The Metal Box

"Why does a big metal box need a door?" I have questioned many times, but I think the all elusive answers have also become a hostage inside the corrugations of my metallic sheet.

"Lock it properly!" that burly, bearded man, who is my handler, shouted at his new attendant.

The tall, thin attendant in turn pinched her small bottom angrily, lecherously and pushed her too into the inner side of my corrugations. The once proud hinges and the once arrogant girl simultaneously gave out their shriek of disbelief and simultaneously silence landed on the jungle around me.

"Peeehu!" that girl shouted a few minutes later rubbing off the spot of her weakness, the pain of that pinch. "Peeehu! Don't forget my name," the sound came again and she stomped her foot heavily on me.

"Why me?" I would have asked if I had voice, but her stomping was better than her crying! I didn't wish to be rusted further. The tall, thick trees crowning over me provided some safety from weather but when the waters forget to stop their downpour, nothing is of much help. I too was once a proud red container and enjoyed the seas and oceans, the wide open sky, the unhindered sun and deep throaty voices of water and its inhabitants. Then I met my handler and landed on the floor of this dark jungle, never to move again, to become a box.

"Let me get out," she spoke softly this time and pulled her fine, dark hair determinately away from her face. "I will shave off my head! Next time they won't have my hair to pull," she added. Her small eyes, two small pebbles of resolve, stared out through the traces of dark kajal which had run down, smudging her cheeks. Her strong, stubbed nose was blushed as were her lips but they had been pursed together with fortitude. She tied her hair into tight bun, feigning baldness and pulled down her shirt stepping silently towards one of the holes in my fuselage; this was smaller one, one of the early ones. My handler was new then and so was his rifle!

"This bandook is different," she spoke while her thick, work-man's fingers quivered around the serrated margin holding the hole intact in its place "they took away my sarkari bandook otherwise I would have shown them some cleaner holes, similar to the ones I made in that man," she added with satisfaction and peeped out. "How dare he gossip about me with the fighters?" She was calm.

I followed her gaze through the maze of greenness around. "No one is innocent," I thought staring at the dark, tall shrubs, the darker taller trees, the light green vines hanging lifelessly from the sturdiest of trees to come alive along with monkeys, my favourite Maina singing her cajoling song differently when I was alone and angrily when my handler was around. The scene never changed. We were alone, I had company. She sat down and moved on to the next set of holes, these were not my handler's, it was someone else who had shot a volley at me. The shade of my rust had been one of deeper red then.

My Maina took her seat next to her nest on my top. She always sat there, on the edge, covering two gaps in my corrugations with her two small feet, facing the canopy-sieved sunlight bravely. Not all of my crevices allowed light to enter, only a few which were on my left and all around my Maina's feet let the rays crisscross my interior fearlessly. They could never be a hostage.

The streak of sunrays entering me from the top stirred as the dark leaves and thick branches around flowed noisily with air. This disturbed the decaying stacks of leaves, branches, vines, animals, my Maina's last eggs and dismantled humans around and putrid odour of the jungle floor heaved above me and the girl inside me. It had been a long time, years maybe and a lot had filtered down my oxidized, perforated floor. But she remained unperturbed and scanned the area around.

"They have left!" she exclaimed after having moved through all the triangular, elongated, shapeless patterns of light enclosing her. "But they will be back soon", she stepped resolutely towards the door and a thick lined caricature, trespassed by thinner lines took form on her back. She was glowing.

She was not pretty, but her resilient fingers were and they began strapping around the tarnished hinges of the lock. It groaned with every push, every pull disturbed it and it whimpered back without moving even a bit. "The rest of the kid fighters, my friends are walking into the ambush! I have to warn them," suddenly the caricature on her back straightened, her arms extended, she pushed her head back and a loud cry reverberated through me and around me. But the rusted iron holding the lever didn't budge. The right thick edge of the caricature slowly moved away and fell on the door next to her.

"Soon there will be no light," I thought. "Does she know this?" I had no way of knowing it.

"We are the protectors, they are the destroyers," she told herself as her long fingers moved onto the new gash in the door. There was some success. Two separated holes had given way to one large slit, big enough for her to pass her hand through. It didn't hurt me. Her dirty, chipped nails began working at the gash.

"Is she serious?" I wondered. Her vigorous scrapping continued. "Will she?" I questioned this time. The caricature moved further down her side and she turned suddenly looking around in the fading light.

"What else can I use?" her exultation drowned the jingling sound, also emanating from her, working in the dark corners to locate some tool that would help her.

"Nothing....." I knew for they stripped me regularly. I looked out into the jungle. "When will he come back?" I thought scared as always.

Suddenly she stopped moving and raised her right arm, the source of jingles. There was a set of metallic bangles dangling loosely around her slim wrist.

"Lowlifes!" her alphabets were seized by her hatred. "Let me get my bandook back, I will make two holes in that thin man first who had clamped my arm," she said moving the first two bangles which had pinched her wrist. She pulled them slightly and slipped her hand out just to compress it again with both the hands, changing its shape now for her advantage.

"Thanks, Mithu bhai," she smiled for the first time. Her uneven, crooked teeth sparkled because my Maina had changed her position. Her small, clawy feet were now busy cleaning up her small nest; two more rays of the fading sun had entered my entrails. The Maina is never interested in all that goes on in my inside but this day, today was different. She moved her head slightly and peeped inside once. Then again her face moved abruptly and she looked inside from the other hole beneath her. Both her eyes took turns, one after the other, again and again. Neither did the girl stop, nor did my Maina.

"My Mithu bhai," the girl spoke affectionately and hinged the conical end of her bangle in the lower end of the new gash she had made. "Mithu is also there with the rest of them, ready to shoot anyone who raises a finger at our bara-sahib," she spoke freely taking herself to be alone and with all her might she pulled the distorted bangle. The end moved but slightly "this will take years like this." She tried again with her one foot pushing at the gash and her fingers pulling the lodged bangle again. "This is better," she admired her work. "Bara-sahib always says that I am the best, I have to do even better." She took off all her bangles and then she took out the belt which was holding her oversized trousers.

"This is what I need," she admired the tourniquet for the gash. Her two, mud-below-me coloured, thin legs slipped out of the trouser, which was now garlanding her feet. She was not bothered by any of this and coolly she stepped out of them.

"This is better," she spoke happily and took small jumps to pump up some blood into her thin brawny legs. Then she slipped the bangles into the belt and forced the bangles onto the new opening in the lower end of the elongated slit.

"I am the best," she shouted and a tug of war ensued between me and her, between my door and her belt, between my metal and her mettle.

"I am mightier," I told her but she didn't listen and changed her position.

"I have to do it for my baba!" she cried and retied the belt on her waist. "He cannot die in vain!" she forcefully took a step ahead, away from the door. "I have to make it happen for my Mithu," she maintained her pressure. "I cannot let him die," she screamed again. The caricature had fallen onto the floor now. The soil beneath was raw, damp.

"They are waiting for me," she cried again but her cry was different this time and her force had decreased slightly. She stooped to take in a deep breath and to start all over again but before she could, my Maina cried out hoarsely.

"He is back," I said without looking out but the girl was oblivious to this fact and she readjusted the belt around her waist. She cannot hear him? I don't know because the next moment a hand entered from the new gash and seized her hair.

She was not bald.