Partition and Its Lingering Pain

(Published in Catchnews.com)

Such a long journey: Remembering Rawalpindi, Lahore and tin boxes of memories

This green painted tin box remains the most prized possession of my family. Along with its small and meagre contents, this was all that my family had with them when they crossed the Radcliffe Line like millions of others in that bloody monsoon of 1947.

Along with a small bundle of clothes tied in a bed sheet, this box was all that the family had managed to salvage from the madness that took away their home, hearth, culture, language, livelihood, friends – everything except the resilience to survive.

Today, I am the third generation with whom this box co-exists. It may be a lifeless object for many but my family has always kept it with great care – as a symbol of those hard days that were overcome with a massive struggle.

The family has a yarn of tales and tales that I have heard only in bits and pieces over the last four and a half decades of my existence.

THIS SIDE OR THAT

My family had fled Mohanpura locality of Rawalpindi in late July of 1947 just when the communal violence was at its peak. It is a well-known phenomena that the people who came from that side of the border had only two ways to go – politically speaking.

Either they became staunch Hindus and their descendants today form a vast support-base of Hindutva groups, or they went to the other extreme retaining their strong faith in the concept of 'secularism' that was later to be enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution.

My family came from this latter stock.

At one point of time, my grandfather had dismissed my question on a Hindu-Muslim riot in a newspaper report saying, “People are never bad. It is the times that are bad and those who create such times.”

He had once narrated a part of my family's ordeal at the time of Partition describing how the Muslims from the neighbourhood had defended the Hindu families for three nights from the arsonists in the thick of gun fire.

“In the end, they had come to us with folded hands saying that the arsonists were increasing in number, they were coming from other areas. But they ensured a safe passage for us promising to take care of our properties till we returned. But that was not to be,” he said.

Known for his bad temper that had somehow toned down after my birth, I saw my grandfather livid only on one occasion – and that was 6 December 1992, when the Babri Mosque was demolished.

As the news played out on television he kept on repeating, “It is a black day for this country. How could they do this? And if this is what they always wanted to do, then why did they do that (the Partition)?”

PEOPLE OVER POSSESSIONS

My family had fled from Rawalpindi to Lahore with that box and the bundle of clothes. “Those were the times when people used to throw away their possessions to make place for others trying to get on to the trains,” my father relates. But this box survived.

My family had occupied an abandoned house in Lahore for a few days before moving on to the east.

“We were confident that Lahore would be a part of India and we would come back but that was not to be,” says my father as he recalls that how over the next several months the family had to move from one place to another in search of livelihood. These places included Dhuri in Punjab, Moradabad, Haridwar and Delhi.

Survival was a day-to-day affair with my grandfather, thanks to his vast knowledge, doing odd jobs ranging from writing accounts to small-time trading. My grandfather was very well versed in Urdu and Persian apart from Hindi, English and Punjabi.

OF TRAINS AND BORDERS

Our green box has been a witness to so many experiences of human madness. The train in which my family crossed the Radcliffe Line was the last one in which all the passengers came in alive. Thereafter, the trains, from both the sides, had carried mutilated bodies. There was also an occasion when the engine driver of a train had run amok and had fired at people at random on the railway platform in Haridwar.

As a child, I used to ask my grandmother about the valuables that this box contained. She told me that the precious belongings included some gold ornaments, a tawa for making chappatis, a pair of scissors, a vessel to carry milk and other small things. This box has always been protected. It was carried on the lap when the family moved.

“Somebody always sat beside it while others went out for different tasks as the family spent months on a railway platform that was both our home and hearth. The daily essentials were packed into it and it was placed next to a tea stall every morning,” recalls my father.

He also recalls how the family was once compelled to eat chapattis with salt because the dal was lost when the stone below the pan in which they were being cooked gave away due to the heat.

Till her death at the age of 102 in 2014, my grandmother never replaced the tawa and it continued to be in use. Maybe for her, it was the symbol of her struggle and resilience. We still retain it along with the pair of scissors with the name of the manufacturer in Lahore embossed in Urdu on it.

SEVERING TIES

My granny could never come to terms with a thing or place called Pakistan and the reasons that led to its creation. It was something that snapped the cord from many things she held close to herself. She could never come to terms with the two nation theory and why communities could not co-exist.

