Tamas

by Bhisham Sahni

  ‘The dog is not coming after us.’

  ‘But it is still barking.’

  Both of them took cover behind a boulder, and with bated breath listened to the barking of the dog.

  The door of the shop had fallen, and the marauders, with a loud ‘Ya. Ali!’ had rushed into the shop.

  ‘They are looting our shop! Our house!’

  The barking of the dog had gone unnoticed by the marauders. The husband and wife felt somewhat relieved. Even if the dog had attracted their attention they might not have cared to pursue the old couple, since there was so much in the shop for them to lift.

  ‘Whose shop and whose house? It is no longer our shop, they stopped being ours the moment we walked out of the house.’

  With the bed of the stream gleaming in the moonlight, a cluster of trees here and there, and the dog still standing on the top of the embankment, the entire scene seemed like a dream. How quickly had everything changed! They had lived at that place for twenty long years, yet within the twinkling of an eye, had been turned into homeless outsiders. Harnam Singh’s hands were cold and wet with perspiration. The only sentence which he was repeating to himself over and over again, was ‘Get away from here, by whatever means you can! Just get away from here!’

  The village was left behind. The dog still stood there at the top of the slope; it had not come after them; very likely it would go back after a while. The shop had been looted. The marauders were no longer shouting; the noise had subsided. Perhaps they were satiated with the loot. But who knows, they may come looking for them now. Now, only the sound of pebbles under their staggering feet could be heard, in the surrounding silence. They walked on and covered some more distance. It seemed to Banto as if some light had spread in the sky. As she turned round she noticed that behind the top of the slope the sky was turning crimson. Banto stood transfixed.

  ‘What is that? Do you see?’

  ‘It is our shop burning, Banto!’ said Harnam Singh.

  He too was looking in the same direction. For some time they continued looking at the flames, as though under a spell. The flames rising from one’s own house must be in some way different from the flames rising from someone else’s house, otherwise why should they have stood like statues, watching them?

  ‘Everything reduced to dust!’ Harnam Singh said in a low whisper.

  ‘Before our very eyes.’

  ‘Guru Maharaj must have willed it so.’ He heaved a deep sigh and they both resumed their trudge.

  Walls keep men concealed, but here there were no walls, only mounds and rocks here and there, behind which a person could hide. But for how long? Within a few hours the darkness of the night would be dispelled and they would be rendered ‘naked’ as it were, once again shelterless; there would be no place for them to hide their heads.

  Banto’s throat was dry and Harnam Singh’s legs would falter again and again. But at that time, not only them, but innumerable villagers were knocking about in search of shelter; the sound of crashing doors was falling on many ears. But they had no time either to think or to make any plans for the future. They barely had time to run for their lives. ‘Keep walking so long as the shades of night provide you cover. Soon enough the day will break and terrors of the day, like hungry wolves, will stare you in the face.’

  Within a short time they found themselves utterly exhausted.

  But feeling relieved at having come out alive, the faces of their son and daughter began to appear before their eyes again. Where must Iqbal Singh be at this time? What must he be going through? And Jasbir? They were not so worried about Jasbir because the Sikh community in her village was fairly large. It may be that the entire community has moved into the gurdwara and found some way of protecting itself. But Iqbal Singh in a small village, running a cloth shop, was all alone. He might have left the village in good time, or he too may be knocking about for shelter. Every thought was acutely disturbing.

  Harnam Singh shut his eyes, folded his hands, and with the name of Guru Maharaj on his lips, repeated the words of his prayer:

  ‘With your protecting hand over his head, My Lord, how can anyone suffer?’

  When the day broke, they were sitting by the side of a brook. Harnam Singh was well familiar with the surrounding area. He knew that they were close to a small village, Dhok Muridpur by name. They had passed the whole night praying, brooding and dragging their feet. But as the day dawned, their minds were at peace, for no explicable reason. The sweet fragrance of the lukat trees, wafted from far away filled the air. The moon which was orange-red in colour a little while earlier had turned pale yellow. The colour of the sky too changed from muddy grey to pale yellow and soon to silvery white. Soon enough it would be limpid blue. Birds were chirping on all sides.

