What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
Memoir of Those Seven Days
By Suranjan Samajpati
August 16, Evening
The city was restless even before the first scream. Rumours thickened in the lanes of Kalighat like smoke — Direct Action Day, Suhrawardy’s speeches, mobs sharpening blades openly, constables melting away. By the time Niranjan and I left our cramped rented room, we knew something large and decisive had begun.
We weren’t fighters by trade. Niranjan was twenty-six, a clerk in Oriental Insurance, forever bent over files. I was twenty, studying Civil Engineering at Bengal Technical Institute. But we had wrestled for more than a decade. I sweated at the Kalighat Shakti Sangha, he crushed bones at the Maa Kali Vyayam Mandir. Our eldest, Chittaranjan, stayed back to guard the family slamming down shutters, gripping a Ram-Dao, standing like a human door.
We went out with friends from our akharas, merging with small clusters until we reached the Hazra side. Veterans of Jugantar took charge. They were wiry men, eyes like burnt coals, blades tucked into dhotis. Their instructions were short and brutal:
The words cut deeper than any knife. We were no longer boys.
August 17 — First Blood at Metiabruz
Metiabruz was a maze of lanes, alleys tighter than the spaces between teeth. We struggled for hours just to push a few yards forward. Every turn was blocked, every corner filled with rubble or ambush. Our throats were already dry — water was harder to find than food, and men fainted more from thirst than blows.
We fought for inches. I saw Prabhat, one of our wrestlers, have his arm hacked clean off by a curved blade. He screamed once, and then fell, his blood spraying on our legs. Another boy, Gopal, dropped suddenly — a stray bullet smashed his head open. We never found the shooter. No one ever could.
The first man I killed lunged at me with a knife his beard caked with dry blood. Instinct from years in the pit drove me low. I shoved, and the blade in my hand went into his gut. He gasped, froth rising from his mouth. His eyes rolled white, and the light drained. I staggered, sick. Nothing in the mud pit had prepared me for that.
Niranjan cracked a man’s skull with a bludgeon. The fellow wore prison stripes, like so many we saw that day. It froze my brother, left him staring at the corpse as if it would wake again. Only a Jugantar elder dragged him back in time. Later he whispered, “I keep seeing his eyes even after he is dead.”
That night, we barely moved from our positions. We had gained nothing but corpses and thirst.
August 18 — The Pile of Women
Morning came with screams. We moved from lane to lane, bodies lying like discarded sacks. Vultures sat on tin roofs, waiting, their wings black against the smoky sky. Every time they rose, both sides lost the element of surprise.
It was then we found them — eight women in a cramped room, violated and dumped one on top of another. The stench hit first. I vomited where I stood. Their limbs were twisted, faces bruised, some already cold.
We wanted to rush into every house where cries came from. But Bhotu Da, a grizzled Anushilan veteran from Hazra, slapped us across the faces till our ears rang. “First clear the lane, then the houses. You run in blind, you die and she dies too. Discipline!” His hands were heavy, but his words heavier.
Later, in another ruin, we met a child named Mira. She could not have been more than eleven. She clutched my wrist, whispering she had been hurt by eleven men. She bled when she tried to move. We tried to carry her, but she screamed until blood spilled from her mouth. She died not long after — internal bleeding. One of our seniors closed her eyes with his hand.
I had never hated life more.
Suranjan Samajpati
August 19 — Thirst and Prisoners
By the 19th, our throats were cracked raw. No one had enough water. Men fought with tongues thick, lips split, eyes blurred. Every drop we found — a leaking tap, a leftover bucket in a looted home — was rationed like gold.
We saw more of the prison-clothed fighters that day. It shocked us. They were everywhere, wielding blades, shouting with the Muslims, It was as if the jails had been emptied into the streets. Niranjan muttered that we were not fighting neighbours anymore, but convicts set loose like hounds.
The vultures never left. Always circling, always landing. Sometimes they fought dogs over the hacked pieces of men and women. The noise was worse than the screams.
August 20 — The Breakthrough
This was the day. The tide turned. Teams pressed harder, and by evening several groups broke through to the Ganga.
The banks were quiet, eerily so. We saw stains of blood along the steps, and a few bloated bodies drifting in the water. It was clear: they had been killing and dumping into the river. The Ganga carried their crime away, but her current could not cleanse it.
Reaching the river gave us breath. For the first time since the 16th, we felt ground under our feet. Not victory — never that — but survival.
August 21 — The Wound
Niranjan was cut that morning — a slash across his hip during a confused melee near the tramlines. I dragged him back, bandaged him clumsily. He could no longer fight. From then on, he guarded food sacks, leaning on his lathi, his face pale.
The day itself was quieter, mostly cleaning up, searching lanes, checking houses. But silence sat heavy.
August 22 — Ashes
No fighting. Only relief. Only guard work.
We carried rice, lit lamps for the dead, watched women sob into the skirts of strangers. The vultures still sat above, wings folded, as if waiting for another chance.
I don’t know what to call those days. We were students, clerks, wrestlers. Then we became killers. Then again relief workers.
The Jugantar men always told us: “Discipline, or death.” They were right. Without it, none of us would be alive.
When I close my eyes now, I see Mira’s face. I hear Prabhat screaming as his arm came off. I taste the dry crack in my throat when water would not come.
And I remember how quickly humanity can rot, until vultures are the only ones left to keep order in the sky.
