This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (70 page)

Gafoor surveyed the women, and pulled Kesaro up by grabbing her arm, ‘Here’s a virgin for you. One who hasn’t had any kids, is a virgin. She’s not even sixteen.’

The older man shook his head, ‘She’s all used up.’ Kesaro slumped to the floor when Gafoor let go of her arm.

The older man gave Kesaro a hard look of appraisal, ‘She’s of no use now.’ He turned back towards Durga, and said after a moment’s reflection, ‘This one can hardly be a virgin.’

‘There’s a virgin!’ Durga said to protect herself, pointing at Tara. Tara had been sitting with her knees drawn up and her head tucked between her arms. She did not rise when her plait was pulled, but just allowed her head to be tilted.

She hissed angrily, ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ In her rage she had spoken in Hindi, instead of Punjabi.

‘Oh! She speaks Farsi!’ The young man took a step back.

‘When you get into her, she’ll forget all her Farsi!’ Gafoor said to bolster up the young man’s courage.

The older man said in rustic Punjabi, ‘We don’t need someone who can write petitions. We need a woman, not a clerk, for the boy.’ He turned away his face to show his disapproval.

Gafoor, the father and the young man again looked the women over, then went out and stood talking in the aangan. The three came inside again, and Gafoor grabbed Durga’s arm and began to drag her behind him. Durga screamed, thrashed around on the floor and tried to resist by digging in her heels, but Gafoor yanked her by the arm and pulled her out of the room.

The hearts of the terrified women were beating fiercely. They felt defenceless and unprotected. The noise of Durga’s crying and screaming moved towards the vestibule. They heard the door being opened and closed. They sat in terrified silence for a while, and then burst into tears, ‘Hai, what’ll become of us? What’ll they do to us? Who’ll help us when they drag us away like that? Only God can help us.’

The old woman brought the rotis just before noon the next day. Noticing Durga’s absence, she said, ‘You see? He took her away. What did I tell you? That man, will sell you all. And such good girls.’

Each passing day made Tara feel as if she was sinking deeper into a bottomless pit of despair. ‘Had I been alone, I surely would have attempted something,’ she thought. She found it increasingly hard to get along with the others. ‘These women were living in the hope that God would rescue them. They saw that He didn’t do anything when Durga was taken away, but they do not lose faith in Him and continue to hope that He would still
help them. And why do I sit idly by, and do nothing? God seems to be on the side of our torturer, that heartless scoundrel Gafoor and the old slut, rather than any of us.’

Her craving for food in addition to her imprisonment like some animal in a cage were eating away at her sense of dignity and self-esteem, she felt. In moments of acute despair she would wonder why she didn’t accept the old slut’s offer to get out of this prison, to be away from these stupid women. Outside, she might find some way to end her life. This fate was certainly worse than death. ‘If the old woman repeats her offer today, maybe I’ll agree,’ she thought.

It was still early morning. The sky had turned cloudy before sunrise, making it difficult to guess the exact hour. Loud knocks on the outer door startled the women and made them look towards the entrance. The sound of the door chain clanging and then falling did not follow. The banging continued. The women ran inside the room. The old woman had never come this early. Gafoor, they guessed nervously. His arrival was always a cause for fear. Their ears were cocked for the sound of any movement. The uncertainty and the suspense added to their terror.

The clatter of hobnailed boots entering the aangan followed the sound of the door being flung open. Satwant and Banti were watching through a crack in the door. They stepped back apprehensively and looked at the women behind them, saying fearfully, ‘Police! Sepoys!’

The women’s hearts sank. In the course of their misfortunes they had usually suffered at the hands of policemen and soldiers. The abuse of their authority had been a cause of fear and threat for the women.

Someone gave an order from the aangan, ‘Whoever is in the rooms, come outside. We’re here to help you.’

Paralysed by their uncertainly and threat, the women huddled together in a corner. They all looked at Tara: What should we do?

Tara summoned her courage and stepped forward. She peered out from behind the door. She saw a police inspector in uniform, four constables, a few soldiers and an army officer. Also two respectably dressed young men; one in a white shirt and trousers, the other in a white shalwar trousers and kameez. With them was a young Hindu woman, in a shalwar and kameez of white khadi, her dupatta draped in the Hindu style around her shoulders. The woman’s expression showed no trace of fear.