  ‘We can have a wash in this brook, Banto, and then say our prayers and leave.’

  ‘But where shall we go?’ asked Banto anxiously.

  ‘We shall go to this village and knock at someone’s door. If he has mercy in his heart, he will open the door to us and let us in; if not, then whatever is God’s will.’

  ‘Don’t you know anyone in Muridpur?’

  Harnam Singh smiled. ‘No one gave us shelter where I knew everyone, our shop was looted and our house set on fire. Many of the villagers had been my childhood playmates, we had grown up together.’

  When the morning mist cleared, they set out for the village. They first came to a grove of mulberry and shisham trees, at the end of which was a graveyard with broken-down graves, big and small. Near it stood, what appeared to be the grave of some pir for an earthen lamp had been lighted on it and green pennets hung over it. Then they came to the fields—the wheat crop was ready for harvesting. Beyond the fields stood the cluster of flat-roofed, mud-houses. Cows and buffaloes, tied to their pegs, stood outside. Hens with their chicks ran about looking for their feed.

  ‘Banto, if we find them hostile, then I shall first finish you off with my gun and then kill myself. I won’t let you fall into their hands so long as I am living.’

  They stopped in front of the very first house to which they came, standing at the edge of the village. The door was closed. It was a discoloured door, made of thick timber. God alone knew whose house it was and who lived behind the closed door, and what fate awaited them when the door would open.

  Harnam Singh raised his hand, for a second or two, his hand remained suspended in the air, and then he knocked at the door.

  15

  The gurdwara was packed to capacity. The entire congregation was swaying in ecstasy. It was a rare moment. The singers sang with their eyes closed, in frenzied exaltation: ‘Who is there, beside you my Lord…’

  Everyone sat with hands folded, eyes closed and heads swaying to the right and left. Here and there a devotee kept time with the tune by clapping his hands. The ecstatic rhapsody expressing sentiments of supreme self-sacrifice was once again being heard after a lapse of centuries. Three hundred years earlier, a similar ‘war song’ used to be sung by the Khalsa before taking on the enemy. Oblivious of everything they sang, imbued with the spirit of sacrifice. In this unique moment, their souls had merged, as it were, with the souls of their ancestors. Time had again come to cross swords with the Turks. The Khalsa was again facing a crisis created by the Turks. Their minds had been transported to those earlier times. The Khalsa did not know from which direction the enemy would launch his offensive, whether they would be outsiders or local residents. There was no trusting the enemy, but every ‘Singh’ in the congregation was ready for sacrifice.

  The light in the gurdwara came from two stained-glass windows in the back walls set with green, red and yellow panes. The stool on which the Guru Granth Sahib lay, stood within four wooden pillars covered with a silken piece of cloth of red colour fringed with a gold braid. One end of this cloth stretched right down to the floor where sheets of white long-cloth had been spread. Coins and currency notes lay scattered on one end of it while on the other was a pile of wheat flour.

&nbs
p; As one entered the gurdwara, the women members of the congregation sat on the left, their heads covered with dupattas, their faces aglow and their eyes lit up with the light of devotion and the spirit of sacrifice. Here and there a woman had a kirpan hanging by her side. Everyone in the congregation, man or woman, intensely felt that he or she was a link in the long chain of Sikh history, an integral part of it and, at that moment of crisis, like the ancestors, was ready to lay down his or her life.

