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A Wound that Refuses to Heal

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By KULBHUSHAN KAIN

The lush green lawns of the Inderlok Hotel were tastefully decorated with tables and chairs. Sitting around them, in small groups, were men and women – all distinguished citizens of Dehradun. The setting exemplified why Dehradun was famously called “a city of green lawns, fences and grey hair”!

However, the men and women, speaking softly and sipping wine, were no ordinary human beings. They were the precious remnants of an undivided India. Most of them were born or brought up in what is now Pakistan. That included the man in whose honor we had gathered – Shri Raj Kanwar! It was his 92nd birthday. When I asked which school he had studied in, he replied with great pride, “DAV School, Lahore!”

Yes, we live in an era, in which parents of my generation could hardly imagine that, in 1947, two new countries would emerge from one. They could never imagine that one would need a passport or a visa to travel from Amritsar to Lahore or from Jaisalmer to Sindh! They did not know that a butcher’s cleaver, instead of a surgeon’s scalpel, would cut the subcontinent and leave it bleeding. My father studied at the King Edwards Medical College, Lahore, and my father-in-law studied at a school in Gujranwala. They both knew how to read and write in Urdu, and Farsi in addition to English, Hindi, and Punjabi! One can shift populations from one part to another – but how do you erase the memories? The sense of loss is never more or less. It’s total – it seeps into one’s being. The loss of a small girl’s doll is no less painful than the loss of the crown of a king.

My generation is lucky to have got first hand information about the Partition of India (or rather the “unlucky”ones). I was brought up on tales of the horrors of partition. Their narration was so painful that part of it got transmitted into my psyche. There is a common question that ran through the narration – the question whether partition was inevitable and good? Historians agree/disagree, and debate on it. Marxist historians talk of the “dialectics” of history, and Gandhiji said that India would be divided over his dead body. However, no common citizen has understood why India was divided. Till dateI am not convinced why it happened. It sounds so unnatural. Some of the biggest Hindu Temples (outside India), the earliest Vedas, Panini, Chanakya, Guru Nanak, the Gandhara School of Art, the Buddhist Stupas, Asokan Edict, Mohenjo Daro, Harappa, were born and flourished in what is now Pakistan. Is it not unnatural that Bangladesh has fewer Muslims and the largest Mosque in the subcontinent is in India? Yes, there were reasons for the partition – but these had more to do with politics and the power hunger of some, rather than the desire of the masses.

History has a way of filling up the wounds. But it will take a long time to heal this one. Personally, every time I meet a Bangladeshi or Pakistani abroad it feels like I have met someone from home or my neighbourhood. Hence, it was a great feeling to walk in Hyde Park with the corduroy-suited Aftab and talk of jalebis and butter chicken.

It was equally heartwarming to stumble on a Bangladeshi restaurant in Karlovy Vary, where the owner offered to cook daal and rice for us. A Pakistani acted like a guide on a trip to Rome! His in-laws had fled from Panipat, and one of his relatives was from Dehradun! My experience with Rana Abbas in Munich was equally amazing. I stopped to ask for directions to the train station – he looked like a fellow Indian but was a Pakistani. He not only walked me to the station, but en route insisted I have coffee with him. I tried to pay – but he refused to allow me to do so! When I told him he was like my son he replied that city wise he was older than me. We conversed in Punjabi throughout! Closer home, the sister of my driver of two decades, Nasir – still resides in Karachi!!

On the last day before I was to leave, he gifted me a beautiful miniature replica of the Burj Khalifa. The gift was expensive. It was an Onyx piece.

I berated him, “Yeh Kyun Kiya? Iskee kya zaroorat thhee?” (Why did you do this? Was it necessary?”)

His reply came straight from the heart,

“Aap mujhe parantha, dahi, halwa kyu khilate hoh? Uski kya zaroorat thhee?”

I held him tightly and cried. I will never forget him or his name – Munnawar!

For some of us, there are many partitions – not just 1947. Every time I bid goodbye to someone from undivided India – be it Munnawar, Zaheer, Rana Abbas, Nazneen, Aftab… I feel “partitioned”. I know I will never be able to meet them in their country and vice versa.

The words of pretty Zaheera ring in my ears very often. Just before leaving the Schiphol Airport, I promised her that I would meet her again in life.

“Jhoot” (lies), she said and fell silent like a statue.

Yes – the partition of India is the biggest lie in history. If you don’t believe me, ask the grey-haired men and women who had gathered at the Inderlok Hotel- straight “from the horse’s mouth”, as they say.

(Kulbhushan Kain is an award winning educationist with more than 4 decades of working in schools in India and abroad. He is a prolific writer who loves cricket, travelling and cooking. He can be reached at kulbhushan.kain @gmail.com)