This Is Not That Dawn: Jhootha Sach (74 page)

Puri had gone around various refugee camps in Jalandhar in the past two days, and had met several old acquaintances. His fellow prisoner in Multan Camp jail, Mehar Chand from the town of Pind Dadan Khan, refused to utter a word when he saw Puri. Every last bit of Mehar Chand’s property had been looted, and every woman of his family had been abducted. Puri’s blood boiled on hearing the atrocities suffered by the family and neighbours of Tek Singh from Sangla, another comrade from the days in Multan Camp jail. And it was not easy to listen to the blood-curdling accounts of Hukumat Rai, his classmate from the years Puri had spent studying for the intermediate exam. The eyes of Rudh Singh, another acquaintance, were bloodshot with anger. All he wanted was to go back westward, and die after killing as many as he could. And now, on his way to Amritsar, Puri was looking at dead and dismembered Muslims, at the naked, mutilated bodies of their women. He was seeing with his own eyes the endless line of marching corpses, Muslims too terrified and exhausted even to cry out in protest, the very people who had once been the rightful owners of the land from which they had been uprooted. An artificial boundary line had been drawn over the countryside, dividing into two countries the very soil to which the people were linked by family and history. The Hindus on the other side of that man-made line had suffered the same fate. Puri’s skin crawled with fear when he thought of his family being ruined by the vagaries of the same fate as the people in front of his eyes.

The station wagon that had left Jalandhar at six that morning covered the distance of sixty miles to Amritsar in seven hours. Traffic bottlenecks in both directions had forced them to wait for over an hour to cross the bridge over the Vyas River. Amritsar was a much larger city than Jalandhar. Droves of disposssed people fleeing their homes in the west had settled like a swarm of locusts over every foot of the available space. One could not walk through a bazaar or down a street without having to push through surging crowds. Puri went to the poste restante at the General Post Office to inquire about any mail from Kali, whom he had met in Ferozepur, and left instructions that all letters meant for him should be forwarded to Sood’s address in Jalandhar. He spent the rest of the day combing through
the lists of refugees at camps set up at Khalsa College, Loha Garh, Darbar Sahib, Durgiayana, and in various schools and factories. There was no trace of his family. The station wagon left for Jalandhar at 11 o’clock at night. The traffic on the highway had thinned down at that hour, and they reached Jalandhar at two in the morning.

Next day, after thanking Sood for taking advantage of his generosity, he hinted that he now wanted to look for his people in Ambala and Ludhiana, if the possibility presented itself.

Sood replied, running his hand over his closely cropped hair as was his habit, ‘An occasion for you to go there can easily be created. If you want, you can even go up to what’s-its-name Delhi to look for your family. But does this haphazard running around, this hope of finding them purely by chance really make sense? Listen bhai, if you are banking only on luck you could just go down this what’s-its-name stairway, and find your father standing in front of Ram Ditta Halwai’s shop across the street. You should first try to guess where they might be, and look for them there.’

Sood continued, ‘Wherever they are, they can survive if they have a bit of cash in hand. Does what’s-its-name your father have some cash or valuables with him?’

Puri’s voice trembled with emotion, ‘That’s my biggest worry. What savings could my family have put together? My father was a schoolteacher. I was unemployed for the last six months. We somehow managed my sister’s wedding this July. We’d bought a lot of foodstuff like ghee, on credit, for the ceremony. The marriage was performed in a hurry; most of the stuff remained unused. That’s all we had, but who could carry away all that? And who knows how they’ve been living and surviving till now? You know, I’m willing to do anything, but I feel so helpless in this mess that I can’t think of how to go about it.’

Sood continued to run his hand reflectively over the top and sides of his head as he looked at some distant point outside the open window, and said, ‘Bhai, your priority is to get yourself settled. First get your own place, so that what’s-its-name your family can come and live with you.’

Puri answered excitedly, ‘That’s exactly what I had in mind, bhaiji. I’m willing to do whatever I can get, work as a clerk or even a peon, so that they and I can eat at least one good meal a day. At the moment, I don’t even have a set of clothes to change into.’

