Other Side Of Silence Page 3

  In situations such as this, it is extremely difficult to be able to interview people alone. Most conversations took place in family situations: even though we may have been speaking to one person, the entire family — often several generations of it — would converge, and every now and again, someone or the other would offer an explanation, or take on a question. Stories begun would be left incomplete, and when resumed, would move on to something else. Later, we might come back to the same story, or not at all. No neat chronologies marked the telling; there were no clear beginnings and endings. I began to understand how much, and how easily, the past flowed into the present, how remembering also meant reliving the past from within the context of the present. For so many people then, 1947 and 1984 flowed into each other and often it became difficult to disentangle what it was they were remembering: the memory of violence, the vulnerability of victimhood elided the many years that had passed in-between. At others, having begun to remember, to excavate memory, words would suddenly fail speech as memory encountered something too painful, often too frightening to allow it to enter speech. ‘How can I describe this,’ would come the anguished cry, ‘there are no words to do so.’ At such points, I chose not to push further, not to force the surfacing of memories into speech. Tellings begun thus would be left incomplete: I learnt to recognize this, the mixing of time past and time present, the incompleteness, often even contradictoriness, in the stories as part of the process of remembering, to oneself and to others. I recognized too the imbalance of power that oral historians have often spoken about as being inherent in such situations: for the most part I watched, listened, recorded while people laid their lives bare. When they turned around with a question to me: what do you think this will achieve, who do you think will listen to your tapes, will this really make a difference to anything, to our lives, the lives of others, I felt, immediately, the inadequacy of my answers. Did it matter to the people I was speaking to that I felt it important that the memory of Partition not be lost? That the history of Partition had ignored their experiences and stories, and mine was part of an exercise, tentatively begun, to restore these stories to history? That remembering, to me, was an essential part of forgetting? I had no easy answers to these questions.

  A last word about the trajectory that has led me to this work. In the beginning, I began work alone. After some time, however, it became very difficult to continue thus. The kinds of stories I was hearing were so harrowing, so full of grief and anguish, that often I could not bear to listen to them. And I could not escape a sense of having the burden of the stories somehow shifted onto myself — it seemed almost as if, after their initial reluctance to speak, once people decided they would do so, they would do so almost cathartically, making you, as listener, the bearer of their burden. I remember coming out of a long interview with a family in Jangpura one day, and thinking that I would not be able to go on, to constantly listen to stories of such violence, such horror. It was at this point that a very dear friend of mine, Sudesh Vaid, stepped in — at my request — and with the two of us working together, things became much easier. We were able to talk, to share some things, to laugh about others. Several of the interviews you see in this book were done by us jointly — and this is why I often refer to the interviewers in the plural — and some were begun by me, and then continued by both of us. At some point in the work, Sudesh dropped out. One of the key reasons she did so was because she now began to feel she could not cope with the kinds of stories we were hearing. By this time, I was too involved to drop the project, and decided therefore to continue alone. It is one of my lasting regrets that Sudesh did not stay with this project: had she done so, it would have been a richer, and I firmly believe, a better — as indeed a very different — work.

  Whatever its limitations — and there are many — I now put this work before the reader in the hope that it will make some contribution, however small, to the writing of Partition histories, and that at some stage in the not too distant future, access to both sides becomes freely available to all of us. In 1997 India and Pakistan ‘celebrated’ fifty years of independence. At the time, I thought that the best way the two countries could mark this moment was to open the borders, even if only for a limited period (a year, perhaps two). I am convinced that, had this happened, there would have been hundreds and thousands of people wanting to go across to the ‘other’ country, to visit their old homes, to meet their old friends and relatives. But that moment is past: I think all we can hope for now is that there will be some opening up, sometime, for unless that happens and we are able to talk about Partition, I fear we may not be able to put it behind us.

  2

  Blood

  Part I

  RANAMAMA

  This story begins, as all stories inevitably do, with myself. For many years while this story has lived with me, I have thought and debated about how to tell it, indeed whether to tell it at all. At first it was painful and, I thought, too private to be told. Even though my uncle had said, time and again, that he did not mind my telling it, even though my mother knew I wanted to tell it, I still couldn’t get rid of a sense of betrayal. I was convinced they didn’t realize the implications of what they were saying. Perhaps then the simple thing to do would have been to show the story to them before I let it go. But when I thought of doing this I realized I did not want to. Because if I am to be honest, I had already decided the story had to be told. In many ways, as I began to see it, the telling unfolded not only my story, not only that of my family, but also, through their lives, many other stories, all of which were somewhere woven into a narrative of this strange thing we call a nation. This may sound very grandiose, and in the telling of this story — and all the others that follow — I don’t mean to theorize about grand things. But I do want to ask questions: difficult, disturbing questions that have dogged me ever since I embarked on this journey.

