Azam’s memoir explores the complexities of partition, highlighting loss, reunion, cultural exchange, and the power of human connection in a family’s journey across borders, exclusively for Different Truths.
Bad-dad and Uncle Choudhry Mohammed Hussein, his boss, weren’t just content with a sumptuous tea party to reset our emotional equilibrium. They took the necessary steps for us to be able to claim a semblance of partial victory over defeat for the sake of our life-long mental health.
Cashing in favours, they cajoled and bullied an exit and entry visa for one-mum and two children for India, though not Kashmir. The family from Kashmir would come down to Indian Punjab. Although we would not be able to visit one-mum’s parental home on Residency Road, Jammu, we would be able to meet our blood relatives. It was some sort of a bureaucratically paranoid one-parent-two-children type exit visa, also ensuring that Bad-dad and bhaijan staying back would guarantee against any hanky-panky us three might get up to in India. Or, if it was all five of us, we might just cross the border and announce our defection!
Ignoring the law of relativity, romantics now consider this period to have been a golden age of India-Pakistan relations — ahem, ahem, and pardon my French.
Aunty Alice would host us in Jandiala Guru, 18 kilometres southeast of Amritsar. She was single, and the principal of a girls’ boarding school. The principal’s residence had been built for a large family and would be able to comfortably accommodate us.
Done.
Ancestral Village
Yet, we hadn’t dared to ask for a visa to our ancestral village — what we called Nag-Majitha but the map now shows as Nag Kalan, 13.6 kilometres north of Amritsar and 21 kilometres north of Jandiala Guru. Nag was in the Majha doab, Punjab’s heartland, which always filled me with fierce pride in Lahore. In our family, the village was always referred to as Nag-Majitha, but it was Nag Khurd, now merged with Nag Kalan. ‘Khurd’ means small and ‘Kalan’ means big. We had had to leave it not in 1947, but at the turn of the 20th century when my grandfather had converted to Christianity.
In Jandiala Guru, this conundrum swung me between the low of being so near yet so far from Nag-Majitha, and the high of meeting our Jammu family. One swing would block my appetite and the other could double it and have me holding up my plate for seconds and thirds.
Bad-dad’s presence on the Pakistani side at the Wagah border crossing had ensured a smooth exit, and we were engulfed in the warm, respectful welcome of the Indian border and immigration staff. This, at a time in the 1960 golden-age-by-default, little kids playing in the streets of Lahore would often march in step, chanting:
“Pakistan zindabad, Hindustan murdabad.” (Long live Pakistan, death to India).
It’s just for harmless, casual fun.
Honoured Guests
One-mum’s passport had bad-dad’s job on it and the Indian border staff treated us as though bad-dad was a member of the Indian magistracy! They escorted us to the bus, or laarry as it was called, and told the laarry driver ‘Ustad-jee’ and ‘ohay chottaya’ conductor that we were guests.
Then there were joyful cries, and a rush of hugs, tears and kisses, everybody talking at the same time while Auntie Bee jee and the didis enfolded us in the scents of their perfume, shampoo and pears soap. We were immediately given a bagful of bananas and a box of chocolates which had Lord Rama and Lady Sita painted on it.
Indians nearby were delighted by our squeals of recognition.
History Books in Pakistan
In those days, Pakistani school curricula had no minus-hundred pages Pakistan Studies but real history books, which carried a chapter on Ram-Sita. Over half the passengers getting on the laarry to Amritsar were Sikhs, a medley of flashing white teeth and impeccably kept beards under perfectly wrapped turbans. Seeing their fearlessly displayed kirpan daggers was exciting.
Mohini didi and I hit it off right away.
While eating chocolates on the laarry, I told her the full story of the Tarzan movie I’d seen just before leaving Lahore, to the delight of the other passengers near us who were all ears. They broke into bursts of laughter when I mimicked the American accent of the villain, Coy McCoy.
I have it on good authority that I’m proficient mimic.
A Homecoming
People plied us with cold drinks, bananas and snacks. It was a warm, lovely feeling, like a homecoming. Hearing Punjabi in my ancestral Majhaili accent was thrilling.
Just like the sight of Sewa Singh, Jaggi Bhayya’s fierce Dogra orderly who had accompanied the ladies down to the Punjab. He was tall, had a ring in his ear, a gold tooth, a flourishing moustache and a dazzling smile.
Jaggi Bhayya had taken a civil service exam and was a director of the Cooperative Society of Kashmir. Manni Bhayya was taking his finals in engineering at Madras University and hoped to receive a commission in the Indian army. It was considered injudicious for either of them to have contact with Pakistani relatives through a third party, liable to be noted in their personnel files. Uncle Hari Singh, too, decided to let it be a ‘sisters’ meeting.’ And the well-known, radio broadcaster from Jammu, Adeline Roohi / Roohi Bano, was one-mum’s favourite step-sister.
She, too, stayed put in Jammu.
Theatre of the Absurd
We all played different parts in a theatre of the absurd.
The age was not golden, but yellow-painted at a discount rate and rather tacky.
Upon our arrival at Aunty Alice’s school, we freshened up, changed and went to the thana (police station) to register, as all Pakistanis and Indians were required to do when visiting each other’s countries.
The grit of the 1948 war remained in our eyes and had us all blinking a little too rapidly.
That grit has been successfully gorging on itself into the proverbial fatted calf.
The thana was just like the thanas in Pakistan.
Cells and offices were built around a well-tended lawn bordered with flowers and an indolent, pot-bellied constable with a .303 Lee Enfield rifle at ground arms, scratching himself indiscreetly. He gestured for us to go straight ahead to the SHO (Station House Officer)’s office.
We entered with a chorus of namastays and one-mum placed our passport on the SHO’s desk.
