This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach, page 55
At Ambala station such a huge crowd rushed towards the train that everyone inside the compartment was alarmed. Nobody wanted to open the door, but two Hindu passengers had to get off. When the door was opened to let those two out, a few people on the platform forced their way in. So many people stood crushed in the tight space of the doorway that the door could not be shut. The air became so close that everyone found it difficult to breathe. The Muslims standing inside were now obstructing and pushing other Muslims to keep them out. All one could hear was the noise of screams, cries and sobs, wailing and shouts. Some were yelling to be let in, while others were crying out in pain at being trampled upon. Babies and small children were screaming out of fear, and from being shoved and jostled by the surge of the crowd.
The passengers left waiting on the platform were panicky and nervous, as if they would surely face death if they were not allowed to get in. From the thud of footsteps overhead, it was apparent that many had climbed onto the roof.
There were so many people inside the carriages and sitting on the roof that the engine was unable to pull the load. It strained, belched clouds of steam and chugged, but the wheels spun on the rails without moving forward. Every passenger blamed the others for this predicament.
A detachment of police constables, lathis and guns in hand, came on to the platform. The travellers on the roof cried out in protest and resisted, but the constables pulled and shooed them off. The engine again put out all its strength, and after much hissing and puffing and shooting out clouds of steam, was barely able to haul the train behind it. The doors of the compartment could not be closed from the crowd spillover, and many travellers were perched on the footboards and hanging from handrails outside the doors.
After the train began to move, the din quieted sufficiently for one to be able to talk in a loud voice. Two children were heard crying, one moaning and hiccupping pitifully. Someone asked in a weak, trembling voice, ‘Does any kind soul have two mouthfuls of water for the baby?’ Puri saw the man with the sharai beard handing a badna, the Muslim-style lota, to an old man.
Loud sobbing from a middle-aged woman drew everyone’s attention. An old Muslim man sat next to her, his clothes splattered with blood. When he saw the passengers looking at him, he too began to weep and speak through his tears, ‘Who knows what He wished for us? We abandoned everything we had, and left with our two young sons, the wife of one of them and our daughter. The Hindus and Sikhs of our village barred our way. Our sons tried to stop them when they tried to carry off our daughter and daughter-in-law. They were cut to pieces with machetes, and both women were taken away. This is our two-year old granddaughter.’
‘Ah! Tut! Tut! Lahaul! Curses be upon them! Tauba!’ Several voices expressed pain, sympathy and disgust.
Another Muslim man said, ‘It’s all the will of Allah. The true human being is the one who fears Him. About a dozen persons were murdered in our village also, and all Muslim homes were set on fire. But our neighbours, God bless that kind family, hid us first in their cowshed, and brought us to the station at night, hidden in their bullock cart.’
Another elderly man removed his turban to show a wound on his head, and prayed that the curse of Allah might fall upon those who had killed his brother.
Puri realized that the only two non-Muslims in the compartment were himself and the Sikh. After hearing his fellow passengers’ stories, a fear was growing in Puri’s heart. What if all the Muslims attacked him and the Sikh in revenge? But the expressions on the faces of the Muslims were not one of menace, but of fear and anxiety.
Two more women began to wail and wipe away their tears. The man sitting beside them sighed deeply as he told their heart-rending story to the passengers around him.
The train was moving at a very slow speed after leaving Ambala station. Barely able to breathe in the crush of bodies, Puri was desperate for the train to reach Amritsar. But when would it get there at this snail’s pace? he wondered.
Puri had taken over the space vacated by the Hindu who got off at Ambala, and could now look out through the window. The speed of the mail train was quite slow, but it still did not stop at small stations, as usual. On all such stations, large crowds of Muslims, their meagre belongings tied up with jute cord, were waiting for trains to carry them away.