  Weapons were being stored in the long corridor at the back of the stool and in the Granthi’s room. Seven members of the congregation possessed double-barrelled guns, with five boxes of cartridges. Jathedar Kishen Singh was organizing the defence. Kishen Singh was a war-veteran; he had taken part in the Second World War on the Burmese front and he was now hell-bent on trying the tactics of the Burmese front on the Muslims of his village. On acquiring the command for defence, the first thing he did was to go home and put on his khaki shirt which had been a part of his military uniform and on which dangled three medals received from the British government and a number of coloured strips. The shirt was crumpled but there was no time to get it ironed. Two pickets were set up, one at each end of the lane in front of the gurdwara, each provided with two guns. Later, the picket to the right of the gurdwara proved ineffective, since Hari Singh, in whose house the picket had been set up had been reluctant to open fire on his Muslim neighbours. With the remaining three guns a picket was set up at the roof of the gurdwara under the command of Kishen Singh. Kishen Singh had got himself a chair in which he sat all the time. That is how the seven guns had been utilized. The other weapons such as lances, swords, lathis, etc. had been placed against the back wall of the gurdwara. Swords in velvet scabbards of different colours stood side by side in a neat arrangement as though in an exhibition. The light of the sun through the windows fell straight on them, making them look very impressive. The light also fell on the points of the lances making them glitter. There were a few shields too which had been provided by the Nihang Sikhs. Two Nihang Sikhs stood guard on the roof of the gurdwara, one at each end, facing the lane. Both were in their typical attire, a long, blue robe, blue turban covered with an iron disc and yellow waistband. Lance in hand, each stood to attention with his eyes gazing far into the distance. No one knew from which direction the enemy might come raising clouds of dust.

  ‘Lower your lance, Nihang Singhji, its tip glitters in the light of the sun; the enemy can see it from far off,’ said Kishen Singh to the Nihang on guard duty. This annoyed the Nihang.

  ‘A Nihang’s lance can never be lowered.’ He shot back and continued standing lance in hand as before, with his eyes on the horizon. Before Nihang Singh’s eyes still floated visions of old battles, of armies marching, naked swords blazing in the sun, horses neighing and the air resounding with the beat of drums. These visions would instil in him new vigour and valour worthy of the Sikhs.

  Two Nihangs had been posted below, at the entrance to the gurdwara. Lances in their hands, both stood to attention, their moustaches duly twirled and yellow waistbands tied over their blue robes. In olden times it was customary for the Khalsa to go to battle in yellow robes, yellow being the colour of selfless sacrifice. In the existing situation, everyone had made the effort to wear something which was emblematic of the old tradition—a yellow handkerchief, a yellow scarf or a yellow dupatta, etc., which would link him or her emotionally with their heroic past. Thus, Bishen Singh, a haberdasher by profession, who had been made in-charge of the community kitchen, had stuck into his turban a yellow silk kerchief, which originally belonged to his son who had donned it at the Basant Panchami fair. Bishen Singh had practically snatched it out of his boy’s hands to stick it into his turban. In the congregation some people had tied yellow waistbands. But most people were in their everyday dress of salwar-kameez; even Kishen Singh was wearing, below his crumpled, medal-studded shirt, a pair of striped pajamas. For most of them this was no time to bother about dress, since the heart was afire with the spirit of do or die.

  The atmosphere in the gurdwara was as solemn as water-laden clouds. Heads swayed in the congregational singing; the minds imbued with the past—engendered by the spirit of sacrifice, the presence of the Muslim foe, the Guru’s ‘prasad’, the paraphernalia of past battles, the sword, the shield, the lance, and the bond that united them into one unbreakable entity. If anything was not there, it was the British presence. Hardly twenty-five miles away there was the sprawling British cantonment, the biggest in the country. But it was nowhere in their thoughts. Nor were the British officers, stationed in the city and in the entire province. They too did not exist in their consciousness. If anything did exist it was the Turk, the traditional enemy of the Khalsa, the advancing hordes of the Turks, the imminent combat which was to them like the great ritual into which they would plunge, ready to lay down their lives.

  The danger of attack lay at the back of the gurdwara, where stood the house with the green balcony belonging to the Sheikhs. Inside that house, the Muslims of the village had been storing arms and ammunition. Inside the Sheikh’s mansion too the atmosphere was very similar to the one prevailing in the gurdwara. Here too, all the Muslims of the village—farmers, oil-crushers, bakers, butchers—had assumed the role of mujahids, and preparations were going on to launch a Jihad against the kafirs. Here too, the eyes were bloodshot and hearts afire with the spirit of sacrifice.

