This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (63 page)

The rays of the sun still touched the treetops. Puri left the station and resumed his search for news of his family in the camps for refugees fleeing Lahore and western Punjab. Under the railway overbridge and at every place that could provide any kind of cover, people who had lost their homes and who had nowhere else to go, were huddling in an attempt to brave the elements.

It was almost dark by the time he was through visiting the shelters set up in various schools and temples, by both the branches of the Arya Samaj organization, in the gurudwaras and in a couple of orphanages in the cantonment area. He found the bedding roll that he had to carry about quite bothersome, but where could he safely leave this sole possession? That night he stayed at the Hindu camp set up in the Islamia School near the tonga stand.

Next morning he went round the city centre. He checked at the Arya School, Ram Sukh College, Takht Singh School, Gobar Mandi, at all the gurudwaras and Arya Samaj camps, and was returning through the Sarrafa Bazaar when he saw somebody standing in front of a shop who looked like his
friend Kalicharan Kaul. The young man, with several days’ growth of beard, looked like any other Muslim or Hindu who had not shaved because he was still in mourning. The man’s face looked haggard, with sunken cheeks. Maybe someone wearing clothes this dirty couldn’t be Kaul, but the women sitting by the goldsmith’s shop were definitely Kalicharan’s middle-aged mother, his younger sister Kailash, and his wife with their infant son. Their faces were pale and drawn, and their clothes dirty and crumpled.

Puri called out, ‘Kaul!’

The man looked at Puri when he heard the call. They stared at each other in suspense for a moment, then rushed forward and hugged one another.

Puri blurted out at once, ‘Have you seen Masterji anywhere? Have you been to the DAV School camp?’

Kaul shook his head in answer to the first question, and nodded in reply to the second. Answering other questions by Puri, he explained how the people of his gali had escaped most of the violence up to the time they had to leave. The reason they had to leave was not their Muslim neighbours. On the morning of 17 August, a detachment of armed Baluchi soldiers came and ordered all Hindus to leave their houses. The Hindus were not given any time to collect their valuables, clothes or any other belonging. ‘Get out in five minutes,’ was the order, and they were told that there was no space for any luggage or parcels in the trucks waiting to ferry them away. The only jewellery that Kaul family was able to carry out was whatever the women were wearing at the time.

Kaul’s mother broke into tears, ‘I had gold ornaments worth sixty tolas in my box at home. Now I’m left with only these eight or ten tolas’ worth that my daughter-in-law has on her, and the four gold bangles on Kailash’s wrists.’

Kaul said, ‘We had over a thousand rupees in cash in the house, but the soldiers didn’t let us touch anything. All I could do was to put on my jacket that was hanging from a peg. It had 27 rupees and 3 annas in one pocket and all that was used up at the camp. No one was allowed outside the camp. Inside, wheat sold for one seer a rupee, milk one seer a rupee; and it was hardly milk, just milk diluted with water. It was awful there. As luck would have it, Mahajan had somehow managed to bring along four hundred rupees. He’s smart, as you know.

‘This morning we were loaded on to trucks by the Indian Army. Mahajan has been sent to Amritsar, we couldn’t find any room beside him. Ten trucks
were sent to Amritsar, ten came here. We were dumped here, without a paisa in our pockets.’

Kaul wiped his eyes on his sleeve, ‘The baby’s hungry. We need a cup of milk for him. When we tried to sell the bangles, we were offered 145 when they’re worth twice that.’

‘Let me give you something. I have twenty on me,’ Puri offered, mentioning less than what he really had in his pocket. ‘Take ten.’

‘No,’ Kaul grasped Puri’s hand before he could pull out the money, ‘What’s the use? We’ll need a lot more than that. We’ll have to eat to stay alive. The only clothes we have are what we’re wearing. Haven’t had a wash for five days. I’ll have to buy the women at least one dhoti each.’

Puri gave a shiver when he learned that Kaul’s family had had nothing to eat. His experience of the past few days had taught him the meaning of real hunger. He held Kaul’s arm and insisted, ‘First get milk for the baby, and then you all should have some lassi. You can think about selling things off later.’

Kaul’s mother was very reluctant to accept the offer of lassi, but relented after Puri insisted and Kaul also spoke to her. Puri took them to a shop selling milk and yogurt, and had lassis made up of half a seer of yogurt for each of them.