The morning was well advanced when the train halted at Sirhind station. The platform was deserted, except for soldiers standing on guard with fixed bayonets. An ominous stillness seemed to pervade every corner. There were piebald splotches of wet brown and black on the platform that appeared to be blood. On one side of the station, beside the fence, lay several corpses. From behind the station came the sound of distant shouts and cries. Only mail sacks were loaded and unloaded, and the train departed.
It had gone only a short distance past the signal post. Scattered houses could still be seen on the other side of the barbed wire stretched along the tracks. The wheels of the train ground to a halt with a metallic screech. The sound of gunshots came from close by, and of bullets hitting the side of the carriages. A group of people with swords, spears, machetes and guns in their hands, jumped over the barbed wire and charged at the train.
There were more gunshots, and the elderly man sitting beside Puri cried out in pain as a bloodstain formed on his shoulder.
Puri pulled away from the window.
Another man screamed, ‘Hai, I’ve been hit!’
The compartment was filled with screams as panic spread through the passengers.
‘Close the windows!’ someone shrieked.
The attackers climbed on the running boards outside the carriages, swinging machetes at people near the door and hurling spears through the doors and windows. They pulled at those nearest the door and threw them down on the ground beside the track. Seeing the attackers advance, some of the persons packing the doorway shrank back. Three young men, two carrying swords and one holding a spear, came in. They struck at random at the passengers, and pushed them out of the compartment. They also threw out any luggage or bundles that they came across. Sporadic gunshots were still to be heard outside. A young woman screamed with terror and clung to her older woman companion. The man armed with a spear moved his weapon to his left hand, grabbed the young woman by the hair, dragged her towards the door and kicked her out. The spear rose, and came down on the mouth of the older women open in a scream, its blade piercing her gullet and coming out from behind. The man with the sharai beard knelt before one man brandishing a sword, pleading and begging for his life. The sword went through him just below the ribcage, and was pulled out. The women sitting next to the slain man collapsed in fear and rolled to the floor.
Nearly half the compartment had been emptied. No one had the courage to fight back. Puri’s throat was dry with fear, and he felt as if he were about to pass out in a faint.
He heard the Sikh call out, ‘Brothers, I am a Sikh and this man here is a brother Hindu.’
Puri too shouted, ‘I’m a Hindu! I’m a Hindu!’
Several others voices said, ‘Hindu! Hindu!’
There was a volley of rifle shots. The attackers began to jump out and run back towards the houses. On a dirt road beside the barbed wire, several jeeps were approaching. Soldiers carrying rifles jumped down form the jeeps.
No guns were firing now. In the ensuing silence, all one could hear was people crying and moaning with pain, and screaming for help.
Someone barked out an order, ‘Everyone get back on. You have five minutes to board the train. The train will leave in five minutes.’ The order was repeated several times.
Some of those thrown to the ground climbed back onto the train. A Muslim lying on the ground just below Puri’s window held up his hand and pleaded, ‘In the name of Allah!’
Puri went to the door, leaned out, grabbed his hand and hauled him. Two women, pulling their burkas together, climbed back into the compartment. The young woman also returned. She stood petrified when she saw the slashed head of her dead companion. A body lay barring the way just inside the door. The elderly man sitting beside Puri who had been hit by a bullet, lay moaning on the floor between the two benches. The children sat in stunned silence.
Puri’s mouth was parched. Everything seemed to blur before his eyes. He went back to his seat. The soldiers were repeating the order for everyone to get back on the train. A few soldiers were helping the wounded climb back into the carriages. Puri heard someone moan loudly from the floor of his compartment. He saw the man with the sharai beard move his head and cry out again in pain. The Sikh put his arm under the wounded man and tried to lift him to a seat, but there was not enough space for him to lie down.
The train pulled out about an hour after the attack. Both sides of the track were strewn with trunks, bundles and the bodies of dead people.
