This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (88 page)

Everyone wanted to console the mother of the dead baby. Women clasped children to their chest and wiped their eyes on aanchals. For the next two hours the compartment rang with the heart-rending wailing of the grieving mother, of women crying in sympathy, and of children bawling. Gradually the others, except for the baby’s mother, began to nod off and fall asleep. At the next stop, the father and uncle of the dead baby climbed down from the roof. The family mourned together for their lost one. Passengers from other compartments gathered to commiserate with and console the parents. A pick and a shovel were borrowed from the station office, and the baby was buried in a field about fifty yards from the tracks. The grieving parents were led back to the train. The train stood there for about two hours.

The morning of the third day dawned on the women in the suffocating compartment. A bright, hot sun rose over the horizon. For two hours, it shone into the eyes of tired and jaded women before rising above the level of windows. The train was inching along towards the platform of a station. On a signal cabin, Tara saw the sign: Ambala City. She roused Banti. They began to get ready to get off. Both had decided to go to a camp for refugees until they would find another shelter.

Only a few passengers got off at Ambala from the train that was headed to Kurukshetra. Tara and Banti, holding hands, their bundles under their
arms, followed the flow of passengers towards the exit.

Banti was clinging to Tara’s hand. Suddenly, without letting go, she pulled Tara to one side and called out, ‘Sadhu! Oye Sadhu! O Sadhuramma!’

‘Fresh roasted nuts! Come and buy my nuts like almonds! Only two paise each!’ A small boy sang to advertise his merchandise. Banti rushed towards the boy vendor.

A boy of about nine, wearing a shirt and shorts, was selling paper cones filled with peanuts from a bag hanging from his shoulder.

He looked at the woman who called to him, and ran towards her and hugged her waist, ‘Chachi! Chachi! Where have you been? When did you get here? Where’s sister Satto?’

Banti held the boy in her arms and wept.

The boy asked over and over, ‘Where were you, Chachi? You arrived just now? Where’s sister Satto?’

Banti put her hand on the boy’s chin, raised his face and kissed him on the forehead, ‘My Jaggi is here, yes? Where are his bhaiyaa and his tayaa? Take me to them.’

‘Uncle Gopal and Uncle Manohar went to Delhi. Uncle Manohar came back for a day. My lalla would know,’ replied the boy and again asked, ‘Where’s my sister Satto?’

Banti ignored the question and said, ‘Take me to your lalla and bebbe.’

The boy’s face fell and tears came to his eyes, ‘Ma died after we came here. She got really sick in the train. She was always crying for Satto. Severe stomach cramps would make her faint.’ He dried his tears on his sleeve. ‘Father is here at his shop at the crossroads in the bazaar. Let’s go there.’

Holding Tara tightly with one hand and putting the other on the boy’s shoulder, Banti went along, talking about his mother.

Sadhu took out two packets from his bag. Holding them out to Banti, he said, ‘Here, auntie, have some peanuts. I get a rupee or a rupee and a quarter selling these here in front of the station.’ There was a ring of pride in his voice. He had forgotten about his mother.

As they neared the crossroads, the boy ran ahead to announce the arrival of a friend from his village. His father, Boodha Mull, stepped out of his shop.

Banti had brought the news of the boy’s sister Satto and now knew about the death of Sadhu’s mother. She drew a ghunghat over her face and bewailed her grief.

Bhoodha Mull was from the Arora caste, Banti’s caste was Khattri. Their clans were different. Custom forbade marriages between the two castes, but as their families lived in adjacent houses, Banti regarded him as an elder brother-in-law. To show him respect, she used to cover her head and face when he was around. Bhooda Mull too broke into loud sobs. To observe the ritual of grieving, Banti beat her breast, ‘Hai, hai, Satto, you were so young! Where did you fly away to, my little bird?’

Bhoodha Mull’s middle-aged widowed sister-in-law came out from the back of the shop with Sadhu’s baby sister in her arms. She covered her face with a ghunghat, hugged Banti and began to weep and wail. She also hugged Tara, thinking her to be a relative of Banti. Tara had never had to participate in such grieving rituals before her marriage. Newly married women were also exempt from this custom, but how could she say anything? Tears came to her eyes also. She did not wail, but cried silently.

