The Weary Generations (47 page)

Luckily, the column suffered no real attack until they reached the outskirts of Amritsar; there were only intimations of the danger from the dead bodies strewn along the roadside, among the fields and around villages and cities. Successfully skirting these, they felt shielded from evil by a similar column of refugees going ahead of them that had borne the brunt of the attacks, thus easing the situation for them who followed. This view was confirmed by a quite extraordinary sight at one place. There was a horde of Sikhs and Hindus, sitting by the wayside, their spears, swords and long-handled cleavers, and also their clothes, covered in blood, as if they were waiting to kill the new arrivals. The refugees failed to see them until they turned a corner and found themselves on top of them. The people on foot started running while the cart-owners began furiously to beat their beasts. Hardly one of the attackers moved; they remained still, looking at the fleeing herd with nothing more than tired unconcern on their faces. After the column had cleared the danger spot, it dawned on them, from the scores of dead bodies over which they had stumbled, that the attackers had killed so many so recently, possibly only minutes before, that they could not be bothered to do any more of the same. The people in the column felt doubly beholden to the ones who had passed before them and fallen; they silently recited holy verses from the Quraan to bless their souls and to thank God for providing them with the shelter of the freshly dead so that they themselves would live.

There were rare stretches of ground that were comparatively tranquil. They would take refuge under a growth of dense old trees around a field or in a small forest and make forays into villages disguised as Hindus, or those who had beards would wrap sheets round their heads to look like Sikhs
and pick up drinking water and other sustenance. They would come back and sell the food that was surplus to their own needs at a profit to those who had not had the heart to venture into dens of danger. All the wells had been contaminated by the rainwater overflowing into them from the ground, so clean water was only to be had from pumps dug in people's houses, thus fetching the highest price, especially from those who were dying of thirst. As their destination came nearer, hopes of survival grew, and acquiring money finally took priority over everything else. Those, however, were the marginally happier days …

Back in Delhi, Roshan Agha's family were at the airport, waiting for their flight. They were sitting in the superior lounge of the air terminal with their hand luggage on the floor beside the sofa chairs; Naheed was gripping a large handbag containing her jewellery in her lap with both hands and a half-satisfied expression on her face, while Azra, sitting away from her, looked blank, her empty hands resting lightly on the arms of the chair. Roshan Agha was in a wheelchair between the two women. There was bewilderment on his sallow face. Pervez and Imran were away at the check-in counter in the departure hall, haggling about getting on board the aircraft nearly fifty locked containers as accompanied baggage. ‘I am Assistant Commissioner, Delhi,' he was saying, ‘I have opted for Pakistan. We are all going. I want all this as accompanied baggage, none unaccompanied. I was given assurances by Mr Mehta, your General Manager. This is his card, you can speak to him …' Their flight was delayed for two hours, then for several hours more for unknown reasons. They all waited in the comfortable lounge, sipping ice-cold water. Outside, in the arrival and departure halls, there was pandemonium approaching a riot. It was hot and humid. Sweat pouring from their bodies, drenching them and their clothes, a thousand people were pushing, shoving, swearing and screaming to get to their uncertain future.

Naim was lucky in two respects: one, few were more worldly-wise than Ali, who was always the first to go into nearby villages at stop-overs posing as a Hindu traveller from the next village, speaking the local dialect and getting provisions; and, second, he had money in his pocket. He came back with water and food for the two of them and dry cut grass for the mule, all bought with cash. Every time he returned with his purchase, Naim asked him, ‘Has your money not run out yet?'

‘Why do you keep worrying about money?' Ali would reply. ‘I have enough for us. I have worked all my life and earned it and kept it. I am not
telling you how much I have.'

‘Where did you work?' Naim once asked him when the column was on the move.

‘Everywhere. Kulkutta.'

‘You went to Calcutta?'

‘Yes. I wanted to join the army. Do not imagine I wanted to get rid of my hand or win a medal. I only wanted to go to Burma.'

‘Did you go then?'

‘They said we would go. But we did parades and nothing but parades. One day I said to the sergeant, “The day you were born your mother's milk split in her teats and you became a coward.” They put me under guard for three weeks and then kicked me out.'