The train reached Ludhiana station. Soldiers with bayonets at the ready stood guard on the platform, and also beside the train tracks. A group of officers stood in the middle of the platform. Another order was given out:
‘Everyone should disembark within two minutes. There is a danger of attack ahead on this line. The train is being terminated here. No passengers may leave the station area. All passengers will be taken to the Muslim refugee camp for their protection.’
Some passengers got off with whatever was left of their luggage and bundles. The injured and their companions looked around in despair and bewilderment, undecided what to do. Puri could not see his trunk anywhere but there was no time to search for it. The Sikh too was in a fix. His luggage was too much for him to carry unaided.
Puri, his own bedding roll under an arm, went to one of the officers and said in English, ‘I’m Hindu. I don’t want to go to the Muslim refugee camp.’
The officer looked Puri over from head to toe, and rapping his cane against his trouser leg, asked, ‘Your name?’
‘Jaidev Puri.’
‘Khattri! Where do you want to go?’
‘I must get to Lahore.’
‘What’s your profession?’ the officer wanted to know.
‘Journalist.’
‘Journalist?’ The officer said with surprise. ‘Don’t you know about the situation in Lahore?’
‘I had to go to Nainital three weeks ago. My family is in Lahore. I must go back to search for them.’
‘Well, if you want to risk your life, it’s your problem. You may leave.’
‘There’s another thing,’ Puri said hesitantly. ‘There are wounded and some women in my compartment who might need help.’
‘It’s possible. We’ll check,’ and the officer turned his attention to something else.
Ludhiana was a completely unknown city for Puri. Both in heart and mind, after the experiences of the past eighteen hours, he felt so exhausted and distressed that he did not want to do anything or search any further. He filled himself up with water from a tap, and collapsed with fatigue in the first place he could find in the station waiting room. He lay there for over two hours. Would he be able to reach Lahore? he wondered. He would have to search for his family in all possible places. Refugees from Lahore and other areas must have come to this city also. He should inquire at the refugee camps.
The railway station and the passenger waiting room stank like a latrine. Outside and around the station, every place that could possibly provide shelter from the sun and rain, and serve as a nook to sleep in was packed with Hindu refugees from the west. Puri walked around until midnight, and on the next day also to various reception centres set up in schools and other public buildings. He could not find anything about his family. A rumour was going round that the government had barred the flow of refugees pouring in from the west by closing down the train service and the roads between Amritsar and Ludhiana. That route was being kept open for the caravans of refugees going towards Pakistan. The routes open for Hindus coming from the west were through the barrage over the Sutlej river and via the town of Ferozepur. Puri heard many horrible tales of atrocities committed on Hindus in Lahore and western Punjab. That night he spent again in the waiting room, using his rolled-up bedding as a pillow.
On the morning of the third day, Puri boarded a train going to Ferozepur. This train was hardly crowded. The Moga District station appeared deserted. Blood was splattered all over the platform, and bodies lay strewn. Men with machetes and spears in their hands roamed around boldly. A man with a Sten gun slung over his shoulder peered into all the compartments, asking, ‘Any chickens for sacrifice?’
The train took a long time to move out of Moga station. The engine blew its whistle several times indicating departure, but did not move. Puri had not eaten anything since the day before, and was famished. Through the picket fence he could see chapattis being cooked on tandoors on a street beside the station. But he did not dare to go even that far. If the train left while he was gone, who knew when the next train would leave?
Several Jats, wearing turbans and lungis, marched into the station. They held two young women by their arms, and were dragging them along. One woman had no dupatta covering her head, and her chintz kurta was torn at the right shoulder, exposing the pale pink skin of a firm young breast. The woman seemed terrified and in a daze. The other young woman was also in no fit state to arrange the blue cotton dupatta around her shoulders. Two men had bundles wrapped in red embroidered dupattas tucked under their arms.
The men herded the young women into Puri’s compartment. In their hands they carried bloodstained spears and machetes. One was carrying a pistol. Tears streaked the faces of the women and they looked numb with fear. From their chintz shalwars with floral designs, the thick heavy silver ornaments around their necks and on their arms it was obvious that they came from a Muslim village. Their captors seemed to be quarrelling over something.
