The creation of Pakistan resulted in depriving me of my small room.
One summer when we were in Shimla, the country was partitioned. Suddenly one morning we learnt that India was going to win freedom at midnight and it was going to be divided into two parts.
India won freedom at midnight and we were rendered homeless and destitute.
Every time Darji remembered his land and house and the property of my maternal grandfather which would come to my mother in the natural course, he would feel sad. On such occasions I too would think wistfully of my fish, my neck-laces, books and my pens with smooth writing nibs.
I also remembered Lahore. By Lahore I meant my room.
I often thought of the bullock carts passing through our street at night, the lanterns hanging under them sending magnified shadows of their wheels rolling out on the road.
And the pathways made of mossy stones on Shimla Hill where nectar laden wild flowers grew. It was lovely to pluck those flowers and sip the honey-sweet nectar from their tiny stems.
And after a shower of rain you could see the red velvet insects with black dots on their backs and black rings around their necks, glistening in the mild sun.
I also missed the glowing fireflies which I used to capture and hold in my dupatta like a fistful of stars. Placing them on the palm of one hand which I covered with the other, I could see their light filtering through my skin and bones.
And the zoo where I identified every animal. I was especially fond of the otter who dived into water and sat flashing his silky brown skin at the edge of the pond by turns. He talked to me with his eloquent, round, black eyes.
And I missed my friend Rohini.
Before we had left for the hills we had seen the fire engulfing the entire city. Its fear was still fresh in our minds. We had spent the nights standing terror-stricken on our roofs and calling out to each other. “That is Shahalmi burning,” “Those flames are rising from Bhati Darwaza side,” “You can hear slogan shouting at Gwal Mandi.”
The camps were full of people coming from Pothohar, Rawalpindi and the North-West Frontier Province for whom clothes were being sewn, quilts stuffed with cottonwool and food cooked day and night in thousands of homes. Darji who, along with Shere-Punjab Amar Singh and Giani Gurmukh Singh Musafir, had been working at hoisting the tricolour on our terrace on 26 January, which was considered an act of treason and therefore required great courage, was now busy taking care of the families of people in jail and looking after the unfortunate people in the refugee camps. He would come home and tell their stories to Beeji. Listening to them, I would feel terribly distressed. At the same time I felt very proud of my father.
But we were talking about my small home where a fish hung by a nail in the wall. That room was lost to me during that traumatic time like a child separated from his father at a fair.
In time I started getting used to living in Shimla. I became acquainted with a few bushes, made friends with some pathways and shared my secrets with some trees.
I also made friends with a girl in the neighbourhood. Her name was Savinder. The basis of our friendship was our shared passion for long walks and the resistance to that by our respective families. They did not consider it proper that girls of our age should go for walks alone.
Savinder’s parents argued that she had been betrothed from her infancy to the school-going son of her mother’s best friend. It would bring dishonour to her family if she was seen roaming around like a stray animal. My parents had the argument that I was growing up and I should learn something worthwhile instead of going for walks otherwise it would be difficult to find a match for me.
Somehow or the other we managed to extract permission from our parents to allow us to go for walks together, if we could not go alone. But apart from that we had nothing in common. She talked incessantly of her latest clothes, matching dupattas, fancy footwear and jewellery. She also prattled about her husband-to-be and in-laws. I was not in the least interested in her future family and my parents were not in a position to buy me new clothes and matching footwear every day. In those days I used to dress in simple, light- coloured salwar-kameez suits with wide muslin dupattas and purely functional footwear. As a special concession after much entreaty, I was given a pair of canvas shoes to wear for my walks.
Many years later, when my identity was subsumed in Baldev, I suddenly discovered that Baldev was the same school-going boy to whom Savinder was betrothed in her infancy.
I was very young at that time but my conscience and the understanding of the moral code were well-developed. I told Baldev, “I am not going to meet you from now on. You belong to Savinder.” He had answered, “I broke that engagement a long time back. It was nothing but a girlish game between two friends and I refused to be their pawn!”
Even then I can’t help thinking at times that the reason behind my homeless, nomadic existence was that I had, inadvertently, caused the shattering of Savinder’s dreams.
But if the destroyers of other people’s worlds cannot build their own homes, how come Baldev’s has been built? (May he prosper for a million years!)
I also wonder how a handful of people manage to pull down other’s modest dwellings to construct skyscrapers day and night.
Maybe they build only houses. Houses with high domes and spacious rooms. Not homes. Just as I had begun to adjust to Shimla, Darji arranged for a house in Jalandhar and we were relocated again.
Receiving us at the railway station he was telling us enthusiastically about his old friend who was the Commissioner of Jalandhar at that time. He had said to Darji “Just select any house from the evacuee property and I’ll allot it to you.” Darji had selected a double-storeyed yellow building situated in a densely populated area on the main G.T. Road. It was so large that scores of its windows opened onto the G.T. Road and about as many on the road parallel to it. The building was recognized as the Khidkiyonwali Peeli Haveli.