‘You were lucky,' Naim said.

‘Why, because I did not lose my hand?'

‘You would have been taken prisoner by the Japanese and died there.'

‘I wouldn't. If I were to die I would have died in the factories.'

‘But that was later when the war started,' Naim said. ‘Where did you go before that?'

‘I came here to Punjab. I was in Lahore once before but only for two days, it was no good then. But I liked the city. After Aisha passed away I came back here and got jobs in electric shops for three years.'

‘And then?'

‘Then what?'

‘Where did you go after that?'

‘Dilli.'

‘You were in Delhi?'

‘Yes. I could get work anywhere.'

‘How long were you there?'

‘Many years.'

‘But I was there too. I went back to the village once and sent Rawal looking for you. He couldn't find you.'

‘Just as well. I would have killed him. I hope he is already dead.'

‘Don't say that. Not at a time like this.'

‘And his wife and child, I hope they are dead too. Hey,' Ali turned to an old man walking alongside the cart, ‘take your hand off the wood, puts a drag on the animal.'

‘What did you do in Delhi?' Naim asked him.

‘Have you become a fool? Worked in electric shops, what else? I saw you there once.'

‘Where?'

‘I was sent to do some work in your big house.'

Naim sat up. ‘Where, when, what work?'

‘Mended a short-circuit in the kitchen.'

‘And you saw me?'

‘You came out of the house and got into a black car and went. I asked the maid and she said you were bibi's husband and you went every day to work in the Viceroy's office.'

‘And you didn't stop me?'

‘How could I?' Ali said.

Naim was quiet for a long time.

‘This,' said the old man, as if talking to himself, his hand still on the side plank of Ali's cart for support, pointing with his other hand to the dead bodies that lay in the fields they were passing, ‘is history.'

‘Oi, you old beggar, stuff your history in your mother's hind legs. Don't you listen? I told you to take your hand off my cart, the poor animal is already dead finished. You want a blow of this before you will listen,' Ali said, raising the cane in his hand that he used for beating the mule.

‘Let him,' Naim said. ‘Leave him be.'

‘He's putting a drag on it,' Ali said sullenly.

The man wasn't very old, he only looked like it with his scraggly beard, dirty face and torn clothes. Naim liked his face; it had a rounded softness to it, although the cheeks had sunk.

‘What's your name?' Naim asked him after a while.

‘Jamaluddin.'

‘Where do you come from?'

‘Aligarh.'

‘Nice town,' Naim said.

‘Very nice. I was born in the city and stayed there all my life.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Taught history at the University.'

‘You were a professor?'

‘I was. Now I profess nothing. I taught old history, rajas and maharajas and the Mughals and English kings. Waste of time. This,' he pointed again to the corpses in the field, ‘is history now. I shall be teaching this next to the boys and girls so they don't forget. Only what you don't forget is history.'

‘You'll never get to your next history if you keep yapping like that,' Ali taunted him again.

‘Hop on to the cart,' Naim said to the man.

The professor took an awkward leap. Ali looked angrily over his
shoulder and started beating the mule, which broke into a gallop under the whip. The man hung half off the back of the cart. Naim pulled him in.

That night, after safely bypassing the city of Amritsar, they heaved a sigh of relief. Jalandhar and Amritsar were the main danger points, teeming with Sikhs inflamed by the sight of Hindu and Sikh refugees fleeing in similar columns and trains from the opposite direction and arriving with nothing to show but tears. Past Amritsar, they knew they were now within striking distance of the border. They relaxed and set down for the night in a field sheltered by trees and with no village in sight.

‘We'll be all right,' Ali said, crawling under the cart for a few hours' rest. ‘We will go to Lahore. I know every part of the city. I can get work there any time.'

‘No,' Naim said to him, ‘we will go to the village.'

‘What village?'

‘Any village. We will get land there and work on it.'

Ali gave Naim a look of suspicion in the dark. ‘How can we get land?'

‘We will put in a claim in return for the land we left behind.'

‘Have you got papers for the land in Roshan Pur?'

‘No.'

‘Then how?'

‘We will do something,' Naim said. ‘If nothing else, you have money, we will buy land.'