Tara spoke on behalf of the others, ‘Bahinji, could you please come in?’

When the woman approached, Tara said, ‘Please come in. Some of us don’t have proper clothes. How can we come out in front of these men?’

The woman stepped into the room. She looked at the women huddling together, exchanged a few words with Tara and went out, asking her to wait.

She returned after several minutes, carrying a bundle of clothes. The women wrapped dupattas around their bodies. There was an extra shalwar for Banti. Even after covering themselves, the women hesitated to leave the room.

Tara, her head covered in a dupatta, stepped out, followed by the others with their faces veiled.

‘You here?’ Tara heard the words spoken in English. She looked up. Her body shook, and she felt as if she would collapse. Her head sank.

‘I can’t believe my eyes!’ Asad was staring at Tara in open-eyed amazement.

Tara’s head spun. She could not utter a word. A question from the woman who had come to their rescue saved her, ‘How many of you are here?’

‘There’re now seven of us,’ Tara replied, and led the woman into the next room as she described the precarious condition of Lakkhi.

The woman asked the constables to bring a stretcher, and some clothing and sheets. Lakkhi had been writhing in agony since the previous evening. She could neither lie down, nor sit up without feeling pain. She was still moaning, her body shaken by agonized spasms. Banti and Tara dressed her, wrapped her in sheets and put her on the stretcher. Although she could hardly remain still, Lakkhi tried not to moan and to control her pangs in front of the men by biting her lip and gripping the poles of the stretcher.

Two constables carried the stretcher out of the room. The woman and the police inspector checked all the other rooms. The inspector and constables went up to the roof, after breaking open the lock on the door that led to the stairs.

The woman said to Tara, ‘We were told that ten or twelve women were locked up here.’

There were only seven at the moment, Tara assured her.

The constables went through the entrance first, with Lakkhi writhing in discomfort on the stretcher. The women followed.

Several constables, holding rifles, stood on guard outside the door. Tara now recognized that the man accompanying Asad was Zuber. He also stood with his mouth agape on seeing Tara, barely managing to stammer out a namaste. He too asked in surprise, ‘How did you get here?’

Srimati Kaushalya Devi, a representative of the Indian government, had come to Shaikhupura in Pakistan with a guarantee of safe passage to rescue any Hindu women who had been kidnapped or taken away from their families.

A sub-inspector of the Pakistani police rode in a jeep with armed constables at the head of the convoy. Armed soldiers of the Indian Army followed in another jeep. Third in the convoy was a small bus, for bringing back the rescued women. An Indian Army truck, with a squad of armed soldiers, brought up the rear. An Indian soldier, carrying a sub-machine gun, sat beside the bus driver.

Kaushalya Devi and Zuber had got into the front of the bus. Asad asked Tara to come and sit with him in the back. After the rest of the women had taken seats, the stretcher carrying Lakkhi was placed in the aisle.

Their convoy was travelling through the looted and nearly deserted town of Shaikhupura, towards the Jarnaili Road. Asad said in English to Tara, seated beside him, ‘I’m still not able to get over my surprise.’

Tara, her head lowered, made no reply.

Asad told her, ‘Four days ago a young man from Shaikhupura came to the Communist Party office. He was too scared to give his name and address. He informed us that in the mohalla behind the bazaar mandi, ten or twelve women were locked up in the mansion of Udho Das. We asked the Indian liaison officer to take action. The Indian military cannot carry out any investigation without permission of the Pakistani government, and unless escorted by Pakistani police. It took four days to straighten that out, and nobody was aware that you were here all this time! How did this happen?’

Tara stared out of the window without replying. She was finding it hard to say anything, and what could she explain in one sentence? She felt like saying, ‘I’ve nothing to say, I’ve nothing to tell you. I’ve sunk lower than the dust.’ On the roadside, as far as her eyes could see, was the evidence of devastation and plunder: broken, upturned bullock carts, dead bodies,
vultures and dogs fighting over the carcasses of oxen. A heavy, nauseating, choking stench hung in the air.