Darji established his clinic on the ground floor on the G.T. Road side. The portion above that was given to Mamaji and his family who were, till then, rootlessly wandering here and there. We occupied the portion on the ground floor because the rooms upstairs were huge and it was exhausting for Beeji to keep them clean. Moreover, there were no water taps in that building. There was just one hand pump in the courtyard downstairs.
A long, spacious verandah in front of the courtyard served as our kitchen, lounge and sleeping space. The inner rooms were extremely dark and dingy and one was scared even of entering them. A woman from the neighbourhood had informed Beeji that the former occupants of the haveli, who were Muslims, were massacred in the inner rooms. I don’t know whether it was true or false. But you could still hear someone sighing faintly in those shadowy rooms, a noise like a melancholy moan.
The walls of the haveli reminded Beeji of her house in Lahore, and her parents’ in Gujranwala whose memories haunted her bitterly. Losing her own house had upset her less than finding this one where the cobwebs on the walls were enmeshed with the silent screams of its former occupants.
I would sometimes think that if the people who had lived here earlier were still alive, they must definitely be missing their old home. Empathizing with those absent entities I would often burst into tears.
In a very small room in the inner part of the house I discovered a number of Urdu books on subjects like Unani medicine and religion. There were some novels there as well. For the duration of our stay in Jalandhar, that room became my “home”.
We moved back to Shimla from Jalandhar and then left Shimla again to come to Delhi. But what can one say about displaced people settling down or remaining unsettled.
In Delhi we came to live in a house near the nullah in Devnagar. The house belonged to a distant cousin of Darji’s. It was divided into four parts, two on the ground floor and two upstairs. A courtyard on the ground floor served as “no man’s land” between the two parts. Upstairs, the two portions were divided by a wall.
We had two rooms, half of the front platform, a small verandah, kitchen, bathroom and half of the common court-yard. We could sleep on a quarter of the upper terrace during summer nights.
By no means was that a home. At best it could be de-scribed as a house where you had found some shelter. There was no separate, personal space for anybody in that house.
After some months, we moved to another house in Devnagar. There was a tiny lawn full of flowers and a gate that was locked at night. Inside were three spacious rooms, full of light and air. It had a room on the terrace and also a store-room. I had a room all to myself where I slept and studied. My room was right opposite the kitchen. Through the open door of the kitchen, Beeji’s eyes always kept a careful watch on me.
My vehement rebellion against those watchful eyes started in that very room. They were like a under whose intense heat my entire being crackled and sent welding torch out sparks before melting down and then hardened to a greater degree than before.
In the house opposite ours lived a girl called Deesh. After the interminable process of melting and hardening, meeting Deesh was like taking a dip in cool water. Had my rebellion been less violent and my anger and resentment against Beeji less vehement, my friendship with Deesh might not have acquired overtones of passionate love.
It seems that Deesh too was kept under constant surveil-lance in her house. In fact there were many more people to keep a watch over her. There were seven brothers and their families living in the same house. Also their aged parents and an orphaned niece. One of the brothers was Deesh’s father. Amongst the brothers, the youngest was the most highly educated. He had an M.Sc. degree. He manufactured paints in the garage of their double-storeyed house and his elder brothers helped him in the business. The youngest brother therefore ruled over the family like Nadir Shah and he was assisted in that by his Amritsari wife.
Deesh’s house was a refuge for me just as mine was for her. But the fact is that we had no peace anywhere.
Her house was perpetually in the process of being cleaned. Either clothes were being washed or rotis prepared there all day. At meal times the scene at their lower verandah and courtyard reminded me of the langar in a gurdwara.
Deesh and I started going on evening walks together. We walked very close together, holding hands, almost in a tentative embrace.
You could go to Anand Parbat from our area small alley at the back of the government quarters. On one side of the alley were the rear walls of high-rise buildings. The other side consisted of the low boundary walls surrounding the gardens of the government quarters. Deesh and I used to perch on those walls and talk about all kinds of things.
On one occasion Deesh said something really sweet to me. Even my mother had never said anything so affectionate. Almost like a reflex action, I took Deesh’s hand in mine, lifted it to my mouth and kissed it.
Instantly, the woman living in a nearby quarter appeared in her verandah. Arms akimbo, she called out in an angry voice, “Don’t you have a place to sit and talk in your own house, girls? Get off this wall and go home right now.”
Both of us were vexed and distressed that day. I don’t know why but my face burned with shame and I could see a deep blush tinging Deesh’s cheeks and ears.
Without casting a second glance at the woman, we slunk guiltily away from the place.
For several days afterwards, her words kept ringing in my ears, “Don’t you have a place in your own house.”
As a matter of fact what she had said was true. We really did not have personal space in our own houses.
Illustration : Rajat