  Right in front of the gurdwara, across the lane, was a row of shops belonging to the Sikhs, behind which a slope went right down to the bank of a stream. Beyond the stream lay a big orchard of the lukat fruit. Therefore, there was little danger of an attack being mounted from the front. If anyone dared do so, the guns of Kishen Singh, stationed on the roof, would make mincemeat of them.

  To the left of the gurdwara, some of the houses near the end of the lane belonged to the Muslims, behind which stood the Khalsa School. Beyond the Khalsa school, stretched the fields. To the right of the gurdwara, where the lane ended, there was a mohalla of Muslim houses. There too, in the last house in the lane a picket had been set up.

  The Sheikh’s house with the green balcony, however, was located at the back of the gurdwara, beyond two narrow lanes. It was Sheikh Ghulam Rasul’s double-storeyed house and, according to the information brought by the informers, it had been turned into a fortress by the Musalmans. All the doors opening on the green balcony were shut tight. The room on the top floor too, with the green windows was closed. Not a soul was to be seen standing anywhere. But everyone feared that the first shot would be fired from that house.

  The village otherwise was a lovely one, nestled in idyllic surroundings. Anyone visiting it in normal times would be enthralled by its picturesque beauty. As the saying went: ‘God had made it with His own hands.’ Overlooking the small stream the village stood in the form of a horse-shoe built on a small hillock. Across the bluish water of the stream there was the thick orchard of lukat trees where numerous brooks flowed. The fruit was ripening in those days, and the orchard resounded with the incessant chirping of birds, notably parrots. The colour of the stream was as blue as the colour of the sky while that of the earth was reddish brown. Outside the town, the fields stretched far into the distance, right up to the foot of the low hill. After every few hours, the colour of the hill would change. Sometimes it would be covered with a blue haze, at another time its face would be flushed burnished copper. Fluffy white clouds played on its slopes almost all the time. Stretches of green foliage covered its lower parts. At the foot of the hill there were innumerable springs flowing under the shade of banyan and fig trees. It was in the lap of these idyllic surroundings that the inhabitants had been living from generation to generation.

  Suddenly, something electrifying occurred in the gurdwara. All eyes turned towards the gate of the gurdwara through which Sardar Teja Singh, the chief of the congregation was entering. On stepping up to the raised projection of the gurdwara, Sardarji went down on his knees, and then bowing low touched the threshold with
his eyes. The fingers of both his hands resting on the floor were trembling.

  For a long time, Teja Singh kept his head bowed, his forehead touching the threshold. Teja Singhji was in an ecstatic state of mind. Tears streamed from his eyes. Every pore of his body throbbed with the spirit of sacrifice in defence of the Faith.

  He stood up and with folded hands and bowed head, his flowing white beard covering his chest, he came and stood before the Guru Granth Sahib, the Holy Book. Here too, he stood with bowed head for a long time. His face was flushed and tears flowed from his eyes on to the white sheet of cloth spread on the floor.

  The entire congregation watched with bated breath and rapt attention. They were deeply moved. When Teja Singhji stood up, a wave of emotion coursed through the entire congregation.

  He slowly stepped up to a pillar against which stood an old sword in a red scabbard. With trembling hands he picked up the sword from its handle and came and stood in the middle of the hall. This was his maternal grandfather’s sword, whose father had been a courtier in the royal court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

  He had hardly raised the sword when a feeling of self-immolation surged through the entire congregation. Heads swayed. Young Pritam Singh, standing by the door, burst into a full-throated slogan:

  ‘Jo Boley So Nihal!’

  To which the entire congregation answered with one voice:

  ‘Sat Sri Akal!’

  The walls of the gurdwara shook under the resounding response to the slogan. Even though it was forbidden to raise slogans, lest the enemy should know that the entire Sikh community of the village had gathered in the gurdwara, the surge of emotions was such that it could not be contained. The pent-up emotions could only be released through a full-throated response to the slogan.

  Sardar Teja Singh, now holding his sword in both trembling hands raised it and kissed it with both his eyes, at which the entire congregation sobbed uncontrollably. The head of the Nihang standing at the gate swayed to the right and left. Hundreds of heads swayed.