The Flickering flame snuffed out
Madhu Dandavate
THE FLICKERING FLAME SNUFFED OUT
Out of the ashes of emergency has risen our nation’s freedom.
But the heavy toll was the martyrdom of precious lives like Snehalata Reddy.
Prior to her tragic and untimely death, for ten dark months, Snehalata had remained locked up in loneliness in the women’s barrack of the Bangalore Central Prison.
As the blooming roses in the garden outside smiled, her anguished heart wept in silence in the agonizing seclusion of the prison barrack.
Her anguish grew not out of her own suffering, but out of her deep concern for millions of citizens whose freedom was stifled during the emergency.
In her barrack, Snehalata was not allowed to have the company of even a single political detenue and was forced to suffer the pangs of isolation.
Her detention was most irksome, for there could be nothing more bitter than the bitterness of suffering alone.
Snehalata was a patient of asthma with an ailing heart. While in the prison barrack, more than anyone else she needed, everyday at least for a couple of minutes a fresh breath of air and a little morning walk in the open space outside the barrack.
But even these claims of her ill-health were cruelly denied to her and for ten torturous months the sensitive artist in Snehalata suffered great suffocation till at last, immediately on her release, the flickering flame of her life was snuffed out.
On the day of my release from the Bangalore Central Prison I met Snehalata.
She was keen to read the manuscript of the proposed new publication, “Marx and Gandhi.”
I told Snehatlata, "When the book is published I would give the very first copy to you in a silver platter”.
My book is out. But, alas, Snehalata is no more with us to receive the same.
To make up for this lost opportunity I have dedicated my book to Snehalata whose sensitive heart has forever ceased to throb.
As I painfully think of the dust of time that is piled up over Snehalata’s ashes, I am reminded of Campbell’s poetic words:
“Cold is the dust in which this perished heart may lie
But that which warmed it once shall never die”.
(Courtesy: Olympus-magazine)