His eyes still gazing beyond the window, Sood said in idiomatic Punjabi,
‘Don’t talk nonsense! Isn’t this your what’s-its-name home? If there’s only one chapatti to eat, we’ll share it; what’s the problem? You’re not exactly naked, are you? If you don’t have what’s-its-name trousers, you have kurta-pajama to wear. If it bothers you so much, get yourself a pair of trousers. But stop talking rubbish.’

‘But, bhaiji …’ Puri began meekly, his voice full of gratitude.

Sood did not let him finish, ‘I’d say you should settle yourself here in what’s-its-name Jalandhar. We’re old comrades, aren’t we?’ He looked into Puri’s eyes for his answer.

‘That’s right, bhaiji. That’s what I’d like too.’

‘You used to work at that newspaper what’s-its-name
Pairokaar
?’ Sood began in a serious tone, looking at Puri, ‘So you know how a printing press operates?’

‘Sometimes I did go to where the paper was printed. And I did some proofreading. Whatever job’s available, I’ll be willing …’

‘Did
Pairokaar
have its own printing press?’

‘Ji, no. It was printed at Nasiruddin’s press.’

‘What kind of presses were they?’

‘A lithographic-cylinder machine.’

‘In Lahore so large a press would naturally have been electrically operated. We’ve only got one treadle and one lithographic-cylinder. Can you handle all that?’

‘I can do proofreading, keep account books, and do some supervising. If someone gave me a little guidance …’

‘That won’t be a problem. Isaac, poor man, had to leave everything behind. He left the keys to his Kamaal Press in my custody. His treadle machine operator was Hindu. Still lives here. You can restart the printing press. No shortage of work. People wanting to have printing done sometimes have to run to Delhi. Some advance payment for work that you’ll do can be arranged.’

Sood sent for a jeep from the Police Department for his round of inspection of refugee settlements. He and Puri went first to the Congress party’s provincial headquarters. Next Sood went to the homes of two of his associates and had long discussions on the appointments to the posts of ministers. In the afternoon, he ordered the jeep to stop in the bazaar of Mai Heeran Gate, and led Puri on foot into a lane in Bahadurgarh mohalla. Over the narrow door to a small room hung a large signboard with the
name Kamaal Press in English, Hindi and Farsi. Beside the board hung India’s national flag, its colours faded by rain.

A man from the Kangra Hills sat in the doorway to the room, smoking a small coconut-shell hookah. The man hid the hookah behind the leaf of the door when he saw them approach, stood up, said pairipaina, I touch your feet, and bowed respectfully to Sood.

‘How’s it going, Raldu? No one bothered you again, did they?’ Sood asked the hillman.

‘The same man returned, boss. Came this morning too,’ Raldu replied in a mixture of Punjabi and his hill dialect.

‘He didn’t create any trouble?’

‘No, boss. Only said that you had told him that the press would be reopened. Said that he wanted to get a job in the press.’

Sood took out a large key from the pocket of his waistcoat and handed it to Raldu, ‘Open the door.’

Raldu unlocked a door in the back wall. The door opened on to a small courtyard containing a modest two-storeyed red brick house. On the ground floor, next to the stairs to the first floor, was a small room. In this room was a plain desk, a couple of bent-wire chairs, and next to the wall, a sturdy-looking bench. In the adjoining larger room was the lithographic-cylinder machine and in one corner, a small treadle machine. A row of ink rollers stood against one wall. Reams of printing paper were stacked to the ceiling in two piles against another wall. A paper-cutting machine stood on a low dais near the third wall. The whole set-up looked well maintained and orderly, except for a layer of dust over everything, that showed that it had not been operated for some time.

Isaac Mohammed, the owner of Kamaal Press, was an amiable businessman. His father had set up the business, doing lithography on stone slabs and a hand-operated machine. The son joined the press after passing his matriculation examination. He got a second-hand treadle machine from Lahore, and installed an electric motor to run it. He had been able to buy a lithographic-cylinder printing machine just before the 1936 elections. His business was flourishing. Isaac’s landlord Maula Baksh, who suffered from chronic asthma, owned three old rundown houses in the Bahadurgarh district. The rent from this property was his only income. Isaac occasionally helped his landlord by lending him money. In return for the loans Isaac
first took possession of the room where his father had installed the hand-operated press, and eventually, of the rest of the house. In the courtyard of the old house Isaac put up a new building for his printing press, and living accommodations for his family above it on the first floor. The small room that opened on to the gali began to serve as the main entrance, to the printing press as well as to his home.

