by Rita Kothari
Khanu had been hearing the same thing for some days now. He had been reading Al Wahid and Sansar Samachar and their terrifying accounts about Bengal and Bihar, how brutally human beings were killed, how people had sported with each other’s blood and how the modesty of women had been violated, and how children had been done to death. He had seen hair-raising pictures of communal riots at the borders, and in Lahore and Mumbai. He had often felt that the Hindus had wreaked havoc upon the lives of Muslims in Bihar, that they had played with the lives of our Muslim brothers and humiliated the purdah. Will there really be riots after 2nd June, Khanu wondered. He continued to move his shaving blade, and wondered, whether they would avenge the blood of their Bihari Muslim brothers, tooth for tooth, claw for claw. Would I, for instance, slit this sheth’s neck with a shaving blade? A shudder ran through Khanu.
Khanu’s caste was that of a barber, no doubt, but when he stood at lakhidar dressed in fashionable pants, nobody could tell that he was a barber. How many college-going boys in Shikarpur aspired to be friends with him. You could find in Khanu’s shop news about each and every college in Sindh, poetry in Urdu and Hindi, photographs of Ashok Kumar and Prithviraj, and Khanu could hold forth with such confidence that he seemed the final authority on those subjects. Khanu’s shop also had a variety of fancy scissors, and combs, oils and talcum powder which many young men gawked at. Khanu’s friends were either college-going youth, or poorly educated but rich Hindu and Muslim children from zamindar families, who were ‘suited and booted’ and liked to talk about cinema and enjoyed hunting. Khanu’s clientele also included some communists, but they were busy arguing with each other and paid scant attention to him. In fact, a couple of them had come for a shave the previous day. He heard them saying things such as: Sindh belongs to Sindhis. Our identity and existence are in danger. These Punjabis, Gujaratis and Biharis will devour our culture, our language, and not to mention, our livelihood. It is our duty to stem the rot as soon as possible. Sindh Congress has been cornered by the Gujaratis. And look at the Sindhi Muslim Leaguers, how they have organized free community meals for the Biharis and Punjabis, never mind if Sindhi Muslims die of starvation.
A Hindu among them had said, ‘I prefer to die with my Sindhi Muslim brothers rather than survive among the Hindus of Udaipur or Jaipur. My roots are in this land, and so is my soul. I can’t see myself living anywhere but in Sindh.’
Never before had Khanu heard such grand and generous sentiments from a Hindu. He had begun to listen with great interest. The Hindu suddenly said, ‘Jai Sindh!’ Khanu had heard the slogan of ‘Jai Hind’, which he felt smacked of Hindu chauvinism; blade-like, it grazed him. But the slogan ‘Jai Sindh’ was fragrant like a rose in spring. He wondered what he would do, in case riots did break out in Sindh. Should I slit the sheth’s throat? The sheth’s son was a first-year student in Shikarpur College and came to Khanu for his haircut. The father and son had met Khanu quite often by the Sindhu canal at the time of the Navroj fair. They had invited Khanu to join them. There was hustle and bustle all around. The river Sindhu flowed forcefully. Its waves brought such joy. With his palm covering a ear, Khanu had broken into a doha, ‘Hey, young woman in a kurta …’ and the entire place was filled with love and gay abandon. Everyone was drunk on music, regardless of religion. Some of the listeners tapped rhythmically on the dried gourd tied around their waist to keep them afloat while swimming, while some snapped fingers to keep time with Khanu, and ripples of excitement went through the crowd. Then, they lay flat on their backs in the water and sucked mangoes.
The river that flows treats us equally. It is not as if it makes the Hindus drown and the Muslims survive. The scorching rays of the sun fall upon the bodies of both Hindus and Muslims, and both Hindus as well as Muslims jump into the water to cool themselves. It’s not as if the sun decides to spare the Muslim and burn the Hindu. If nature has not been discriminating, then why would its Creator be? And if the Creator is not discriminating, why should humans be? Khanu’s consciousness had acquired poetic contours and all the books he had read, including Urdu poetry, appeared to have left an indelible literary mark upon his thinking. He began to wonder how he would be able to slit the throats of those he had spent hours with, eating and drinking and making merry in their company.
