi, I’m going to be late!”, he said as he tried to squirm free from her grip.

“Kabir, listen to me dear. There has been a lot of violence in our area since yesterday. Little boys should not stay out for too long after school. It’s dangerous, do you understand?”, she said wiping away the little white moustache from his upper lip.

“Ok, ammi. But why are they fighting again? Did someone make a mistake?”

“Nobody knows why they are fighting, dear. It is hard to say who is wrong or who is right. Now that is not my concern. After delivering your newspapers, I want you to go directly to school. Don’t stop in front the temple or the mosque. Just ride very fast.”, she told her son, preening his hair affectionately.

Kabir saw his father, Salim standing at the gate, his hands on his hips as he yelled, “Neelima, what is wrong with you? You are teaching our son to be a coward! Just because these things happen, you cannot tell him to run away. When it rains, you brave it. You cannot go and build a roof over the whole world, you understand?”

“Yes, I don’t mind telling him to be a coward till all these communal riots die down. Being brave does not mean going in search of danger.” Kabir looked up at his mother as she replied in defense.

“So you make this boy paranoid, just like you, is it? It is a free country. He can go to the mosque or temple whenever he feels like. Nobody can raise a finger at him.”

“Yes I know. But certainly not today. I’d rather have him paranoid than killed.”, she said angrily and stomped back into the house and slammed the door. Kabir had never seen his meek and coy mother react like that to her husband. She didn’t even address him by his name, as a token of respect. So the sudden outburst was more of a surprise.

“Now go on, son. It’s getting late. Remember the brave die only once. But cowards, they die a hundred deaths everyday”, Salim said, patting Kabir’s head.

As Kabir cruised the lanes and market places, delivering his newspapers to the vegetable seller, laundry man, bakers and blacksmiths as he had did everyday. Some were Hindus. Some were muslims. But to him, they all still looked the same.

Like the friendly faces he was used to seeing, faces that smiled back at him every morning.

To him they looked like.. human beings.

But he was lead to wonder why they thirsted for each other’s blood, after reading the paper. His teacher had once told the class that no species in the animal kingdom preyed on its own kind. He had stood up and asked, if that was true in the case of human beings. The teacher had been silenced almost instantly.

He was too young to understand how it all worked and naturally his mind wandered to a more carefree world of playing cricket and drinking cheap cola with the children of his neighbourhood. He noticed that they were all kept at home though it was almost time for school to begin.

Kabir got down from his bicycle when he reached the mosque. He kneeled down and said his daily prayer. When he re emerged he found that the city was not bustling anymore. The roads suddenly looked deserted. People were closing their shops and the city buses had stopped plying. Khaki clad policemen began to hover around the hotspots that could be targets of violence.

Kabir started pedaling as hard as he could towards his school, only to find that it had been closed for the day.

He quickly turned his bicycle around, his heart thumping wildly. His mind was being tormented by conflicting thoughts of what his mother and father had told him that morning. As he passed the mosque once again on his way home, he saw some men screaming hoarsely at each other while a few mobs began to set fire to everything in sight. The flames devoured the buildings and shops, blocking the road completely.

Kabir whimpered in fright and hid behind the door of a destroyed house, with his bicycle. The smoke smelled of burning wood, rubber and human bodies. A smell he swore he could never forget. Clamping his mouth to cut out the fumes, he watched helplessly at the outburst of brutality between people he had seen all his life. Terrified, he prayed that it would all end soon so that he could run back into his mother’s arms and feel safe once again.

When he opened his eyes, he saw some unfamiliar men point to him.

“There’s one hiding right there! Kill that little rat!”, one of them yelled.

Kabir tried to run from the mob but the stones that were hurled at him hit him all over the head.

His boyish screams were drowned in the chaos and he fell to the ground in the midst of the stampede. The undelivered newspapers were strewn all over and his cycle lay in little fragments. He was left there to bleed and burn and gasping for air while the others continued to wage war, not caring for him.

The screaming men continued to scream.

The victims continued to get victimized.

The fire continued to burn. In houses, in places of worship, in bitter hearts.

The flames continued to devour the little paper boy who was left there to die.

When Kabir woke up in the government hospital, with third degree burns, a question mark writ large on his face as well as the trauma of being exposed to a world of violence that he was never meant to see.

His father stood at his feet and looked on as his mother held his hand and sobbed at his pitiable condition.

“I’m sorry ammi.”, he managed to say.

The threesome sat in silence in that hospital ward as their world slowly fell apart as a result of communal violence. People swear by their religion, fight for it, die for it and as someone had rightly said, they never live it.

That night Kabir died silently in his sleep.

He was brave and hence he died a single death.

As a young boy had paid the price for the fanaticism and hatred of two sects of community. The two religions he was made of.

The death of Kabir had more than facet.

It was the loss of a Muslim as well as a Hindu.

More than anything it was the loss of a child.