A Fine Family: A Novel Read online

  I had no medicines, nor instruments. I asked the camp commander to let me go out with an escort to my clinic or to the government clinic to bring my instruments, but permission was refused. Thus I had to perform major operations with second hand razor blades, which I obtained with difficulty, and use ordinary oil for dressing wounds. In place of guaze I used tailor’s rags. Since there were no bandages, I had to leave the wounds uncovered. I worked throughout the day and took out bullets from tens of wounds. They were mostly big bullets from .303 rifles.

  I treated a goldsmith’s wife, whose breasts had been lopped off, but she died the same night. There was another lady whose hands were chopped from her wrists and she had been thrown into a fire, as a result of which her lower parts had been burnt. During the firing, she had jumped into the well of the college along with her children; although the children drowned, she had escaped; she was a courageous woman and she survived my primitive treatment. I also treated a large number of men with circumcision wounds on their penises.

  There were no latrines in the camp. We had to defecate in buckets, and then carry the buckets out. I also delivered a number of babies, which came prematurely in most cases because of the panic, excitement, and discomfort felt by the pregnant mothers. Since there was no place to confine the mothers, the deliveries took place in the open before the public. I am sorry to say that since there was no soap and proper cloth, many cases became septic.

  In the evening, Mr Hamid returned to the camp for an inspection. During the visit, he spotted Bauji’s family from among thousands of people. He saw that Bauji had been seriously wounded, and he began to weep. He took Bauji’s family and Dr Des Raj to the Civil Hospital, where they administered emergency treatment to Bauji. At the hospital Mr Hamid begged the Muslim doctors and nurses to go to the refugee camp, but all of them refused. Since he did not trust leaving Bauji in the hospital, Mr Hamid took them to his own house, where he fed and clothed them. He sorrowfully told Bauji about his inability to give them asylum at his own house, since it would strain his credibility with the Muslim populace. He took them that night to the Sri Ram Mills, where about five hundred of Lyallpu’s Hindu gentry were gathered. They were under a heavy Hindu Dogra guard, and were waiting for a convoy of trucks to take them east the next morning. The striking difference between these refugees and the ones at Khalsa College was in their economic circumstances. But they shared the same fear in their eyes. Mr Hamid left after reassuring Bauji’s family that they would be safer here than even his own house. He promised to return the next morning to see them off. Dr Des Raj added this account in his diary about the happenings at the textile mill.

  No one slept that night. We heard drums beating all night long, and repeatedly the air was pierced by the dreaded cry of ‘Ya Ali.’ We were scared. At dawn when there was light and we could see, we suddenly realized that the guard had been switched. Instead of Hindu Dogras, we were under Sindhi Muslim constables. We discovered that the Muslim League had tricked our guard by sending fake transfer orders from military headquarters. There was general anxiety and a hush fell upon the refugees. We stood rooted and watched each other with vague foreboding.

  At six o’clock a shot was heard. Swami Ram Rattan, who had been an active member of the Congress Committee, went outside with a green flag to talk to the police. They asked for twelve hundred rupees which we immediately paid. Fifteen minutes later they demanded another twelve hundred, which too was promptly paid. Then they wanted to search everyone. Many of the women began to cry, as they were carrying their family savings on their persons in the form of gold jewellery.

  All five hundred of us were asked to come outside in the mill compound. We were told to remove all our valuables and gold. Swami Ram Rattan advised the refugees to comply. Soon there was a great pile of roughly four maunds of gold and more than five lakhs of rupees in cash. I had never seen so much money, but then there were a number of trading families amongst us.

  It was still early. Our transport was not expected for another two hours. After carefully collecting the treasure, the policemen started to molest young girls under the pretext of searching them. Swami Ram Rattan objected; he was immediately shot down.

  About five yards from where I was standing, the seniormost in the police party began to fondle the breasts of an attractive young girl in a blue sari. The girl’s brother, who I think stood behind him, pounced on the policeman, and knifed him whereupon the police opened fire indiscriminately on the refugees. While the front ranks of the refugees were falling to the bullets, some of the Hindu and Sikh fathers at the back began to slaughter their own daughters to prevent them from being raped or abducted by the Muslims.