After all, she, coming from a Hindu household, had learnt the Gurmukhi alphabet from a Maulvi. For her festivals had always meant a visit to Nankana Sahib or Panja Sahib. Good old days, in her memory, were about my grandfather coming from Peshawar with bagfuls of dry fruits and pomegranates. About cooking rotis in a common tandoor where the community gathered every evening and sang Punjabi songs.

Till her death, she strove to view things from the Pakistani point of view. Once when I had lost my job, she had tried to encourage me by saying, “Don't worry. After all, we also left everything back in Pakistan to stand up again.”

This feeling summed up her struggle and the fighting spirit.

A NEW HISTORY, BUT NOT SO NEW AFTER ALL

As I grew up, I heard and read many tales about the Partition. I also vaguely remember the 1984 anti-Sikh riots as a school-going child reading about the developments in the newspapers and listening to radio bulletins of foreign radio networks.

But my personal experience with the 2002 Gujarat anti-Muslim pogrom helped me put things in a perspective.

It made me realise what it means to lose your home, hearth and livelihood while one is being hounded in the name of religion or caste identity. It is then that I learned what a tin box full of articles of bare survival meant in times like these.

I also learned how political elements spew venom to achieve their goals. Unfortunately, the vile process has not stopped at Gujarat. It is continuing and I can see many more people fleeing with such tin boxes across the country.

In my house, initially, my grandfather used to store his important papers in this box. My mother and grandmother, both of whom have also departed from this world, had later kept new bed covers and table covers in this box. They were something of a luxury for them.

Today my father and I also keep articles that spell small-time luxury for us and these articles also mean some high-end liquor bottles.

No matter what who keeps in this tin box – it always comes up for a discussion on every Independence Day.

The Lord's Trustee

The Lord’s Trustee

(This was published in Marine Lines December 2018)

It was a February evening when having witnessed the beautiful sunset near the war memorial I walked back to this small bar on Jalandhar Beach in Diu. On the counter sat an old frail man with two women and the three chattered incessantly about small little things. I wanted to get high and hence ordered a Feni which I gulped pretty quickly for my normal drinking pace.

Once I had been hit by the alcohol, I sauntered over to the threesome and told Mansukh and his two wives that I was a client who had visited his bar and restaurant almost two decades back. This set the ball rolling with the old man retorting, “Those were the good old heady days. Life is still wonderful. My daughters are married and sons have migrated to Europe. I have shut down the restaurant, given the guest house on lease and run the bar to pass the twilight of my life with these two dames,” he said.

Just as I walked out, memory took me back several years when I had first visited Jay Shankar Guest House, Bar and Restaurant recommended by local bureaucracy and the ‘firangs’ whom I had met as I moved around sozzled trying to make up for the days being wasted in dry Gujarat without a decent drink.

The place had been boisterous and the middle aged lively Mansukh had spared a few minutes from the busy routine to interact with me.  The meeting had ended with him refusing to charge anything for the sumptuous meal that I had of mind blowing tuna and pomfret. He only took money for the beer that I had guzzled.  The logic given by him was, “The food is cooked at my home and is given by Lord Shiva while the alcohol comes after paying to the government for the bar license.”

The story of his life as he told me that evening continues to rebound even after so many years. Mansukh used to be a small time vegetable vendor who mainly sold potatoes at the local vegetable market in the pristine island of Diu. A leader of the vegetable vendors, he was living a quiet contended life with his two wives and six children in a small house overlooking the Jalandhar Beach, an out of the world location for a travel enthusiast. Life comprised potato sales, afternoon siestas and an evening devoted to his favourite deity Lord Shiva.

But enhancing his income remained a concern which was eventually addressed by an acquaintance who told him, “You have a house at a prominent location. Diu is full of travelers. Why don’t you start a small eatery? “

From the next day Mansukh kept a huge ice box containing soft drinks for sale along with small packets of biscuits and wafers. The tourists shuffling between the Diu Fort, Jalandhar and Nagwa beaches on bicycles usually halted at his small shack.

It was a July afternoon when a white American or European tourist on a bicycle halted and said, “Can I have some Pepsi and food?”  Now, Mansukh’s knowledge of English comprised bare minimum vocabulary and all he could speak of the Queen’s language was ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Thank You’.