Refugee women living behind other shops came and sat around them to take part in the customary grieving. The shops of Muslim bakers, tinsmiths, ironmongers, cobblers and dairymen in this area before the Partition now belonged to Hindu haberdashers, dry goods grocers and mithai sellers.

When Bhoodha Mull’s sister-in-law stopped to catch her breath after the first bout of wailing and grieving, Banti asked about her son.

The sister-in-law said, ‘Gopaldas and Manohardas stayed here for about ten days, then left for Delhi with their mother and the child. Three days ago Manohardas came back for a day.’

The news of Satto’s death had to be conveyed to her father by Banti, ‘When the Muslims killed chacha Pali Shah near the well, and drove you all away by beating you with the butts of their machetes and spears, they began to manhandle the young women. That swine Baqar—may seven generations of his family be infested with worms—pulled at Satto’s arm saying, ‘This one’s mine.’ Satto wrenched her arm free and jumped into the well…’

The sister-in-law beat her breast and head with both hands and howled without hearing any more, ‘Hai, hai! O my girl, born after so many offerings to the gods!’ She wailed for a while, then unable to keep up such an energetic observance of grief for long, just wept in silence.

Banti told the rest of the women, ‘The other girls and I ran towards the well, but those dogs tripped us with their lathis and dragged us away.’ She wept as she spoke, to keep the sister-in-law company.

The neighbours, one by one, began to describe how they had suffered at
the hands of the Muslims, and how some Hindus had taken revenge on the Muslims. One woman said mournfully, ‘Whether a Hindni or Musalmani, the one who died without being violated and dishonoured was the luckiest. Sister, a woman can be trampled and trodden on by anyone. She is regarded as a cow or goat that can be taken over by anybody, who can be sacrificed just because she belongs to the enemy. What sins must we have committed in our past lives to be born as women?’

Banti gave several sighs in agreement. Tara listened in stony silence, as if she had turned into a statue.

The sister-in-law was weeping loudly. The neighbours sat with her for about an hour, then returned to their chores that had been left undone. The grieving family was not from their community, or even neighbours from their village, so they were not obliged to observe the custom of sitting and sharing their grief at the cost of their own household work.

Banti interrupted her lamentations to ask Bhoodha Mull about her son and husband.

Bhoodha Mull said, ‘Manohardas seemed all right when he came three days ago. He came to get the medicine for your baby from a hakim in the Dari Wala Bazaar.’

‘Is my darling baby all right?’ Banti cried.

‘No need to worry, bhabhi,’ Bhooda Mull replied. ‘You know, such a long journey, with a change of climate. Children get sick for the slightest of reasons. Your son’s stomach got upset while he was here. We took him to a doctor, but that had little effect. Then we got the medicine from the hakim in the Dari Wala Bazaar. His medicines can work wonders. That medicine worked, so his uncle had come to get more. It was only a touch of indigestion, he told us. Nothing to worry about. They’ve found a house. Both brothers have begun doing their rounds as cloth merchants.’

Banti joined her hands and begged, ‘No, tell me the truth. Swear on my head, what was wrong with my baby. He was cutting his teeth; children really suffer when they’re teething.’

Bhoodha Mull assured her that Manohardas had said that it was nothing serious. ‘… The baby was in pain, but that soon passed. They’re living in some mohalla, that used to be a Muslim area. Delhi is full of Hindus now. There are no Muslims left here, either.’

Before offering them a drink of water, Bhoodha Mull sent Sadhu to get some mithai from the shop nearby, and putting the leaf cup of sweetmeats in
front of Banti, said, ‘You shouldn’t drink water on an empty stomach. This water’s from an unfamiliar source, and might not agree with you. It’s not water from our own village. That water was better than the milk from here.’

Banti was relieved after talking with the neighbour from her village, and knowing that her son and husband were both well. The feeling of relief also left her impatient to be back with her son and husband as soon as possible. With a neighbour’s baby girl in her lap, as if the child was her own Jaggi, she and the sister-in-law sat for a while reminiscing about old times.

Boodha Mull wanted this neighbour from his village, who had been presumed dead, to stay with him for at least two days, but he also understood Banti’s impatience to be with her family. He explained that the train situation was very bad. Manohardas had come by bus from Delhi, and taken another bus back. Banti and Tara were overwhelmed by the memory of their fifty hours in the jam-packed train. Bhoodha Mull took them to the depot from which buses left for Delhi.

