...Of a History in Divide

In spite of the whispering, giggling people that had piled into the room, it remained untouched...as if still in antiquity, wrapped up in history. The wooden floor beneath creaked as feet shifted, trying to catch a glimpse, struggling to capture fleeting moments in a 21st century camera. And it stood in the center of the room, captured in history, mute to what it had witnessed. If only it had struggled, burnt the plans to ashes, if only it could raise a voice, she was sure it would have...

She looked around, at the bunch of people that had gathered around and she instantly knew that no one had felt the chill run down their spine. It was not much, really. Just a circular wooden table with 3 wooden legs. Not really a big deal. As the tour guide started speaking, she floated away, somewhere in time...his voice seemed to drown in the muffled screams of massacred lives in a world gone mad...mad. This was it. This was where it had been planned. This was where a bunch of selfish people had sat down in comfortable chairs over cups of steaming coffee and had planned it all...planned the partition of hearts...planned hatred...planned bloodshed...planned loss. This is where the drafts had been laid...the date...the kilometers in exact precision....the exchange of people based on what they called their god. What they had not planned was the date when it would all end...the hatred...the striving for power...the bloodshed...the partition. That table had watched it all, silently and if only it could speak, what it wouldn't say!

(Written from memories of a visit to the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies, where one can see the table on which the Partition of India was decided)