In the city of Jalandhar and for miles around, the population was predominantly Muslim, mostly tanners and curers of hides, and market gardeners. When the movement for the creation of Pakistan was at its height, Muslims living in the city and the countryside around it believed that Jalandhar would be a part of Pakistan. After the announcement in June 1947 that Jalandhar would go to India, large numbers of Muslims began fleeing to the west. Those who stayed behind were unnerved by the arrival of a vast number of Hindu refugees from the west in early August, but Isaac, like many of his mohalla neighbours, decided to remain in Jalandhar. Generations of his family had lived in the city, and, also, the fruit of his lifelong labour, his press, was in Jalandhar.

Isaac wanted nothing to do with the agitation for the establishment of Pakistan. He did jobs for both the Muslim League and the Congress party, and if he got the chance, took on work from the government. He gave five or ten rupees as a donation when the League volunteers came to his door, and the same to the Congress party workers when they showed up. Sood had not forgotten that Isaac had printed leaflets for the Congress at a particularly crucial time, thus becoming one of a group whom Sood trusted and favoured.

On 15 August 1947, the Muslims remaining in Bahadurgarh mohalla, on Isaac Mohammed’s advice, hoisted the Indian national tricolour over their houses. These people were not willing to leave their homeland for the promised saltanat-e-ilahi, Kingdom of Allah. Hindus, especially refugees from the west, were not pleased with this outward show of love for India by the Muslims. How could they tolerate the presence of the community that had committed such terrible crimes on their Hindu brothers and had driven them from their homeland? The refugees needed houses to live in. Despite the efforts of the Congress, the communists and Sood himself, the neighbourhoods where Muslim families lived were repeatedly under attack. Twenty-seven inhabitants of Bahadurgarh had already been killed,
and the first two houses in the terrace had been burned down. Sood had asked the deputy commissioner to post armed police at the entrance of the gali. Even such dangers had not persuaded Issac to flee the city.

On the morning of 23 August, a convoy of lorries led by military officers arrived at Bahadurgarh. All Muslims were ordered to gather any belonging they could carry, and board the lorries. The order was for them to be taken, for their safety, to the Muslim refugee camps.

Isaac’s nervousness turned into extreme agitation. He asked for time, to be able to speak with Sood. The officer-in-charge refused to make any exception to his orders. Raldu had been working for Isaac for the past thirteen years, and lived in a small side room off the press. Isaac asked him to take a letter and the keys to the press to Sood. He said to Raldu, ‘My boy, continue to stay here and keep watch. I’ll be back in a month, or two or three at the most. You’ll get your Rs 45 a month as usual.’ He handed Raldu one month’s salary in advance.

Addressing Sood as ‘Respected Brother’, Isaac had written about the good relations between the two of them and all the favours he had received because of Sood, and implored Sood to get him out of the refugee camp. And if that was not possible, to take into safekeeping the keys to the press. ‘I’ll be back, God willing; or else whatever fate may have in store for me.’ He said he would then write to Sood to sell his press off and kindly send him the money. He also mentioned that both his rebuilt printing machines had cost eight thousand rupees between them, and there was a paper-cutting machine worth six hundred and stocks of paper worth eleven hundred rupees; that Raldu had been instructed to stay behind and keep an eye on the property. He requested Sood to be kind enough to continue to pay the man 45 rupees every month in his absence.

Isaac’s note saddened Sood, but there was little he could do to help him. The situation was such that it would have been unwise to separate Isaac from his community and send him back. He asked Raldu to keep a careful watch over Isaac’s property.

On 27 August—the evening Puri had carried the tray of food from Chandan’s dhaba to Sood’s house—Rikhiram, a refugee from West Punjab had come to see Sood late in the afternoon after talking with Raldu. He said to Sood, ‘I had to abandon my own printing press, a treadle and a small litho machine, in Jhehlum. I have a large family. Many refugees have
occupied abandoned shops in the bazaar and houses in the neighbourhood, after breaking open the padlocks. What else can one do? Justice demands that I should take over Isaac Mohammed’s press. Raldu, that nobody from the hills, has occupied the press in your name. That’s not fair.’