  For long too, I have debated about how I would begin this story once the task of telling was upon me. There are so many beginnings, it was difficult to choose. Was it, for example, the stories of the trauma and pain of Partition, the violence that it brought, that I had heard all my life, that started me on this search? Was it the film I worked on for some friends which brought me in touch with Partition survivors and began this trajectory for me? Or was it 1984, the year that brought the aftermath of Indira Gandhi’s assassination: the killing, and maiming of thousands of Sikhs in Delhi, the violent upheaval and dislocation of their lives which recalled Partition with such clarity? Or was it all of these? I don’t really know. Here, at any rate, is one beginning. Others, too, will surface somewhere in this narrative.

  It was around 10 o’clock on a warm summer night in 1987 that I found myself standing in the veranda of a rather decrepit old house in a suburb of Lahore. A dusty bulb, hanging from a single plaited wire, cast a pale light on the cracked pistachio green walls. I was nervous, somewhat frightened, and also curious. The enormity of what I was about to do had only just begun to dawn on me. And predictably, I was tempted to turn around and run. But there was nowhere to run to. This was Lahore; it was night; women did not walk out into deserted streets — or indeed crowded ones — alone in search of non-existent transport.

  So I did what I had come to do. I rang the bell. A short while later, three women came to the barred window. I asked if this was the house of the person I was in search of. Yes, they said, but he wasn’t there. He was away on ‘tour’ and expected home later that night. This was something I had not bargained for: had he been there I had somehow foolishly imagined he would know me instantly — despite the fact that he had never seen me before, and was probably totally unaware of my existence. Vaguely I remember looking at the floor for inspiration, and noticing that engraved in it was the game of chopar that my mother had told us about — it was something, she said, that my grandfather had especially made for his wife, my grandmother. Gathering together my courage I said to the three assembled women: ‘I’m looking for him because I am his niece, his si
ster’s daughter, come from Delhi.’

  Door bolts were drawn and I was invited in. The women were Rana’s wife — my aunt — and her daughters — my cousins. To this day I am not sure if it was my imagination or if they were actually quite friendly. I remember being surprised because they seemed to know who I was — you must be Subhadra’s daughter, they said, you look a bit like her. Look like her? But they had never even seen my mother. At the time, though, I was too nervous to ask. I was led into a large, luridly furnished living room: for an hour we made careful conversation and drank Coca Cola. Then my friend Firhana came to collect me: I knew her sister, Ferida, and was staying at their house.

  This could well have been the end of the story. In a sense, not finding my uncle at home was almost a relief. I went away thinking well, this is it, I’ve done it. Now I can go home and forget about all of this. But that was easier said than done. History does not give you leave to forget so easily.

  Crossing the border into Pakistan had been easier than I thought. Getting a visa was difficult, though, ironically, the visa office at the Pakistan High Commission ran two separate counters, one for people they called ‘foreigners’ and the other for Indians. At the latter crowds of people jostled and pushed, trying to get together all the necessary paperwork while outside, an old man, balding and half-bent at the waist, offered to take instant photos, using a small bucket of developer to get them ready. Once over the border, however, everything looked familiar at the airport — the same chaos, the same language, the same smells, the same clothes. What I was not prepared for, however, was the strong emotional pull that came with the crossing. I felt — there is no other word for it — a sense of having come home. And I kept asking myself why. I was born five years after Partition. What did I know of the history of pain and anguish that had dogged the lives of my parents and grandparents? Why should this place, which I had never seen before, seem more like home than Delhi, where I had lived practically all my life?

  What was this strange trajectory of histories and stories that had made it seem so important for me to come here? Standing there, in the veranda of my uncle’s house, I remember thinking, perhaps for the first time, that this was something unexpected. When I had begun my search, I wasn’t sure what I would find. But I wasn’t prepared for what I did find. This was something no history lesson had prepared me for: these people, strangers that I had met practically that instant, were treating me like family. But actually the frontier that divided us went so deep that everywhere you looked, in religion, in politics, in geography and history, it reared its ugly head and mocked these little attempts at overcoming the divide.

  Ranamama, outside whose house I stood that night, is my mother’s youngest brother. Like many north Indian families, ours too was divided at Partition. My mother, who was still single at the time, found herself on the Indian side of the border. Ranamama, her brother, chose to stay behind. According to my mother and her other siblings, his choice was a motivated one. He wanted access to the property my grandfather — who was no longer alive — owned. With all other family contenders out of the way, he could be sole owner of it. Because of this, and because of the near impossibility of keeping in touch after Partition, the family ‘lost’ contact with Ranamama. For forty years, no one communicated with him, heard from him or saw anything of him. Until, that is, I went to see him.