Banti offered him five rupees, all the money that she had.

Without even looking at the proffered money, Bhoodha Mull said in a sad tone, ‘Bhabhi, what if we are facing the worst of times? You are from my village, so you are like my sister, and your husband is like my brother. Can’t I do this much for you?’ He paid their fares and found them seats in the bus.

The bus that left Ambala with Tara and Banti in the morning reached Delhi just as the sun was setting. The neighbourhoods and streets that the bus had to pass through before reaching the terminus were so filled and packed with refugees that Tara could only look on in silent bewilderment. Those who could not find shelter indoors were camping under tarpaulins on footpaths and roofs.

Across the wide street from the bus terminus, in one corner of a park with an iron fence, were two small tents. Above them was a white banner with bold red lettering in Hindi, English, Punjabi and Urdu, announcing that this was the Refugee Information Office.

Many people were heading towards the tents, carrying their belongings. Tara and Banti followed. The office distributed the refugees according to the space available in the various camps around the city. One volunteer took a group of refugees to the camp just outside Kashmiri Gate.

Lights had come on by the time Tara and Banti reached the camp. An amplifier broadcast names and addresses of persons separated from their
families. Tara gave the address of Banti’s family at the registration desk, and registered herself as Banti’s sister. They both were given cards to draw their rations. Newly arrived refugees were also offered cooked rotis or handfuls of roasted gram.

As Tara and Banti had no male guardian with them, they were sent to the hut reserved for women only. The hut was long and narrow, with walls made of reeds. The wide entrance had no doors or curtains. Outside, men and women made rotis over small cooking fires.

Beside the entrance to the hut for women, a youngish-looking woman sat with a grown-up girl, watching the people in other huts. As the woman asked Tara and Banti the name of their village and district, the sound of a child crying came from inside the hut.

The woman followed Tara and Banti inside the hut, explaining, ‘We two are in this corner. In that corner is a woman from Sangroor, and her daughter-in-law. This chatai here belongs to an old woman from Gujranwala. On the chatai in the middle is a woman from Kamalia and her son. You two can spread your chatais here next to the entrance.’

Tara and Banti could not see anything for a few seconds as their eyes were still blinded by the bright lights outside. Then in the light filtering through the flimsy walls they saw some steel trunks and stacks of bundles, piled up at both ends of the hut. A young woman stood on one side, gently rocking her crying baby to sleep. In the middle lay an old woman, with her knees drawn up.

Banti unrolled chatais side by side for herself and Tara. The same woman said, ‘There’s a water tap outside. You can use my lota for washing your hands and face. Hai, you don’t have any luggage or pots and pans. What’s your caste? We’re Sunars, goldsmiths.’

‘Khattri,’ replied Banti.

Another woman coming into the hut heard them, and said, ‘We are Sarswat Brahmins. Use my lota if you like.’

Banti borrowed lotas from the first woman and from the one who had just come in.

Tara and Banti washed at the faucet. Banti spread a corner of her dupatta on the chatai and set down the rotis they had been given at the camp office, with some water in the lota. Other than a glass of lassi they both had had in Ambala, they had eaten nothing during the whole day. They began to eat the rotis.

The woman they had first met came up and sat beside them, saying, ‘We listen to the radio all day in the hope that there might be some mention of my daughter’s in-laws. Our names were announced yesterday, and again today, but there’s no news of her in-laws, who had a jewellery business in Amnaabad. We’re from Hafizabad. We just managed to escape, but so many were killed.’

She leaned towards Banti and pointing at the old woman, said, ‘She’s from Gujranwala. Everyone in her family was murdered, and her house was burnt down. They thought she was useless, so they let her go. She just lies there sorrowing, never says a word, or goes to get her rations. Eats if any one of us gets her rations and cooks for her.’

She pointed at the woman rocking her baby, ‘Her husband was murdered, and they took away her sister-in-law. She has head wounds. Her three-year-old daughter and her mother-in-law are with her. That Brahmin woman who came in after you is a widow, with a four-year-old son. Her husband’s family left them at the railway station, and went to Bombay. Sister, who wants to take somebody else’s burden in these times?’