My father is a religious person. He believes that mukti yatra cuts down the impurities and cleanses the soul.  He always wanted to do this yatra through which he gets to visit lots of mosques and dargahs. His 60^th birthday was approaching. December is a cold month. So, I decided to take him on this yatra myself. It was supposed to be memorable, and ultimately it was.

I planned a 12-day trip over 3 states of the North, covering 16 of the important religious sites. Abbu’s birthday was right in the middle of the trip- on the 6^th day. We left home with a bag full of anticipation and good hope. The first 5 days went exactly as I planned, but not Abbu’s birthday.

On his birthday, we were to explore the city which had a great importance in the Hindu mythology. We thought of taking the essence of a sister religion and some extra blessings from the Hindu Gods too. There was a 16^th-century mosque that Abbu wished to visit. We reached the place early in the morning. Abbu said he would sleep sometime before going to the mosque in the afternoon. I tried sleeping too but a weird feeling kept me up. I went down for some tea. There was a small stall which served tea, coffee and snacks. There were three people other having tea there. I asked for a cup and sat on the bench.

“Munna ka tabiyat bigad gaya, nahi to hum jarur jaate.” said the slim guy wearing a kurta.

“Abhi bhi time hai, aap ja sakte hain. Program 3-4 baje se pehle khatam nahi hoga.” Said the chai-wala.

“12 baj gaye hain, ab jaane ka mann nahi.” The slim guy replied.

I was keenly listening to what they were saying. I started getting interested upon hearing the word ‘program’.

“Muaf kijiyega, kis program ki baat ho rahi hai?” I asked.

“Aap kahan gum hain, bhai- sahab? Itni badi rally nikli hai aur aapko nahi maalum? Kal ki ghoshna nahi suni aapne?” the other guy in a kurta asked back.

 “Ji, mai aaj hi aya hun. Yatra par hu Abbu ke sath. Masjid jaane ka iraada hai kuch der me.” I clarified.

There was a sudden silence amongst us. The two guys in kurta looked at each other and then looked away. They had finished their tea.

“Chal chotu, hum chalte hain.” the other one said and they both walked away whispering.

“Aaj masjid jana aapke liye theek nahi.” said the chai-wala.

“Kyu, bhai?” I was getting anxious.

“Yeh masjid vivaad me phasa hua hai.”

“Itna to hume pata hai, bhai. Par log to aaj bhi jaate hain na wahan?” I wanted answers.

“Haan, Magar aaj ki rally wahin ho rahi hai, aur aadhikarik raay iss masjid ke khilaaf jate hain. Aakhir hai to yeh sheher ek Hindu dharm sthal.” The chai-wala’s words were making no sense to me.

“Kya isse ye maalum hota hai ye yahan masjid ka hona galat hai?” i asked.

“Hamare kehne ya sochne se kya hota hai? Hai to raaj satta ka.”

“Satta? Kya yahan ki satta sabke liye baraabar nahi?” I was confused.

He jolted his head and looked away. His silence was making me uncomfortable. I wanted to see the rally. I wanted to see the mosque.

“Masjid ka raasta kis taraf hai?”

.......................................................                                                    

Crowd, a disturbed crowd was all I could see in front of my eyes. I kept on walking. I could hear them chanting. Those chants were piercing through my body like little needles. I could sense instability. I could sense insanity. I went closer. I could now hear the bhaashan that the politician was giving.

“Iss bhoomi ko hame samtal banana hoga, baithne layak banana hoga. Taki yahan samoohik kirtan ho sake, bhajan ho sake. Yagya ka aayojan hoga....”

‘What is this man trying to say?’ I thought in my head. The mob kept cheering and chanting.

“Jai Shri Ram! Jai Shri Ram!”

When I went further and got the first sight of the mosque from a distance, I stood there perplexed. It was right in front of my eyes- the wrecking. The domes were being hit, the walls were attacked. It was hard for me to digest what I saw. The main dome fell... then another... Just then I saw something flying towards me and hit me.... I realized I was sitting on the ground, full of dust, when I came back to senses. The mosque was not standing anymore. My neck hurt, but it did not matter to me.  

