Jassi’s final moment
Satnam Waheguru were the last words that flashed across Jassi's terrified eyes before the sacred sword went to work.
Inscribed on the blade to denote the eternal truth of God's name in Sikhism, the long blade of the Kirpan put an end to a cultural misfit who dared to love, defied traditions and disgraced family honour.
The flashing steel cut with a fury, triggered by a vengeance that can only appear when one who is close strays and commits betrayal.
It was as if the curved sword was working with a force of its own, pushed by an unseen hand that was manipulating the sweat soaked killer.
The holy sword did its work well.
First it disfigured Jassi's beauty in an act of premeditated mutilation.
Moving with a frightening slowness, the blade cut the young woman's chin breaking the subcutaneous tissue and muscles, leaving behind an unspeakable horror.
If she were to survive this torture by some merciful intervention, Jassi would be marked forever by a four-inch scar that spread across her face.
But this sword once unsheathed seldom left survivors.
From the disfiguration, it moved quickly down to her breasts, which were considered defiled by the caressing hands of the one she loved.
There it cut horizontally moving inside the milky-white skin to leave a six-inch long message.
No children from her unsanctioned union will ever suckle from this bosom.
As Jassi's lungs filled with her bodily fluids, the sword, thirsting more, moved back up with ferocious speed for the final act.
Its point plunged two and half inches into Jassi's neck and then sawed with cruel deliberation across her long nape splitting the trachea and esophagus.The voice of defiance was no more.
The defilement was complete.
The disgrace was avenged.
Satiated, the sword hung exhausted from the killer's hand as Jassi's life ebbed away.
Her T-shirt and unbuttoned jeans soaked up the blood that poured out of a ravaged body.
What her clothes did not consume, pooled around the chair on which she was gagged and bound.
Nearby, lay a discarded photograph of Jassi, used by the assassins to identify their target.
Now it bore no resemblance to the beautiful innocence it once mirrored.
What blood stayed inside Jassi mingled with gastric fluids to flood the chest cavity and drown her heart, which had been promised in secret to the man she loved.
But Jassi kept her eyes open while her life closed, to say to the sword, her uncles, her assassins and her mother - you can kill me, but you will never kill my love.
When they found her 33 hours later, her eyes were still open.
The first time I saw Jassi…
The first time I saw Jassi…
A strong breeze hit my face as I emerged from the crowded lanes of Jagraon into the open area where the Marutas were parked in ready-to-roll haphazardness.
It was then that I saw her. I stopped and stared at the tall slim girl wearing a grayish salwar suit, holding hands with another girl.
She was walking slowly towards a Maruta whose driver was calling loudly for passengers to my village.
Her hair was braided in a plait that fell to her waist. She was coming towards me with an aura of self-confidence, seldom shown by young women in these parts.
I felt weak as she passed by me. She kept looking at me, passed me, turned around, stared and kept looking.
I stood there riveted in star-struck delirium.
It seems like there was nothing around us.
No noise, no commotion and no crowd.
Our eyes met in a glorious isolation as the people, cows, cars, trucks and buses mingled in the bedlam that was Jagraon Chowk.
There was something magnetic about her.
She was heavenly.
My heart was racing as her friend yanked her and her gaze away from me into the Maruta that was heading to my village. "Who is this girl...? I have never seen her before...
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