Puri was struck dumb by what he had seen, and it was some time before he could understand Punjabi spoken in an unfamiliar dialect. One man was cursing his companion in a loud voice, ‘That hot young chick was the one to have. Didn’t you see her tits? Damn it, just like a pair of fighting partridges with their beaks thrust out,’ he made a conical shape with his fingers, ‘and you idiot, damn you, you slit her throat!’
The object of this criticism looked at the others in the group for support before protesting, ‘Wah, what rubbish you talk! She bit my arm. Here, see.’ The man removed a rag tied round his wrist to reveal a bite mark, still oozing blood.
The accuser waved his hand in dismissal and said, ‘Shame on you, and you call yourself a man! You sister-loving fool, you were scared of a woman? It takes skill to break these motherfuckers! You sister-loving idiot, if you’d asked me, I’d have handled that fucker in such a way that she’d have begged for mercy!’
Puri turned his face away.
He was forced to turn his face back towards them when his arm was yanked, ‘Who are you? Pull down your pajama!’ A spear was pointed at his stomach.
Puri trembled with fear.
‘I’m a Hindu, a khattri.’ His hands pulled down his trousers without unbuttoning them, and raised his shirtfront.
The man questioning him and his companions all burst into loud guffaws. Puri felt ashamed in front of the kidnapped women sitting with their heads bent. He turned away and pulled up his trousers.
‘Where do you live? In Ferozepur town?’ He was asked again.
‘In Lahore,’ Puri replied.
‘Gave away your womenfolk to the Islamites, right?’
Puri had nothing to answer.
‘Abey, why don’t you answer?’
‘I was in Nainital. I’m going back to Lahore.’
‘Nainital? Where’s that? In what country?’
‘Beyond Delhi.’
‘Past Delhi? In Hindustan?’ They meant the United Provinces.
‘Yes.’
‘Going to Lahore? Isn’t he brave!’
‘He’s a babu,’ another man said.
The men stopped paying attention to Puri, and went back to talking with each other. They got off at the next station, taking the women along with them. Puri breathed more easily.
Other passengers in the compartment started to talk, ‘What’s going on in the world? Everyone has gone crazy. No one shows any decency or humanity any more. And where did all these weapons come from? Everyone seems to be carrying a pistol or a rifle.’
Puri felt angry, why hadn’t these people spoken up before? But he too had remained silent. When weapons were needed to fight the British, he was thinking, no weapons were to be found. Now not only does everyone seem to have one, but the weapons need not be hidden from the police!
Gave away your women to the Islamites! The man’s taunt gnawed at his mind. But what could he have said in reply?
All that he had read in the newspapers before leaving Nainital, and heard afterwards in Ludhiana from the refugees from west Punjab, about women being molested and raped and being paraded naked, all came back to him. His mind felt numb with despair. What had happened to human beings? Where did this lust to kill, maul and destroy come from? Poor Tara became a victim. What his mother must have faced, along with Usha, Toshi, Pushpa, Ratan’s mother and the other women of the gali? He remembered the stories about Hindu women, like Padmini of Chittorgarh, who chose to burn themselves alive rather than face humiliation. Was killing herself the only way a woman could escape torture and humiliation? Were such barbaric acts by men natural and excusable? There are some men who oppose such barbarism… There are those willing to risk their lives to fight such cruelties… I wasn’t able do anything … Everybody is powerless in times like these.
The image of that firm, young breast peeping out of the woman’s torn kurta came back to his mind, with what the Jat had said about the attractive woman one of them had hacked to death. He was disturbed by the thought that a woman’s beauty was always reprehensible to her. For, a man’s desire was a dangerous thing. But what if a man did not desire her? … Because of his physical superiority, he could still strip her of everything, and drive her off and desert her, like an animal, to fend for herself in some jungle.