We received a courteous salam aleikum in reply from the seated Sikh thanedar.
On the wall behind and above him was a wooden plaque that displayed the names of all the previous thanedars.
A School Principal
One-mum, a school principal, was about to play her finest hour.
A petite five foot two, she stretched to her full height, flared her delicate nostrils, gave her Kashmiri flaming locks a flick, and looked straight into the eyes of the Sikh thanedar.
“Thanedar Saab, what a pleasure seeing my brother-in-law, Sant Singh Caleb Gill’s name inscribed on this plaque, and a worthy officer such as yourself occupying the same chair.”
The Sirdar’s moustaches bristled, his eyes widened and he stood up and saluted.
“Then this is your thana. Welcome to India, madam. Welcome. Ohaay!” he roared. “Thanda!” he ordered the pimply orderly in police uniform to bring cold drinks.
“Please be seated, madam jee, children.”
He looked at the passport one-mum had placed on his desk.
A Family Across Borders
“Madam jee, furthermore, a dipptty saab (magistrate)’s family in Pakistan is a dipptty saab’s family in India. Please feel at home while you’re here. And in case you have any difficulty during your visit, I’ll depute a plainclothes chitti-kaprdhi officer to accompany you.”
We were in Hall Bazaar, Amritsar.
Hands folded, I managed a hoarse “Namastaa, Sir!”
At one-mum’s gentle nudge, I swallowed and started again.
“Namastaay, sir”
A big smile split the shopkeeper’s beard.
“Namastaay puttar jee” he replied, putting us all at ease.
“Are you from Pakistan, bibi jee?”
One mum nodded.
“Ohay,” his voice barged into his assistant’s welcoming grin. “Soda for the guests — doodh soda?” he inquired looking me straight in the eyes.
“No thank you, sir, I’m not thirsty.”
“Very well brought up,” he complimented one-mum on my good manners in refusing the first offer. “But have a milk soda for me, puttar, please?”
He had the right answer, one mum nodded, and I said, “Thank you sir,” fighting shyness.
Embroidered Virgin Fabrics
We sipped our drinks, surrounded by the heady smell of woven and embroidered virgin fabrics. The smell that makes you think of custom-tailoring, now a bygone luxury in the West, but still — and certainly in 1960 — accessible in South Asia, though losing ground to mass-produced branded clothing.
The shopkeeper smoothly slid down bales of cloth from the ceiling-high shelves, whooshed them open and spread their vibrant colours with the ease that belied practice from an early age. He chanted their type, provenance, utility and price while we enjoyed our soda drinks and the welcoming attention of people who had started trickling in to welcome Pakistanis to India.
Somehow, they all wanted to know the price of wheat in Pakistan!
Between Aunty Bee-jee, Sewa Singh the Dogra orderly and the two didis, we lived in conversational and gastronomical heaven, while learning different words for the same things.
A pateely pan was a kaetlee, aubergines weren’t baingans but watmaingans (or something) and tomatoes were chaingans.
Gave me and Apa a cheap thrill, yet we knew this was actually our own lost vocabulary.
Mimicking Runs in the Family
Mimicking runs in our family.
So, with Seva Singh, we spoke in the pahardhi lilt, kin to the Sialkoti accent.
And did Bee jee and all know their veg?
The bhindis I now cook, without a trace of okra slime in them, is how I remember Seva Singh preparing them. They made all kinds of stuffed vegetables and of course the Kashmiri gushtaba koftas and once, even a shabdegh of mutton, gushtabas, turnips and carrots. What made a difference to Mohini didi’s da’al was her last special tardhka tempering which we were unable to duplicate on our return to Pakistan.
Miss that, didi jee …
We took walks to Jandiala Guru bazaar, and at that age Apa jee and I revelled in the extra attention. All the mithai sweets in Jandiala Guru bazaar were made from desi ghee and we always got ‘choongha’ extra from the halwai (sweet makers). Even after swallowing, the taste of that lassi just clung to a mouth silently urging “more, more!”
Gifts and Presents
Our lives were running on a stopwatch, we desperately kept buying each other gifts and one-mum had to purchase another large suitcase for them. Plus, of course, there were the presents for friends and relatives salivating over what we might bring for them from India. That included quite a few Banarsi saris, dupattas, Dhariwal chaddar, blankets for men, scarves called mufflers, and a tha’an (bale) of mal-mal muslin for Master Shafi jee, our family tailor, to stitch our next summer kurtas!
Then, of course, daylight took its toll, waking us up to the reality that the dream would have a past but no future
Thank you, 1965, 1971, 1999, and beyond.
On the day before last, as kids are wont to, Apa jee and I fought at the swings, accusing each other of nothing and for everything.
When Mohini Didi sought to pacify us, I violently turned on her, blaming her: for going away, deserting us, leaving us to rot without delicious bhindis, chaingans and her da’al tardhka. Mohini didi came to hug me, I half-heartedly tried to kick her shin, missed, and was enveloped in her tearful hug.
I wasn’t born before or in 1947, but the day we said tearful farewells was my First Partition Day.
Ayub Khan’s Meatless Days
Back in Lahore, even the news that we were going to get a fridge to circumvent Ayub Khan’s superfluous meatless days, stop cramming ice-cream in thermos bottles and freeze custard in ice cube trays, failed to dislodge the lump of lead that had firmly lodged itself.
We all coped with it in different ways, some good, some bad, some successful, some not, as part of an ongoing process, using flippant wit for field dressing.
The preposterousness of the pervading ‘Sir-Jee’ doublet as a contemporary form of address in India and Pakistan has assumed its own visa waiver, implicitly rejecting ersatz ideologies to celebrate the strength of history, culture and language.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
By
By
By
By