  Fortunately there was a large peepal tree nearby. Bauji’s family and I hid behind the tree as the bullets rained. When the attention of the police was diverted to the killing of the girls at the back, we ran to the adjoining wall, scaled it, and leaped on the other side. Unfortunately one of Bauji’s daughters was hit by a bullet and got left behind. On the other side, a policeman who was standing on guard, saw us. He aimed his gun at us, but Bauji, who was very close to him, jumped and rushed at him. He tripped and Bauji snatched his rifle; Bauji struck him with the butt end with all his might, leaving him unconscious. We ran towards the fields, and hid under a haystack. Bauji was unconscious the whole day.

  In the evening we stole into the adjoining Ganesh Hour Mill, where we found two Hindu girls hidden under jute bags. Luckily the next day we saw a Muslim friend of Bauji’s pass by, who took us at night to a neighbouring village. He provided us with a bullock cart, and escorted us to another kafla, which was headed towards Lahore and the Indian border, under the escort of Gurkha soldiers. Bauji, who was in extreme pain, lay in the bullock cart. He was unconscious through most of the blistering trek to Lahore. I wasn’t sure if he would survive. . . .

  The monsoon came late to India that year, and the summer of 1947 was one of the hottest in people’s memory. The Punjab blistered like a hot oven. Each day cirrous clouds moved deceivingly across the sky, casting tantalizing shadows, occasionally throwing a veil across the sun. But by the evening the skies were hopelessly clear again, and the sun set in a blaze of brownish purple. The standing crops of maize were parched, their seed wasted. The cattle bellowed from hunger because the grass along the village ponds and river streams had dried in the sun.

  On the road, where millions were marching, there was no relief. The train of humanity ploughed along noiselessly, sinking to the hubs of the wheels, straggling through the soft, stifling, heated dust that did not settle even at night. A part of this dust impeded the movement of feet and of wheels; the other part rose in the air and hovered like a cloud of dust.

  By eight in the morning, the body was wet with sweat, clothes were soaked, and the mind sapped by the fear that it would grow even hotter. The sun looked like a purple ball, dazzling blin-dingly. Not a breath of air stirred, and human beings suffocated in the quiet atmosphere. Those who survived filed past, column after column, miles and miles of tramping feet. They trudged along, covering their noses and mouths. If they passed a village, they rushed for the wells. They fought for water, and drank every drop till nothing but mud was left. But often what greeted them in the villages was a faint hot smoke that bore the smell of burnt bodies. With terrified eyes, the refugees would return to the convoy with dessiccated throats. They had to choose, whether to die of thirst or from the Muslim’s sword.

  The bright glare of the morning sunlight streaming through a clump of passing sheesham trees awakened Bauji. For a long time he could not remember where he was. He was stiff from the cramped position in which he had been sleeping. The sun blinded him. The uneven and jolting movement of the creaking bullock cart was unfamiliar; the hard boards of the cart felt harsh against a body used to sleeping between satin sheets. He tried to sit up, but he could not because a heavy weight seemed to be across his legs. Slowly he began to remember. As he turned his eyes downwards, he realized that the weight was that of his wound.
He felt hot and thirsty. He also felt dirty and sticky and he smelled.

  On the blinding road men seemed to go by like ghosts, their voices stilled; he only heard the muffled tramping of feet on soft dirt. There was a smell of death in the air. He turned his eyes to the road’s edge, and sure enough there was a dead man lying by the side, ignored, swollen, covered with flies.

  ‘Water,’ shouted Bauji weakly.

  ‘He’s awake!’

  He heard the sound of subdued voices.

  ‘There isn’t any water, Bauji,’ said Bhabo, coming up to him. ‘Soon, very soon, we shall be in Lahore.’