‘It's not enough to buy land, only for a month's food for us. I am not throwing my money away on some land when I can get paying work the very first day.'

‘No,' Naim insisted. ‘It is good to work on the land. We will grow our own food, don't have to rely on anyone else. Good open air as well, healthy life.'

‘You know how many other things we need to grow a crop?'

‘Yes, yes, we will do something,' Naim said again.

Ali kept looking at Naim as if he thought his brother had lost his mind. ‘My money is not for you and your foolish ideas,' he said. ‘It is my own money.' He turned away, putting an arm under his head on the ground.

Just before dawn they were attacked, for the first and last time during their flight. A horde of Sikhs, armed with spears, swords, daggers and lathis, took them by surprise. A few of them were on horses, the rest on foot. The horsemen were looking only for women. They simply went round the column and grabbed young girls, flinging them sideways over the front of their horses and galloping away. The half-darkness of dawn came alive with the screams of girls as young as ten and eleven being
snatched and taken away. Older men on foot lifted older women, at places two men subduing and carrying away a powerfully flailing woman. Most of the group, merely enraged with the passion for revenge, simply killed, sinking sharp weapons into the bellies of men, women and children. The smell of fresh-spilled blood filled the air. Many people in the column, even some who owned carts, got up and fled on foot, leaving everything behind, including the carts, which were seized by the attackers. Ali kept his head. He pushed Naim up on to the cart and drove the mule, beating it fiercely with his cane as well as the reins amid the yells and cries of the attackers and the attacked, not minding whether he ran over his own people as they fled on foot. He had only gone a short distance before a few of the invaders jumped at the mule, catching hold of its mouthpiece. The cart came to a halt. Other Sikhs pulled Naim off the back of the cart.

Ali let go of the reins and turned round. ‘Don't take him,' he begged, ‘he is sick.'

They beat Naim on the head with lathis.

‘No, no, in the name of Parmatma,' Ali put his palms together in front of their faces, then bent down to touch their feet, ‘in the name of Guru Gurnanak, don't beat him, he is not well, look, look here.' With trembling hands he rolled up Naim's sleeve and quickly unhinged the wooden limb, holding it up to them. ‘Here, see, he has only one –'

A lathi fell on Ali's hand, knocking the wooden arm to the ground, and another on his head.

‘Here,' he wept, ‘wait, wait.' He took out the money from the secret inner pocket of his shalwar. ‘Take this, take the lot, I have no more,' he pulled the secret pocket inside out to show them, ‘nothing, take everything – just – leave him –' They grabbed the money. Two lathis fell simultaneously on Ali and Naim. Naim fell in a motionless heap on the ground. A spear's blade shone near Ali's eyes. He glanced back for a way out and saw several men on top of his cart, holding the reins. He turned and ran. The Sikhs pursued him a little way, then, diverted by other prey nearer to them, gave up the chase.

A half-mile down the road, Ali ran out of breath. The voices behind him had died down. He sat down in the dust on the ground, looking fixedly at an ant-heap while he tried to regain his breath. After a few minutes, he turned to take a look at the desolate landscape behind him, scanning the width of it with his eyes. Then he raised his face and both his arms to the sky and let out howl after dry, animal howl, the pain in his eyes not letting the tears come.

‘R
AI
M
ANZIL' WAS
a sprawling, solidly constructed double-storey house built in the 1870s by Rai Bahadur Kaidar Nath, a big local landlord, in the outskirts of Lahore. After his death, his two sons and their families lived in the house until July 1947. The Rais, Rajput Hindus traditionally close to the Muslim culture, were nevertheless swept up in the frenzy of Partition, worked up daily by columns and trainloads of refugees arriving from India with tales of atrocities visited upon them by the Hindus. Receiving information on the quiet from their friends, the two families left secretly for India under the protection of the army authorities. When a Muslim mob attacked the house a few days later, they found neither the residents nor any valuables in the place. In their anger, they put the building to the torch. The fire succeeded only in burning down the eastern half of the house before it was brought under control – mostly by the efforts of Muslim neighbours who feared the conflagration would spread to their own equally large houses.