‘I met Puri on the 31 July or maybe 1 August. He was very sad. I don’t understand. Your people think that you could not escape the fire at the Banni Hata. They had no inkling of any other possibility,’ Asad was speaking softly, as if talking to himself.

‘All they wanted was to get me married off. For them I’m as good as dead. They got rid of the burden I was to them,’ Tara told herself inwardly, but could not bring herself to say it out loud.

The convoy bringing back the women rescued from Udho Das’s house crossed the bridge over the Ravi River and entered Lahore city. Tara recognized many familiar landmarks, but they all looked different now. Clouds covering the sky since daybreak came down as rain when the convoy had crossed the bridge. On both sides of the road, rain-dappled planks of stacked wood, clusters of bamboo poles and heaps of firewood in timber merchants’ lots seemed also to be shedding tears in sympathy. The sky was weeping, the trees were crying, and rain streamed down the fronts of the houses like torrents of tears.

Tara, when she was little, had walked many times along this same road with Sheelo, Dhanno and Biddo, all wearing colourful dupattas and skipping ahead of her mother and other women from the gali as they all went for a dip in the river. There was no reason for fear at that time. Hindus and Muslims were not at each other’s throat in those days.

Asad leaned towards Tara and said gently, ‘Your family must have left Lahore. Puri said something about going to Nainital or UP in search of a job. Most Hindus have either left or been forced to leave. The rest are being moved out now. That’s the government policy. Narendra Singh’s family was stuck here in grave danger. We escorted them up to Amritsar. Pradyumna, Mahajan and others have gone too. How can we get in touch with Puri? Do you know his whereabouts?’

Tara shook her head.

‘So what do you think now?’

Tara said nothing, just waved a hand to mean that she had no ideas.

The convoy came to a halt in front of the building between the D.A.V. College and the Tibba Farid police station.

‘You won’t be able to live in Lahore if you call yourself a Hindu,’ Asad said hesitantly, leaning towards her.

Tara’s head was bent. The days spent at Hafizji’s house flashed through her mind.

To avoid looking at Asad and to give vent to the emotions rising in her heart, she looked up at the sky and let out a sigh.

The rain-drenched sacred sign of Om on the top of the building seemed to be weeping too, at having been abandoned by its devotees.

After Lakkhi’s stretcher had been laid in the bus, no one had paid any attention to her moans. When the bus came to a stop, she was found dead.

Kaushalya Devi and Zuber got down from the bus. The rest of the women were waiting for the stretcher blocking their way to be removed.

Asad whispered in Tara’s ear, ‘Now’s the time for you to decide your future for yourself.’

The Indian Army officer wanted the Pakistani police to accept responsibility for Lakkhi’s body because she had died in Pakistan, before entering the Hindu camp, but the Pakistani police inspector refused to assume responsibility for a corpse after handing over a live Indian citizen to the representatives of the Indian government.

Crowds of refugees milled everywhere in the two-storey buildings of the D.A V. College, the high school, the student hostels, and in the adjacent courtyards and concourse spread out in an area as large as a small town, making the whole place buzz like a beehive. All the courtyards were filled with tents, large and small, and bivouacs, with high monsoon grass growing on the ground in between. The grass was trodden down, and strewn with excrement left by desperate people with no place to relieve themselves.

Asad walked fearlessly into this Hindu refugee camp with Tara. Kaushalya Devi considered him to be trustworthy and reliable. He said to Tara in English, ‘You must be feeling very upset at the moment. Get some rest, and think things over. I’ll come back in the evening, around five or six.’ He left, after seeing the place Tara had found to stay.

Kaushalya Devi had put all the women liberated from Shaikhupura in rooms in the camp reserved for women who had been rescued. A young man came forward with a register. Kaushalya Devi began to supervise the registering of names and addresses of the new arrivals and details of their families. Since she already knew Tara’s name, she asked for it to be recorded first and asked Tara about the rest of her family.

‘Everyone in my family has left Lahore,’ Tara replied.

‘Their names and addresses?’

‘There’s no use now in giving that information.’

‘Where would you like to go?’

‘I don’t know yet. I’ll have to think about it.’

‘How did you get to Shaikhupura?’

‘They dumped me in a vehicle and took me there.’