Khanu used to accompany his Hindu friends to listen to the folk singing by bhagats. When a bhagat put a palm over his ear and began to sing the poetry of Shah Latif, ‘When cold winds blow in Thar, and should I breathe my last, take my corpse then to my Maleer, my motherland,’ it created such an amazing atmosphere that Khanu longed for that moment to turn into the beauty of death, right there under the tall, soothing shade of the benign banyan tree.
May the leaves of the banyan tree flutter and fall over my tomb
May the berries of the tree tickle my dead body
May the cool breeze of Shahibag sweep over my body, and clean my tomb, and when the bhagat sings, may his doha waft its fragrance upon my ears, so that I would hum and sway to the rhythm of the doha even in my death, so that I would shrug off the angels of heaven and return to the playfulness of the bhagat’s poetry once again. Not only Khanu, but every Hindu and Muslim listener alike responded with euphoria. These Hindus will leave Sindh and go away? How heartbreaking would it be to leave the nation of Marui? Who would sing to them the poetry of Shah over there?
Khanu had heard non-Sindhi songs on the radio, and found them so repulsive and the language so monstrous that he had changed the station promptly. How would Marathi and Marwari bring aesthetic joy to us? How would languages reeking with dry bajri bring joy to those who eat wheat? And those who die for the poetry of Shah Latif, those who walk by the Sindhu, how would they spend a lifetime outside Sindh, he wondered. Khanu could recall many incidents when the souls of Hindus and Muslims had been touched in similar ways, and Sindh had witnessed a culture of communal harmony. Thoughts of migration and riots haunted Khanu for the entire day. His mind buzzed like an electric machine.
In the evening, after closing his shop, when Khanu was heading home, his eyes fell upon the buggies at the station. Perhaps some of them had in them Hindu families that were bidding goodbye to the land of their birth and upbringing, and going away to a place which had neither Shah Latif, nor Sami, nor Sadhbelo, nor Jindah Pir; no bhagats, no fun and merriment, no friends, nor fairs. Perhaps they were moving towards a land unknown to them, customs unfamiliar, manners and etiquette, clothes and food equally unfamiliar. But … Khanu reflected … only a handful of rich people who perhaps owned large mansions in Jodhpur and Udaipur would think of migration, and who could withstand the travelling expenses. But humble clerks and accountants, teachers in Sindhi schools who visited his shops for a haircut and haggled over a few paise, how would they afford the expenses of shifting to India? A sheth could do business in India, but how would a Sindhi clerk write an application in Sindhi? How would a Sindhi schoolteacher teach?
The following morning Khanu was brushing his teeth with a neem twig. He heard someone calling aloud, ‘Pallo fish for you! Pallo fish!’ Khanu’s wife called out to the fisherwoman and settled on a particular fish after some examination of the contents of the basket. She said, ‘I need half of this fish.’
In the meantime, their neighbour, Pesu’s mother, came up to them and said, ‘Sister, you take half, and I will take the other half. We can pay for the whole fish now.’
When the two of them had finished dividing up the fish, Pesu’s mother said, ‘Bhen, I heard that things have worsened, and Muslims will start rioting. I will seek refuge in your house, I am telling you.’
Overhearing this conversation as he brushed his teeth, Khanu quipped, ‘Beware of me, I am a Muslim Leaguer and I also wear a Jinnah cap!’
‘What nonsense, brother,’ Pesu’s mother shook her head dismissively. ‘You can be as Muslim League as you want, you are still our very own Khanu brother. How would you kill us? Don’t you say that neighbourhood is the first family? You feed us with phirni on Id and visit us
on thadri to eat lolas. Surely, that would make you think twice? And yet, if I had to die, I won’t mind my death as long as you are the one killing me.’ She quoted a quaint verse, often quoted to a bickering brother by his sister: ‘Go on my little brother, strike at my head …’
It was a staggering eye-opener for Khanu. Was he going to be able to kill this woman, who looked up to him for protection? Certainly not. How could he be so heartless? If the Hindus in Bihar had slaughtered Muslims, how was Pesu’s mother responsible? She was born and brought up in his neighbourhood, as his playmate. Together, they had flung stones at trees and knocked off berries and filled their laps with them. They had drunk water from the same pump, and he had often given her a hand and carried pots for her, while she had retrieved kites for him from her terrace. Not just that, when his wife Jabal was pregnant, she had brought for her protective charms.
