Sudeepa: Why are you in such a hurry, son?
Sohan: Organizing a peaceful protest march from the city-centre toward the Parliament, Mom.
Mom: For what cause?
Son: To raise our voices against current administration’s attempt to trample on democracy. Don’t you see how the opposition views getting suppressed, TV channels parroting only their views and big money industrialists funding their corrupt politicians?
Mom: But they’re powerful.
Son: Don’t you worry. Our country became a technological and economic superpower, but inequality also climbed to the sky level. Have you already forgotten about the lack of hospital beds and oxygen tanks for the ordinary citizens from Covid days? For poor people, good jobs and enough money to buy foods are always lacking.
Mom (nervously): But, what if the armed forces begin to gas and fire upon all of you?
Son: Mom, growing up, didn’t you tell me about the bravery of the Grandpa, when he fought against the power of colonialism and you’re a little child?
Mom: But that was to liberate our country after two hundred years of brutal occupation. First they‘d appeared as friendly traders; soon their ruling kingdom took over.
Son: But after capturing Grandpa, their armed forces broke every piece of his bones and pulled out all his nails. Then they transferred and hanged him in the notorious prison in that remote island. You even took me there once to pay respect and the gallows still stood.
Mom (desperately): But he was a freedom fighter, fighting for motherland’s independence.
Son: Mom, nowadays the word “freedom” took upon a completely new meaning in free societies. It is the “freedom from injustice”, “freedom from hunger”, “freedom from discrimination based on your color, ethnicity, and gender.” I can go on Mom, but I need to go, friends will be waiting for me.
At high noon, Sohan arrived at the designated square. Via social media, the words spread. Thousands of college students, members of trade unions and city’s intellectuals gathered. Each group carrying protest placards and flags began to march toward the Parliament. But the informants of the local authority soon created a disturbance, thus allowing armed forces to discharge tear gas and rubber bullets. While the dispersed protesters remained peaceful, the authority began to arrest the leaders of various groups, transferring them to the same building that once housed the forces of the rulers of the colonialism. Sohan was mercilessly tortured inside a dark basement room, happened to be the same room where his Grandpa underwent similar treatment, sixty years ago.
At midnight, Sohan was lined up along the banks of the river at city’s edge. Two bullets went through his head. His lifeless floating body, glistened by the full moon began a new journey.