Puri went with Kaul to several jewellers. The bangles were weighed and examined each time, but the highest offer they got was for 150 rupees.

Kaul said in disgust, ‘These are hard times, but our Hindu brothers want to have their pound of flesh. And they claim that they want to help their fellow Punjabis!’

Puri too was angry and frustrated at Kaul’s situation. He said, ‘I really don’t understand this strange display of piety by our fellow Hindus. Many are providing food and shelter, and yesterday some of them were giving away clothes to refugees in the camps in the cantonment, but they also want to suck the last drop of our heart’s blood. They want to have it both ways—to gain merit by feeding the hungry, and then exploit us by buying and selling to us without pity or scruple.’

Puri had been to all the camps in Ferozepur. He took Kaul’s family to the camp at Har Bhagwan School, which he thought was a little better than the others. Before they parted, Kaul said, ‘The Indian Army will not allow a Hindu on the road to Lahore. Either your family has already been sent to Amritsar, or will be sent to Amritsar or here in the next couple of days.
Go and look for them in Amritsar. I’ll keep a watch here. If I find them, I’ll let you know. But how would I get in touch?’

Puri said, ‘You can write to me care of the postmaster at Amritsar General Post Office. I’ll keep on checking in there.’

The main railway line from Ferozepur to Amritsar went through Kasoor Junction, on the opposite bank of the Sutlej river, which formed the frontier line with Pakistan. The rail service had been cancelled because of the repeated attacks and looting of the trains. The alternative train to reach Amritsar from Ferozepur ran on a branch line, via Lohiankhas and Jalandhar. Puri made up his mind to take that route to Amritsar.

The sun had risen when he arrived at Jalandhar station. A sea of people stretched as far as the eye could see. Hindu and Sikh refugees reaching Ferozepur had come mostly from the villages of western Punjab. In Jalandhar the refugees were predominantly shopkeepers and businessmen from the cities in the west.

A large improvised bazaar had sprung up on the maidan outside the station. Small pyramids of wheat and lentils were displayed for sale. At several places, masses of kitchen utensils and paraphernalia—tinplate and copper pots and pans, hookahs, spittoons and hand basins such as those found in Muslim homes, were being sold as scrap. Other peddlers had spread out used and new clothes for buyers to inspect. From the gaudy colours and the cheap brocade embroidery on cotton and silk, it was obvious that the clothes came from Muslim families.

Some people were selling small heaps of firewood of chopped or broken panels and the frames of doors and windows, charpoy frames, and the wheels and undercarriages of carts. Silver jewellery, of the kind worn by Muslim women, was also on sale.

A man was auctioning off fine clothes of silk and velvet, worn by Hindus, straight out of a luggage trunk. Two women sat silently next to him, their heads bowed.

Another man was inviting buyers to inspect his blanket.

Without paying attention to the bustle around, Puri went straight to the tent of the volunteer organization that housed the information office for the camp, carrying his bedding roll under his arm. When he did not get any news of his family there, he began making the rounds of other centres. He went to all camps run by the Arya Samaj, the camp at the D.A.V College that was quite a distance away, and to several gurudwaras. Horse carriages
for hire were few and far between, and were charging exorbitant rates. He had only 23 rupees and 7 annas left from the money Kanak had given him. How could he spend any of it on hiring a carriage? This sum of money was his only hope of survival, and of the possibility of finding his family. There was no chance for him to earn anything by working. Who would be willing to talk about short stories and articles when all people could think of was finding whatever shelter they could, and of selling everything they owned to buy food?

After walking all day in the sun, his body felt sticky and itched from the sweat drying on his skin. His face was caked with a layer of dust and sweat. Swollen with blood, his feet had puffed up inside his shoes. To top it all, lugging the rolled-up bed around was extremely tiring for him.

The sun was setting when Puri arrived at the Islamia College refugee camp. He again met with disappointment regarding news of his parents, his sisters and his brother. He had no strength left to walk any more. When he left the station in the morning, he had felt the craving for a glass of cold lassi. And finding a 3-anna glass of lassi being sold for 6 annas had infuriated him. If robbing someone under the threat of assault with a knife was a crime, wasn’t making someone empty out his pockets because he was hungry and thirsty also robbery?