It is true that his Muslim brothers were being killed in Bihar, but how was Pesu’s mother to be blamed for it? Why should she be killed? In this land of the sufis, there will not be any riots, absolutely not. Who was so cruel and heartless that he would not protect his neighbourhood, and slit the throats of the helpless? Someone whispered in his ears, ‘Jai Sindh!’
The clouds in Khanu’s consciousness dispersed, and he emerged, clean-shaven.
The Refugee
GOBIND MALHI
His full name was, Topandas, but people called him, ‘Topu’ or ‘Topa’ and at times, ‘Topanmal’. His father had passed away while he was still in his mother’s womb. His mother had got his nose pierced, adorned him with a nose-ring and named him Topan—the one with a pierced nose. She used the endearment of ‘Topu’ or ‘Topa’ for him. People in the neighbourhood had also got into the habit of distorting his name and for all time to come he had become Topu. He already disliked the name Topan, and Topa and Topu made it worse. People in the village did not even know his full and correct name, and nobody had bothered to find out why he had come to be called Topu or Topa. What with an absent father and consequently insufficient resources, he had remained deprived of even elementary education. Instead, he stood outside the school, selling peas and savoury pulses so that he could look after his mother and elder sister. Later, he learnt to roll beedis and gradually became successful through a combination of sheer doggedness and luck.
Initially, he rolled beedis for others, but there came a time when he hired three to four employees for rolling beedis. Along with beedis and matches, he also served cups of warm tea during winter and cool soda-lemon sherbet during summer. He had an intense desire to have his own crushing machine to make soda-lemon, which could then be supplied to other retailers. Eventually, he managed to fulfil this desire and acquired a soda-making machine of his own. Mind you, his soda-making machine was not an ordinary one! He could fill up three bottles with a single stroke. Meanwhile, the economic status of his family had improved considerably. His sister had got married and she lived happily with her in-laws, who had, as they say, enough fish and wheat to eat.
By this time, Topu was also a married man and he had two children. His mother had managed to put her miserable past behind her and her efforts seemed to have borne fruit. People were amazed by the fortunate turn in the lives of the mother and the son. Although most of Topu’s wishes were fulfilled, one was not. He longed to be called by his full name, respectably. However, that was not to be. He had gone through many rites of passage, but as far as his name was concerned, a mere ‘mal’ was added to Topu or Topa.
Besides his home and shop, there was little that interested Topu. Matters of politics and the nation hardly ever drew his attention. Never mind the nation, Topu remained oblivious even to his village. At the suggestion of his customers, he began to subscribe to Sansaar Samachaar and Hindu, but never bothered with the contents of these newspapers. So he was not aware of the things that people had been reading and discussing with such passionate involvement every day. The only kind of news that he occasionally allowed to fall on his ears was: ‘City robbed of everything’ or ‘Woman’s arm chopped off for a bangle’ or ‘Daughter of a respectable house elopes with a servant’ or ‘A Muslim haari stabs his wife and children in the same stroke, arrives at the police-station with the bloodied axe’. Sometimes, he would listen to war news but the country’s political news was of no interest to him. He believed that the country would never become independent. The English would never leave India and in any case, an independent India would not change his life. People would still be making and drinking tea during winter and soda-lemon during summer. These thoughts were also not entirely his own, but conclusions he had arrived at willy-nilly, by listening to other people’s arguments on politics. Days rolled by in this manner.
One day, one of his customers while reading the newspaper, said to him, ‘Topanmal, what do you know? Pakistan is being formed. On 14 August, Jinnah mian will take the reins of Pakistan in hand.’
The customer was a Hindu and it was evident that the news had hurt him deeply, almost as if his body had been wounded. But Topanmal was unperturbed by this news. He had never racked his brains regarding the independence of India or the formation of Pakistan. Neither of the two events created any distinct feelings of joy or sadness in him.