  Ever since I can remember we had heard stories of Partition — from my grandmother (my father’s mother) who lived with us, and from my parents who had both lived through it very differently. In the way that I had vaguely registered several of these stories, I had also registered Rana’s. Not only had he stayed back but worse, and I suspect this was what made him a persona non grata in our family, he had become a Muslim. My mother made two difficult and dangerous journeys, amidst the worst communal violence, to Lahore to fetch her family to India. The first time she brought her younger brother, Billo, and a sister, Savita. The second time she went to fetch her mother and Rana, the youngest (her father had long since died). But, she said, Rana refused to come, and wasn’t willing to let my grandmother go either. He denied that he wanted to hold on to her for the sake of my grandfather’s property which was in her name, and promised to bring her to India soon. This never happened. Once the country was divided, it became virtually impossible for people of different communities to move freely in the ‘other’ country. Except for a few who were privileged and had access to people in power — a circumstance that ensured relatively smooth passage — most people were unable to go back to their homes, which had often been left behind in a hurry. There was deep suspicion on both sides, and any cross-border movement was watched and monitored by the police and intelligence. Rana and his family kept contact for some time, but found themselves constantly under surveillance, with their letters being opened, and questions being asked. After a while, they simply gave up trying to communicate. And for forty years, it remained that way. Although Rana remained in my grandfather’s house, no one spoke or wrote to him, no one heard from him in all these years. Sometime during this time, closer to, 1947 than not, my family heard unconfirmed reports that my grandmother had died. But no one really knew. The sense of deep loss, of family, mother, home, gave way to bitterness and resentment, and finally to indifference. Perhaps it was this last that communicated itself to us when, as children, we listened to stories of Partition and the family’s history.

  At midnight, the phone rang in my friend Ferida’s house. We were deep in conversation and gossip over cups of coffee and the salt/sweet tea the Pakistanis call kehwa. She listened somewhat distractedly to the phone for a minute — who could be calling at this time — and handed it to me, suddenly excited, saying, ‘It’s your uncle.’ As Ferida had answered the phone, a male voice at the other end had said, apparently without preamble, ‘I believe my daughter is staying with you. Please call my daughter, I would like to speak to her.’

  ‘Beti,’ he said to me as I tentatively greeted him, ‘what are you doing there? This is your home. You must come home at once and you must stay here. Give me your address and I’ll come and pick you up.’ No preamble, no greeting, just a direct, no nonsense picking up of family ties. I was both touched and taken aback.

  We talked, and argued. Finally I managed to dissuade him. It was late, he was tired. Why didn’t we just meet in the morning? I’d get my friend to bring me over. ‘I’ll not settle for just meeting,’ he told me, ‘don’t think you can get away from here. This is your home and this is where you must stay — with your family.’

  Home? Family? I remember thinking these were strange words between two people who hardly knew each other. Ought I to go and stay with him? I was tempted, but I was also uncertain. How could I pack my bags and go off to stay with someone I didn’t know, even if there was a family connection? The next morning I went, minus bags. He remarked on it instantly — where is your luggage? Later that evening he came with me to Ferida’s house. I picked up my bags, and we went back together to his home.

  I stayed with my uncle for a week. All the time I was aware of an underlying sense of betrayal: my mother had had no wish to re-open contact with her brother whom she suspected of being mercenary and scheming. Why else, she asked, had he stayed back, held on to the property, and to the one person to whom it belonged: my grandmother. Over the years, her bitterness and resentment had only increased. But, given my own political trajectory, this visit meant too much to me to abandon. And once I had seen my uncle, and been addressed by him as ‘daughter’, it became even more difficult to opt out. So I stayed, in that big, rambling haveli, and for a week we talked. It was an intense and emotionally draining week. For a long time afterwards I found it difficult to talk about that parenthetical time in my life. I remember registering various presences: my aunt, my younger and older cousins, food, sleep — all somewhat vaguely. The only recollection that remains sharp and crystal clear, is of the many conversations my uncle and I had.

  Why had he not left with his brother and sister
s at Partition, I asked him. ‘Why did you stay back?’ Well, Ranamama said, like a lot of other people he had never expected Partition to happen the way it had. ‘Many of us thought, yes, there’ll be change, but why should we have to move?’ He hadn’t thought political decisions could affect his life, and by the time he realized otherwise, it was too late, the point of no return had actually been reached. ‘I was barely twenty. I’d had little education. What would I have done in India? I had no qualifications, no job, nothing to recommend me.’ But he had family in India, surely one of them would have looked after him? ‘No one really made an offer to take me on — except your mother. But she was single, and had already taken on the responsibility of two other siblings.’

  And my grandmother? Why did he insist on her staying on, I asked, anxious to believe that there was a genuine, ‘excusable’ reason. He offered an explanation: I did not believe it. ‘I was worried about your mother having to take on the burden of an old mother, just like I was worried when she offered to take me with her. So I thought, I’d do my share and look after her.’

  My grandmother, Dayawanti, died in 1956. The first time anyone in our family learnt of this was when I visited Ranamama in 1987 and he told me. For years, we’d heard that she had been left behind in Pakistan, and were dimly aware that rumour put her date of death variously at 1949, ‘52, ‘53, sometimes earlier. But she had lived till 1956. Nine years after Partition. At the time, seven of her eight children lived across the border, in India, most of them in Delhi. Delhi is half an hour away from Lahore by air. None of them knew. Some things, I found, are difficult to forgive.

  The way Ranamama described it, the choice to stay on was not really a choice at all. In fact, like many people, he thought he wasn’t choosing, but was actually waiting to do so when things were decided for him. But what about the choice to convert? Was he now a believer? Had he been one then? What did religion mean to him — after all, the entire rationale for the creation of two countries out of one, was said to have been religion. And, it was widely believed — with some truth — that large numbers of people were forced to convert to the ‘other’ religion. But Rana?