Since he only understood the term Pepsi, he promptly said yes and handed over a bottle to the visitor. After a while, the visitor again asked, “I wanted some food and Pepsi.” Mansukh again said yes and handed over another bottle. This irked the visitor who peeped inside the house to see whether anything was being cooked. All he saw was Mansukh’s family sprawled on the floor.

The annoyed visitor handed him the money, scowled at him and probably abused him.  This left Mansukh in tears as he tried to understand what had gone wrong and where.

Sitting close by was another of his customers having her soft drink. She was a French native named Stephanie who was pursuing a course in Hindi in Paris and was observing what was going on. She walked up to Mansukh and asked him, “Didn’t you understand what he wanted?” Mansukh told her his part of the story.

“It was Stephanie who persuaded me to start a small eating joint. She taught me the bland cuisine that the Europeans liked. From thereon our enterprise took off. For the next few months she would market my outlet among the foreign tourists. We followed a rule. My wives cooked and my children served. There was no extra hand to help run the joint that slowly became a restaurant,” he had related.

She also helped him set up a guest house that was a rage among the foreign backpackers. The rooms were neat, came cheap and there was the cuisine that they wanted. In addition was a stock pile of books and magazines in several languages which many of them left back.

“Then at one point she asked me to marry her. I refused saying that I could not go in for a third matrimony and more kids,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.

So Stephanie left after a few more months but before she departed she got an Israeli friend of her to keep helping Mansukh. His Jay Shankar Guest House was soon granted a bar license and it became Diu’s sought after place.

But throughout his walk to prosperity Mansukh never failed to thank his Lord. Neither did he give up his vocation of selling potatoes. Perhaps this was the drive that had led him to walk into the office of the local revenue department one fine day and transfer his entire property in the name of Lord Shiva.

“I am convinced that all this belong to the Lord. I am just his trustee managing the things. Who would have thought that I would get so much in terms of money, popularity and love? It’s the Lords work,” he had said while sending me off that September evening 17 years ago.

How much he was adored was visible from the visitor book that he had maintained at that time. The comments from his clients all over the glob were amazing. They were full of wit, fun and spoke of the loveliness of life.

I wanted to know whether Stephanie maintained contact with him after all these years. “Yes she does call off and on,” he said with eyes that still sparkle at her name.

“Where are your visitors’ books? I want to re-read them,” I said.

“They are lying dumped somewhere. I do not have the energy left in me to even sort out the books,” he said with remorse.

A friend recently told me that he has taken to writing the name of his Lord hundreds of times on a piece of paper every day. The clock of his life has clicked away. He continues to run the small bar with minimal clientele. Old timers like me who have witnessed his hay days do go to him once in a while to see the Lord’s trustee at work.

This piece was penned during my last visit to Diu around three years back. I hope Mansukh and his old dames are doing well. I crave for a visit to him very soon.

People and places ---http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=4917&Munabao,/The/Destination/To/Nowhere

Munabao :Destination to Nowhere

RAJEEV KHANNA Wednesday, August 26, 2015

For the majority of Indians, particularly the middle class fed on jingoistic diatribe of the right wing, the term border immediately brings images of the Wagah border. This is the spot on the India-Pakistan that daily witnesses a beating retreat ceremony that is marked by cheering crowds on both sides who also shout slogans against each other. In short, the Wagah border has become a major tourist destination for any Indian visiting Amritsar wishing to get their thrills from the militaristic routine every evening. 

But far away in the desert of Rajasthan is another point on the border of the two countries to which one can go for a fascinating journey. This place makes one ponder on the very concept of borders, divisions and separations. One is just consumed by thoughts. Very few people are aware of the daily local train that goes from Barmer to Munabao, the zero point station on the border. 

There is a Thar Express also that runs between Bhagat ki Kothi station near Jodhpur and Karachi, with Munabao being the place where the immigration process is carried out amid tight security.

But the journey by the morning local train is an experience in itself. Anyone who is not a resident of Munabao and adjoining villages has to obtain permission from the local authorities to undertake the 118 km journey that is completed in a little over two hours. With there being no facility at Munabao station, one has to come back by the same train after a brief halt of about an hour. One is confronted by the personnel of security agencies the moment one steps out of the station premises. On the other side is a similar station of Khokrapar in Pakistan. 