Puri ate two chapattis and daal at a tandoor, and drank a lot of water. He thought of the elaborate breakfasts and meals he had been served with such style at the Astoria, and a smile crossed his lips over this irony of fate. He had been walking throughout the day carrying his rolled-up bedding. Every time he heard the calls of hawkers selling cold drinks of lassi or sherbet or fresh lemon
shikanjbeen
, he had suppressed his craving and looked around for tap water to quench his thirst. After the hunger, thirst and exhaustion of the day, it did not seem possible to go to another camp to continue his search, hauling his bedroll.

Puri saw that there were some unoccupied places in a side veranda of the Islamia College building. He walked up and saw that the desks and chairs used by students had been moved out of the classrooms and the luggage and beds of refugees now lay scattered inside. Women in dirty, bedraggled clothes, with sad grieving faces, were lying or sitting on charpoys and on the floor. The closed doors to several rooms displayed padlocks.

Many refugees had spread out their beds and piled their belongings in the veranda, which also had a room at either end. Puri saw a strip of
unoccupied space in the corner on his right. He put his bedding next to the wall, leaving a passage for anyone wanting to go into the room, and sat down on it.

He was startled when he heard his name called. He looked to his left.

Inside a room nearby, Badhawa Mull Narang was sitting on a dhurrie spread out on the floor. He sat cross-legged, with his hands supporting him. Both spoke simultaneously when their eyes met.

Narang asked, ‘Master Ramlubhaya is not with you?’

Puri’s question was, ‘Did you see my father anywhere?’

Puri asked again, ‘Didn’t you see him at any camp in Lahore?’

Behind Narang, with her back towards the door, lay Beyji, his wife. She too got up covering her head with a dupatta, and asked Puri when she recognized who he was, ‘Kakaji, were you not in Lahore?’

Puri gave a very brief account of his going to Nainital, of his decision to return after reading about Punjab in newspapers, of the train being terminated at Ludhiana, and asked, ‘How can I get some news of pitaji and others? Maybe they’re still in Lahore, in some refugee camp. How can I get back to Lahore?’

Beyji and Narang both replied together, ‘Wah kakaji, how can you go back to Lahore? It’s like jumping into a raging fire. And who’d let you?’

Narang went on, ‘We heard that all Hindus living in the mohallas of Rang Mahal, Bajaj Hatta and Machchi Hatta had fled by the fifteenth and sixteenth. The people living in Ram Gali left on the seventeenth. The Pakistani military people treated those families very callously. They were forced out of their houses, and their belongings were looted. Our area of Manso Gali was guarded by the Dogra Regiment. Every time the Muslims tried to attack, the soldiers fired at them.

‘Bhai, we had no plan to leave Lahore. If Lahore were to be in Pakistan, we had decided, we would live in Pakistan. On the eighteenth when the Pakistani flags were unfurled from other houses, the people of our gali also hoisted green flags, thinking that if we had to remain there, whatever was the new flag of the country, we’d accept it.

‘The Dogra soldiers told us in the afternoon that the Muslim officers wanted to clear the area of Hindus, who would be ordered to move to somewhere else. Baluchi soldiers were to replace them as our protectors. We had only four hours left. Actually, ever since the Ram Gali affair, we were afraid that we might have to leave at any moment. The women put on two of
every garment with all their jewellery underneath; so that even if we weren’t given any notice, they’d at least have an extra pair of clothes. The Baluchi soldiers hadn’t let the inhabitants of Ram Gali take away a single thing.

‘We quickly stuffed all our cash, valuables and a few clothes into suitcases. All the members of our family took a suitcase each and left the house. We couldn’t carry any bedding, sheets, pillows or anything like that. We had two new quilts made last winter, with velvet covers. Your Beyji wanted to carry them, in case they were needed.

‘I told her, “To hell with them! Our lives are at stake, and all you can think of is your quilts! If we have cash or gold with us, we can buy anything. Aren’t we leaving behind our business worth many lakhs of rupees, carpets worth thousands, all this furniture, trunks and cupboards full of stuff?” All we could get out were these five suitcases. These dhurries, sheets, kitchen utensils, thalis, bowls, glasses and mattresses, all were bought here. Doesn’t matter if we are without pillows. The only thing we brought with us was a lota and a tumbler for water.