August 14 arrived. There were celebrations in Karachi, Hyderabad, Nawabshah and Sukker. In Tharushah also, there were processions led by Syed Aarif Shah and Mukhi Dayaram. Sweets were distributed among children. Drawn by the lights and glitter, Topanmal also participated in such celebrations. The significance of such events continued to escape him. Pakistan dawned upon him the day he asked Suleman Khan, the milkman, to pay eleven annas for the beedis he had taken but not paid for. An impervious Suleman retorted, ‘Vaaniya, stop putting on airs now. It’s Pakistan now, we Muslims are the rulers now. If there is money, we’d pay otherwise …’ The words pierced through Topu’s consciousness. He could hardly hear the remaining part of Suleman’s sentence. And after that, things had changed swiftly. Lawless Muslims of the village had become wilful. Without worrying about law or penalties, they began a systematic harassment of the Hindus. When Hindu women passed through the bazaars, Muslim men made rude remarks about them. At night, the milk-sellers would sit outside Topu’s shop and bad-mouth the Hindus. Topu could not understand why and how things had changed so drastically. Usually Muslims were like doormats to the Hindus, you could trample upon them, and kick them but they did not question you. Now they were raring for a fight with the Hindus, almost provoking them. The Hindus had suddenly lost courage. They quietly swallowed the insults and transferred their anger by pouring expletives on the Congress leaders who had been insensitive to the Hindus of Sindh and accepted Partition.
Topu was bewildered by the sudden transformation in Hindu–Muslim relationships and then one day, he received a letter from his brother-in-law from Nawabshah. He stopped a school-boy passing near his shop and requested him to read the letter. The letter said something to this effect, ‘We will leave soon for Jodhpur. It is not advisable to stay here any longer. Thanks to Masud the collector, there is a war raging here. You must try and join us quickly so that we can leave together.’
By this time, Topu had some comprehension of the situation. Connecting all the events together, he realized that the independence of India had come with the curse of Pakistan and caused a rain of troubles for the Hindus of Sindh who, in order to escape insults every day, must migrate to free India. Before Topu could make a decision, half the village had migrated, including his sister who was now in Jaipur. Those left in the village also wished to migrate, but their poverty had not allowed them to do so. You needed money to leave. Topu faced the same difficulty. His home, the shop, the crushing machine and some cash constituted his entire property. Nobody was ready to buy his home and his crushing machine. Aarif Shah, who was interested, offered only two hundred rupees. Topu had used up seven hundred rupees from his savings to buy the machine. Last year, his brother-in-law had advised him to invest in a machine in Nawabshah and run his business the
re, but Topu had not accepted the advice. He regretted that decision today because he learned that in the bigger cities, the Hindus had managed to recover at least their investment costs. He was in a dilemma. Should he wait to sell the machine at a decent price? Or should he accept whatever he was getting and leave? Meanwhile, immigrants from Pathankot crept into the everyday lives of Tharushah and contributed to the audacity of the Muslim ruffians. Life became yet more difficult for the remaining Hindus.
Topu’s mother told him, ‘Putta! Never mind the two hundred, just get rid of the machine. Let us flee from here. We have some jewellery, let us sell that, collect the cash and start afresh in Jodhpur. We have known how to overcome hurdles in the past, we shall be able to do that once again. May God save your youth.’ Topu asked Shah’s nephew to buy the machine. Instead of two hundred, he tried palming off one hundred and fifty, but Topu felt he might lose out on that as well if he delayed selling it.
Topu had not been much of a traveller. Except for some villages around Tharushah and Nawabshah, he had not seen any other place, leave alone a city. He had to travel as a Partition refugee now amidst hundreds of Muslims and a handful of Hindus. Topu had heard that Muslims would throw out Hindus from a moving train. His limbs froze and he quietly chanted the five verses from Jap Sahib he had learnt from his visits to the tikaana in his childhood. At the Hyderabad station, Topu had to part with at least half of his belongings and also pay a bribe of fifty rupees to the coolie. In the train bound for Jodhpur, there were migrating Hindus like him who had witnessed the birth of Pakistan. There did not seem much possibility of being thrown off the train. However, there lingered the fear of a sudden attack by Muslims. In Hyderabad, Topu had come to know that a fortnight earlier, Muslim immigrants had attacked a train filled with Hindus.