  Bauji again lost consciousness. Dr Des Raj, who had stayed on in the kafla with Bauji’s family, throughout the difficult trek to Lahore, continued writing in his diary:

  Our kafla from Lyallpur to Lahore must have contained over fifty thousand Hindus and Sikhs. We walked twenty abreast, with men on the outside and women, children, and the sick in between. Carts and carriages also moved on the extremities. Many of the women were uncomfortably clothed in three layers of salwar-kameez in order to make rape more difficult. Some women carried a bottle of poison, which they were expected to drink in case they were raped. One ten-year-old boy who walked near me had been circumcised recently and renamed Yar Mohamad. He kept repeating ‘Run, run, there is a riot.’ We had to be constantly vigilant against attacks from the sides. As the crops were high, it was easy to ambush a marching column of refugees. The Mussalman attackers would hide in the crops until the last minute and suddenly pounce on a vulnerable part of the kafla. Despite the best efforts of the Gurkha escort to hold the refugees together, the victims would scatter in panic. Then the ambush party would move after them with swords and spears.

  There were only two incidents of note on our trek upto Lahore, thanks to the good protection provided by our escort. And one of them did not concern our convoy, although we were witness to it. At the canal bridge at Salunjehal in Tehsil Samudri, the front part of our convoy was attacked by a Muslim mob. Despite the firing by our escort, about sixty refugees were killed. While the attack was proceeding, dozens of young girls were lifted by the attacking mob and raped in the field among the crops. Some of the women were stripped naked to see if they had any valuables. Many refugees jumped into the canal during the attack, thinking it safer. But some of them drowned. One woman strapped her three children to her waist and entered the canal; her two younger children drowned. A ten-year-old boy pleaded with his attacker, ‘Don’t cut my throat. You have already killed my Bapu and Ma. Take me with you. Don’t kill me.’ Fortunately we were at a considerable distance from this attack, and we were unharmed.

  The second incident concerned a passenger train of Hindu refugees which was stopped by a Muslim mob by laying a tree trunk across the track. This happened not too far away from Lahore, I think between Shadara and Badami Bagh stations. Since the train track ran parallel to the road, I was able to get a good view of what happened. All of us in the convoy were frightened, but the mob was only interested in the train. As soon as the train halted, the mob cried ‘Allah-o-Akba’ and attacked. About a hundred yards from me a well-dressed, middle aged gentleman was pushed out of the compartment. As he fell down, they first robbed him; next they stripped him till he was stark naked; then he was made to dance and they kicked him in the genitals; slowly he was tortured till he fell unconscious. But the mob could not do much damage to others on the train for our escort fired in the air. Like cowards they ran away.

  Lahore was not the end of the journey for the refugees. It was merely the most important milestone on their long trek to safety, to the new border between India and the newly born nation of Pakistan. After a hundred-mile journey to Lahore, there were still twenty-five miles to go to the Wagah border checkpost, near Am-ritsar. The hearts of the refugees were set on Wagah, for safety lay beyond. No one thought about what would follow after Wagah.

  The refugees approached Lahore with mixed feelings. The loss of the legendary city of Lahore had come as a rude shock to the Hindus, who owned eighty per cent of the property there. Their hopes had been shattered when they had learned that Lahore had been included in Pakistan rather than India by the Radcliffe Commission.

  There was someone waiting for the Lyallpur kafla at Lahore. The person waited patiently in a police van, parked strategically on the outskirts of the capital, where the Lyallpur road met the famous Grand Trunk road. All Hindu refugees from Lyallpur had to pass this fork on their way to the Wagah border. The van was under a tree, and at an angle which gave a clear view of everyone who passed on the road. Seated at the back of the van was a medical doctor and a police officer; a driver and a lady sat in the front. The lady was covered in a rich burkha, and even in the dust and the heat, she smelled of an expensive but familiar scent. Anees Husain was waiting for Bauji.

  It was late in the evening and Anees was feeling restless. She had been waiting at this spot for the past three days. But she had a strong feeling that he would come today. Mr Hamid’s message had clearly said that he had joined the kafla on the fifteenth night. She also knew that he was wounded. If they had started on the kafla on the fifteenth night, she calculated that they should have arrived yesterday; perhaps they were moving slower because of his wound. At her insistence her father, the DIG at Lahore, had wired Mr Hamid for Bauji’s whereabouts; thus she had traced him to the kafla.

