Pitaji
In times of despair and depression, whom do you turn to? Till when do you strive to survive and when do you decide to give up? A thousand such questions must have occupied the mind of those who lived during the Mid-August of 1947, in regions which were to be remarked with new borders, in places which were to be renamed and in homes which they soon had to abandon. Countless stories were to be erased while innumerable others were trying to last. These stories revolved around and crossed each other, but perhaps seldom met. One such story was narrated to us by ‘Pita ji’. A Hindu who was living in India, which was to be converted to Pakistan after partition, and moved to the ‘present day’ India after days of labor. We reckon if our words can ever do justice to their struggle. Their struggle of finding peace in the uproar of cries, to withhold oneness when the nation fell in two pieces, to live when all they saw was blood and death. Pita ji tells us that due to the lack of connectivity and electronic media, it was only through the word of mouth and speculations around the tense national environment that they came to know of partition. He was in ninth standard and went with some men to a neighboring village to bring his brothers. Narrating his story, he told us that they all carried weapons in their own capacity for self-defense. They had to pass through a Muslim village, which they did and what they had feared happened. Muslims took them as attackers judging from their arms and ran towards them. However, in the midst of the crowd, which apparently could have killed them was an aged old wise man who gave them the opportunity to speak, allowed them to go unharmed and even accompanied them for some distance to protect them, declining the constant demands of the young in the village crowd who wanted to take revenge on pitaji and his accompaniers. Pitaji tells us that it was only for that old man, that they came back alive. That old man who was a Muslim, that old man who too was scared for his life, that old man who stood for the larger ray of hope and light when the dark had come upon all. Pitaji left the village with his family on a bullock cart taking whatever belongings they could. They travelled with a Kaafila with thousands of other people who were trying to reach their new ‘home’. Their bulls were weak and it was difficult for them to keep up with Kaafila. Worse came upon him when he forgot his bulls somewhere on the way and had to go all the way back for them. As a result, he was parted from his sisters and it was only after days of waiting, toil and determination to survive that he met his sisters and burst into tears of reunion. They lived under constant danger of death, which was looming large on all. They were told that if they fail to catch up with the kaafila and are left here, they would be killed. Living through days of hunger, battling hopelessness and fighting the constant fear of death, they reached ‘Fa Dargah’. Pita Ji, tells us that thousands of dead bodies could be seen flowing in the water. People were butchered and thrown into flowing streams of water. Dead bodies which were no longer Hindu or Muslim, dead bodies which were dead, just dead. Pita ji managed to reunite with his family, but a thousand others were parted forever without ever having to say goodbye. Pita ji found his new home, but a thousand others did not. Pita ji survived, but a thousand others died.