The train leaves Barmer every morning to move amidst the desert on a serpentine track. The topography has a rustic charm and beauty of it own. Small hamlets make one wonder what it would be like to live at such a place. 

The stillness of the locales makes one think of so many things, particularly about the problems that the locals face on both sides of this border on a desert landscape. If one strikes a conversation with the locals traveling on the train, they provide the traveler with a glimpse of their lives.

Water continues to be the most precious commodity in the villages. “We have a local saying that there is no loss even if one spills buckets of ghee at home but even a drop of water lost is a major loss,” said a woman traveler to this reporter. She narrated that people are largely dependent on water tankers set by the government. Then of course there are issues related to the other social parameters of employment, education and healthcare. 

“We know that we share the miseries with those on the other side. Their plight is no different. We stand divided even in our miseries and sorrows, “said another villager. 

Munabao station has nothing to offer to any visitor. The last civilian human settlement is at Jaisingder located 9 km away or at Gadra Road 38 km away. The station is marked only by the presence of some railway employees and a Border Security Force (BSF) camp outside. Just half a kilometer away is the actual border marked by a small gate. There is no tea shop, no hawker. 

Munabao has only thoughts to offer to a visitor. The stillness and the quiet compel one to ponder over man made divisions. There are so many ifs and buts that come to mind. One is unnerved thinking how a uniform landscape, culture, people and their problems are defined in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’. 

(Photographs taken by Rajeev Khanna)

Childhood Recalls

In memory of a tree

There was this tree, a rather huge one by our childhood standards. It ‘stood’ in the small grassy playground at one end of the colony. I say ‘stood’ because it was just upright without any movement even when there was a gale blowing. Its branches formed a pyramidal shape reminding me of the Christmas tress we see in our kindergarten books. I always had a burning desire to climb up to its top.

Now this approximately 50 feet high tree meant a lot to us i.e. my friends and me. Not that we had the zeal of environmentalists or something like that but purely for our selfish childish reason. It was a haunt where we could retreat from the world of our elders whenever we felt like. When we got a scolding or a spanking or were under a potential threat of getting one, we would simply run out and climb this tree. It did not matter to us whether it was a rainy day or night.

Sometimes we friends just climbed it for fun particularly in spring when dozens o sparrows and pigeons had built their nests on its branches. It was fun watching those nests with eggs and little birds that had come out of them. At times we got angry pecks from the mother birds on our foreheads and elbows. But that was a part of the game. The tree was a dormitory of a maternity hospital for these birds where evenings seemed to be the visiting hours. The noise of chirping was tremendous during the evening.

We used every part of this tree in a particular way. When we played hide and seek or wanted to have ‘confidential’ discussions or play with the birds, we would climb its branches. When it came down to playing a game of cricket we used its think base as our wickets. All that we had done to mark the wickets was to peel off the bark to a particular height. The tree never complained.

Then, whenever one of its branches cracked or hung down after heavy rain or snow, we used it for the famous ‘Tarzan swing’. In fact, we thought our skills to be better than that of Tarzan. My friends who were a bit elder to me looked at the tree a bit more rationally. For them the huge hulk of the tree blocked the breeze from entering the ground facilitating an uninterrupted game of badminton.

Then all of a sudden our tree went dry. The birds residing there migrated. Its branches started cracking when we climbed it. It had turned into a skeleton ever since the people from the electricity department tampered with it by running various wires around it and putting a transformer right next to it. Our elders used to say that it was ‘dying’ but we kids felt it was being ‘murdered’. Finally one day it was hacked or what we felt ‘buthereced’.

Fourteen years after the ‘slaughtering’, the same playground appears to be a corpse whose soul vanished with the fall of the tree. The present generation of kids plays cricket there but they have to pile up bricks for wickets. Their game of badminton is interrupted regularly by strong gusts of wind. In frustration they exclaim, “There would have been no problem if there was a huge tree over here.”

I just smile on listening to them Besides, they don’t even know the art of climbing trees because they don’t even imagine that there was a tree right where they stand desiring for one.

It is only we friends [now grown ups] who pay homage to the departed soul by remembering it whenever we get together on festivals and remember our childhood.