Shining Hero by Sara Banerji Page B

covered her breast which was only barely hidden by her blouse. He stood gazing at her, his lips twitching as though he was about to smile. Or worse, laugh …
    ‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment,’ she said, her voice chilled from shame. ‘I’m a terrible mess.’
    ‘Oh, no, I don’t think so,’ he laughed. ‘I think you look beautiful.’
    When the two returned to the hut and food was doled out, Shivarani hardly noticed the gritty rice and the hard floor because sitting opposite her was Bhima.
    It was May, getting very hot. The students, used to fans and air conditioning, panted and sweated in the only shade, the airless hut. They lay inert and sweating, telling each other that there was now no doubt they had won. More than thirty hours had passed since the raid by the police and the killing of Inspector Soman Wangdi, and nothing more had happened. ‘Your worries were for nothing,’ they said to Shivarani.
    At midday a lad rushed in and said the police were coming. The students were energised in a moment. Hotness and tummy upsets forgotten, they ran out to join the villagers who were already waiting with their bows and arrows. There was an air of excitement and expectation, as though having won once they could not fail to do so a second time.
    ‘Let them come,’ cried the villagers. ‘This time we will not kill just one but twenty.’
    For the first time the students became a little alarmed, and urged, ‘No killing. Definitely no more killing.’ But the men were eager, like hunters who had sighted a plump herd of sambar. They pranced around, arrows at the string, waiting, ready, fearless. They were expert bowmen for the only meat they could afford to eat was what they shot, the occasional deer or monkey. Usually wild birds and even mongeese.
    In the midday silence the sound of the approaching police cars grew and soon even the hopeful hunters realised that this was not just a jeep and a handful of constables, but a whole retinue of armoured vehicles. Even they realised that bows and arrows would not work this time. ‘Bring out the cows. Block the road with them,’ went round the call. ‘The policemen are Hindus. They will not hurt the cows.’ Now the police procession could be seen as a cloud of dust approaching like a slow grey ball. Putting their bows aside, men went running to the stalls and byres. Women dashed for their milking cows. Children emerged from huts hauling little calves. Field workers unhitched their bullocksand by the time the police arrived the road to Naxalbari was blocked with cattle.
    The police rounded the corner. The first vehicle, a large armoured lorry, paused briefly. The villagers, watching from behind their cattle herd, began to feel smug and look triumphant. There came a shouted order from the rear of the police column and with a clatter of rifle fire, the first vehicle plunged into the cattle herd. There followed dull thuds as the jeeps and lorries banged against cows. The cows began rushing, swerving, falling, howling, galloping tail high, squirting shit, until they burst the thorn fences and escaped into the surrounding paddy fields and stands of maize.
    There fell a small shocked silence from the watching villagers then the cry went up, ‘The women then. They will never dare to shoot women.’ Wives, mothers, daughters, grannies, urged by the men, came rushing to fill the gap left by the fleeing cattle. Shivarani thrust her way through the women till she got to the front and stood there. The sight of her, tall and fearless at their head, filled the women with greater courage and determination. They pressed around Shivarani, defying the oncoming police lorries that rumbled towards them. When the first lorry halted, policemen leant from it and pointed weapons at the women. ‘Stop this,’ yelled Shivarani. ‘Don’t kill women. What are you thinking of?’
    There came the crack of a shot and Shivarani staggered as she felt pain pierce her shoulder. There followed a hail