  She was getting worried now because it was beginning to get dark. Although they had torches, it was difficult to recognize people in the night. She prayed that he would be alive and he should reach soon. She had been waiting in the burning sun and she now felt tired and giddy after staring at thousands of faces. If he did not come today, she had to assume that he had been killed on the way. Even if he had died from the wound, Bhabo and the others would at least pass this way; they would tell her. As it became late, she began to lose hope.

  Just as she had given up, and was about to turn the van, she spotted them. The police officer jumped out of the van and went up to Bhabo and the family. They were frightened at first. But the officer spoke gently and pointed to Anees, who had bared her face and was standing at the side of the road. They were in a daze and stared unbelievingly, thinking her an apparition. She immediately knew that Bauji was in the bullock cart. She went up and embraced each one in turn. The police officer and the doctor helped to move Bauji into the van. The first thing they wanted was water. Dr Des Raj advised everyone to drink it slowly. Then he helped Bauji to drink a few drops. Bauji remained unconscious.

  ‘Is he dangerously wounded?’ Anees asked Dr Des Raj.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How serious is it? Will he live?’

  ‘Only He knows,’ said the doctor, pointing to the sky.

  Without another word, she helped them into the van, and they quickly drove off into the night. She took them by an inconspicuous unpaved side road to avoid sentries or crowds. Soon they arrived at her spacious home. Rooms were prepared, beds were laid out, baths were readied. She had clothes for everyone. Over dinner she told them that Tara and her family had left Lahore on the ninth of August, the day before the Great Killing in Lahore, and were at the ashram. She had personally seen them safely to the Wagah border check post. She also gave them the tragic news that Bauji’s youngest daughter had died in the mill compound. Mr Hamid had wired the information. The refugees were dazed and tired, and fell asleep right after dinner. Bhabo had been crying ever since they had met, and kept thanking Anees and god alternately.

  To maintain silence about the refugees, Anees personally made sure that the driver of the police van was locked up after dinner in a servant’s quarter. The main gate was sealed so that no member of the household staff could leave that night. She felt she could trust the police officer and the doctor, who were allowed to go.

  When everyone had gone to bed, Anees went into her parents’ room. She had moved there to make place for the guests. Her father had been called back to police headquarters in the evening. There had been another communal i
ncident in the city, and he was not expected back till the morning. Her mother was still awake.

  ‘Is he seriously wounded?’ asked her mother.

  ‘I think so,’ she replied. ‘He hasn’t come to yet.’

  ‘Come Anees, change and go to bed now.’

  Instead Anees went towards the window, and thrust her head into the warm moonlit night air. Her mother saw that her slender neck was swollen from the heat.

  ‘It’s so hot. How can I sleep?’ said Anees looking at the moonlight.

  Slowly she went to the bed and mechanically started to undress. She pulled the drawstring of her salwar. After she had put on her night dress, she curled up her feet and sat down on the bed. Pulling her long, thick hair over her shoulders, she began to braid it. Her long, slender fingers deftly unbraided it, and then swiftly braided it up again. She turned her head first to the window and then towards the door. Her eyes, feverishly open, gazed fixedly straight ahead. She put out the light, quietly dropped down on the sheets and buried her face in the pillow. But she could not sleep.

  Anees listened to the sounds outside. From across the street she heard the shouting of drunken men. They lived in a quiet part of the city, and during normal days such noises, especially outside the police chief’s house, would have been highly unusual. But these were troubled times, and she did not bother about them. What she listened for was sounds from the room next door where Bauji lay unconscious. Instead she heard her mother mutter a prayer and a sigh. Soon she could hear the familiar sound of her mother’s steady breathing. Her bare foot peeping from under the bedsheet felt the warm air outside. A cricket chirped from a crevice. An owl hooted in the distance and was answered by one nearby. The shouts from across the street had ceased. Anees thought she heard a groan through the open window. She sat up in bed.

  ‘Amma, Amma, are you asleep?’ she whispered.