People had started returning to their homes. I returned too. On the way back to the hotel, I could not stop thinking about what had happened. They said it was essential, as it was an important Hindu site. The political leaders were smiling. The people were dancing in victory, chanting slogans and celebrating their win. Did they actually win? Who won? How can anyone justify the existence of a Hindu site? How does demolition of a religious building define their sanity? The security forces ran away. Further, there was no effort put to stop them. Why? My head was full of questions.

Abbu was awake and really worried when he did not find me in the room. He had already gathered the information about the demolition but my absence was a bigger concern for him then. When I reached, Abbu was watching the news on the TV with widened eyes. He ran to me and held me by my shoulders.

“Khairiyat hai?” he was shaking.

“Han Abbu, mai khairiyat hu, magar ye desh bahut beemar hai.” I replied.

He had tears in his eyes. I was broken. There was nothing that we could do.

“Chal, laut chalen.”  he said, still shaking.

.......................................................

It is February. About two months passed... and riots, commotion and deaths are all that we saw. Every other day we woke up with the death toll rising, new cities being engrossed and more hatred in the air. The fire had struck. Temples, mosques and other random buildings were targeted. We too were invited for a meeting to remove people of the other religion out of our locality. Ordinary people had turned into activists. People were dying. But, what could we do?  

Whenever there is a state of disagreement, why is agitation and anger the first and the last option? Why do people think that destroying a monument of killing the people would solve or pacify an issue? Why does a positive ground, the religion, become the reason for the unending negativity? Why ‘co-existence’ is no more a word with a meaning? But, what could we do?  

I suddenly felt like a culprit. I never thought anything beyond my family’s happiness. Who thinks about the country’s happiness? Who thinks about its integrity? Lots of our countrymen died, about 2000 of them. Are our countrymen, our extended family? If no, then why do we share the same land? If yes, then why are we still silent? 

I decided, I would not sit silent anymore. I will do my part. I will propagate my questions, and I will derive the solutions. I will. 

“Okay! Comment on the YOUNG INDIA take by the minister”

“What is there to talk about? After all that we hear every day, how can this generation be trusted.”

 “Yes, you are right. We surely have most of young people in our country, but not the whole generation is

sane.”

“And that creates a huge difference.”

That day I heard a group of people discussing young generation as I walked back home. The last night had exhausted me really bad. But my mind was alert to everything which was happening around me. I had inherited this from my experiences. My past had positively prepared my mind and body to work in every condition.

The time I unlocked my flat I instantly walked into the kitchen, gulped the whole bottle of water in a go and I lay on bed. As I was trying to sleep, the words I had just heard struck me. How can this generation be trusted? How can anyone be trusted? Trust? What is trust?

I woke up to a call. “Asha, I am going to meet the Commissioner. I will call you after that; we have to discuss that village issue.” I hung up and walked lazily to the washroom. It wasn’t my daily routine. Actually I didn’t really have a routine, I never had one. Every day for me was a new day, every morning was a new place and every night was a pain. I kept my mind busy because even a pinch of my past was enough to weaken me to the cores.

I walked downstairs to buy milk packet. had a super market opposite our colony. I use to visit the store so often. The owner was in his late twenties. He was not there all the time. Whenever we had met in the past was a refreshing time as we used to exchange our work experience. And it was rare for me to meet people outside my work.

That day when I visited the store I didn’t find him. But I met a new girl.

“Hi, do you guys have olives?”

“Hain?”, her response told me she didn’t know English.

“Beta, yaha olives hai? Jaitoon?”

“Ma’am she is new here. She doesn’t know anything”, a regular worker told me.

“Oh, no problem. Do you have olives? I am not able to spot.” I asked again.

“Yes ma’am, this way, I will bring it to you.” he was polite as usual.

I was in the billing counter when saw the girl again in the corner. She was gazing the road continuously with a blank but expecting face. 

“Who is she?” I asked the girl in the counter.

“She is Abhay sir’s cousin, Meera. She lives in village; is here for on vacation.

“That’s great. You look nervous, is it your first time away from home?”

She did not reply.

I saw Ramesh at the other end. I paid to the auto driver and crossed road. We greeted and without delay, we headed to cafe for exchanging our research.

“I got this final list of girls.” He said.

“Only girls?”

“Yeah just girls, we have a list of twenty one girls; sixteen of them have been trafficked as domestic helps in different cities. They are yet to be located. There are five girls that police claims have been sold as a sex worker”, he explained.

I was stunned. I couldn’t say a word. It wasn’t that we had confronted such issue for the first time. All these years that had passed working for children who accidentally or forcefully fall into trafficking, these stories were so common for us. People called us activist but what if this trafficking had not existed. Then we could live a normal life, and then maybe I too had slept peacefully at night.

Ramesh nudged me away from my thoughts. When I gained my senses again, we were set to apart to different destinations. Just then, I got a call from the police. Next ten minutes I saw Ramesh’s anxiety growing as my reactions worsened. I couldn’t keep it for long, “six of the girls have been recognized, and they have been trafficked to our city Ramesh. Police have successfully traced the dealers and they are on their way to raid.” I continued in single breathe, “They have called us to take the data, and then we can start chasing the places that have been traced.”

“Yeah, yeah! Sure! Let’s go.” 

Everyone in the station was in rush. Few of them were calling other work stations to circulate the details, fax machines were getting used for the same; few teams had already been sent to raid and then there was head inspector who was waiting for us.

We were given the details of the six girls. We were studying the details when the inspector got a call. As soon as he hung we were informed to trace a new target. The information had details of a human trafficker.

“These people have been accused and inquired in past about human trafficking. We did not get enough evidence to file a case then but their actions and work is questionable.” And he started going into the details for each one of them.

He listed one by one and we recorded the key points as we had to visit each of them to search. Every time there was a case of human trafficking in the city, we used to help police by all the ways possible. It was our job and it basically wasn’t a help but we felt it to be our responsibility.

“Abhay Pratap Singh. He is a twenty eight years old businessman who belongs to a nearby village. He owns total of 8 shops in the city including 2 rice go-downs and 6 general stores. He had been accused for supplying girls from her village to the dealers and had also been arrested twice for keeping drugs in his go-downs...” he was yet to complete when I interrupted.

“I know this man” I yelled.

“what?” was the reaction from all the men out there.

“Yes. He runs a supermarket opposite my building, I have met him several times but I never felt anything wrong about his profile.”

“He might be innocent. We have no strong evidence.”

“no! no no no!” I panicked this time.

All were asking me what, why, how and so many other questions as I started checking profiles of the six girls again, and again.

“No it is not her” I relaxed. “Is it possible that we have more of the trafficked girls in the city?” I queried again.

“Yes. We have no clue about nine girls yet.” said the police.

Police searched Abhay for next few days. All his properties were seized. We kept on working and got nine girls instead six. Three were sent as domestic helps to high-society villas. Two of them, we saved from getting married. And the other four were to be sent abroad, were saved and sent to their respective homes.

But I got relief only when Meera was found. I didn’t even know her real name; neither did I get the chance to see her again. Abhay was imprisoned. Meera disclosed more names which helped us reach 8 more girls who were sent to different cities. I would have regretted all my life for not recognizing the culprit and the victim even after confronting them... if we couldn’t have found her.

The thing that pinched me the most was that Meera had been sold by her parents. We were alike. This whole issue pushed me back to the memories of my own childhood. Fifteen years had been passed. But there was no change in the lives. I was once sold by my mother in the exchange of money. I worked as a household servant for years, and then I was pushed to be a sex worker. I thank God who helped me escape all that, and gifted me a new purpose of life. But after all these years, even today,  I hear the same stories time and again.

That night I couldn’t sleep as the questions kept tumbling my mind. How many years would it take to end this trafficking? What else should we do to get through it? Who were the origins of this crime? We had done everything to save humans till date, but we could never stop them to be trafficked. I had no answers but every question was generating a new question.

I woke up next morning lazily. I checked my cell phone, had no meeting lined up. I opened my news app. ANOTHER HUMAN TRAFFICKING RACKET HAS BEEN UNVEILED WITH THE HELP OF YOUNG ACTIVISTS, it read. My neighbors would be happy with this generation, I thought... just then I read another headline, THOUSANDS OF GIRLS MOLESTED BY THE MOB DURING A CONCERT IN A METROPOLITAN CITY.