The Race of My Life (2 page)

We lived in a basic, two-roomed mud house—one room was shelter for the cattle and storeroom for the fodder, while the other was our living quarters. During the day, my brothers worked in the fields with Father, tilling the land, sowing seeds and harvesting crops. Gobind and I, being the youngest, were allowed to spend the day playing with the other village lads. At dusk, we would return home and the entire family would gather around our mother who would lovingly feed us with piping hot rotis with generous dollops of ghee.

Father, though illiterate himself, was a strong advocate of the benefits of a good education, but money was always a hindrance. He was determined that his sons study so that they could improve their status in life. However, when my older brother Makhan Singh ran away from home to enlist in the army, without completing his schooling, he was deeply disappointed. I was seven or eight years old at the time. This was in the late 1930s, as war clouds were gathering over Europe. I remember coming home from the village school one day and hearing my mother weeping and wailing as if her heart was breaking, and wondered what tragedy had occurred to make her so distressed. It was then that we heard the shattering news. Although my mother had all her other children around her, she could not cope with the news of Makhan’s departure.

With Makhan having dashed my father’s hopes of educating his sons, I became the focus of Father’s ambitions. The school I was going to was in a village nearby, where classes were held out in the open under a tree. Most of my classmates were from neighbouring villages, and we would all sit on mats on the ground around our teacher, Maulvi Ghulam Mohammad, who taught us arithmetic and Urdu. He was a stern man, and at times, when we had not done our homework or were being inattentive, he would rap us on the knuckles with a twig broken from a neem tree; it stung like a whip. I remember the flat wooden takhat (board), that I would carry with me, and the wooden pen that I would dip into a pot of ink to write my lessons in Urdu. I was completely uninterested in studying, and felt that it was something I could do without. All through the school day I would impatiently wait for the moment when the bell would ring, signalling the end of classes. I was a free bird once again and would rush off home to play with my friends.

Makhan’s departure had started taking a toll on Mother’s health and she cried all the time. Mother feared that Makhan, like other young men, would be conscripted and sent off to fight an unknown enemy and never return. We were all aware that beyond the narrow boundaries of our village, the spreading flames of the Second World War were threatening us all. Those were innocent days, people were superstitious and the wider world frightened them. Scary tales that
ladai lagi hai aur log mare ja rahe
(the war is on and people are dying) had reached us, and no one knew what the fate of these young men would be—would they be killed or just disappear?

She kept pleading with Father to find him and bring him back home. Father, for some reason, was quite reluctant. However, to pacify her, he went to the recruitment centre in Kot Addu, and after many inquiries heard that Makhan was in Madras, a city that was both distant and unfamiliar. Upon hearing this, Mother’s cries got louder and stronger. Despite grave reservations, my father boarded a train and set off on a journey to the unknown. When he reached Madras, it took him almost two weeks to locate my brother. He had no idea about where Makhan’s unit was or any other details; he could only ask if there were any turbaned (Sikh) soldiers around. He wandered through the city, visiting all the army centres, waiting to catch a glimpse of Makhan. He finally got some leads that led him to Makhan. His patience had paid off. Both father and son had a very emotional reunion, but when my father tried to persuade him to return home, Makhan reassured him, saying, ‘Father, don’t worry, I am safe and will come home for a holiday after six months, when I have completed my training.’

Father returned to Gobindpura, a happier man, and was able to convince Mother that Makhan was happy in his chosen profession and would be coming home soon for a holiday. Her spirits—and more importantly, health—improved after that, and she waited in eager anticipation for her son’s return.

After I had completed Class Five at the village school, my father insisted that I continue my education at a better school. Soon I was enrolled in a government school in Kot Addu, which was about seven miles from Gobindpur. The only other boy from my village to go to the same school was my friend, Sahib Singh. In those days there were no clocks or watches in any home, and it was only when the train to Multan passed by the village that I knew that it was time to start the long walk to school. It would take Sahib Singh and me almost two hours to cover the distance between our homes and school. In winter, it was so bitterly cold that my hands and feet would be numb and frozen with frostbite, and the fog so dense that often I could barely see the footpath. It was even worse in summer, the heat so intense that it felt as if the earth was on fire. I would run as fast as I could from one shady patch to another to escape from the blazing sun, but yet, I couldn’t prevent blisters from developing on the soles of my bare feet. Perhaps these were the first races I ran, at a time when I never imagined what my future profession would be.

I studied at my new school for two years. I found it extremely difficult to adjust to the new curriculum, particularly learning English, which was an alien language for me. Both Sahib Singh and I were far behind the other students, which frustrated me and made me hate school even more. But, there was no way I could avoid school—my father’s wrath would be too great. I vividly remember the day I bunked classes to go fishing with my friends, but when I returned home at the normal time, my mother warned me, telling me to hide because a friend of my father’s had spotted us and told him about it, and he was furious. I was beaten black and blue that evening and vowed never to repeat the same offence.

As a punishment, every evening, my father would make me read to him the English lesson taught that day in school. But what he never realized was that I read out the same passage every evening, which I had memorized. Since he didn’t know the language, he assumed that I was doing well in English at school, and felt extremely pleased.

I was fifteen years old by then and very conscious of the ambitions that my father had for me. But his high hopes did not achieve the results he wanted. The approaching holocaust deemed it otherwise. The events of those terrible days, as India was teetering on the brink of Independence from colonial rule, have had a lasting impact on my life, and I will never ever forget the hatred and bloodshed that had transformed men into beasts.

efore Independence, Gobindpur was just like one big happy family, where people would be in and out of each other’s homes, sharing a meal or enjoying a good gossip. The population was predominantly Hindu and Sikh, but we were on very cordial terms with the neighbouring Muslim villages. It was a bond that had been developed over the generations. In those days there was little emphasis on caste, creed or religion; it was only the brotherhood of man that mattered. But this easy camaraderie between villages and communities was soon to change.

In an effort to bring about a compromise between the squabbling political parties, the British had agreed to partition the subcontinent along religious lines, with Muslim-majority regions going to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs moving to or remaining in India. In early August 1947, insidious rumours had begun to seep into the collective consciousness of the people of the region and the tension was palpable. We had heard that Hindus and Sikhs were killing Muslims; that Muslims were killing Hindus and Sikhs. What did all this mean? And why was this happening? We were simple village folk and to us the creation of an India and a Pakistan were alien concepts. Our only concerns were to till our lands, earn our daily bread and live in harmony with our neighbours, whether they were Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. How would this break up affect us? We were soon to learn how devastating the consequences were.

The spread of such vicious stories was fast and furious, and soon the rumours became realities as the violence edged closer to Gobindpur and its environs. Our friendly Muslim neighbours had been threatened by the more radical Muslim groups from Rawalpindi and Dera Ghazi Khan, who accused them of supporting and sheltering the murderers of their brothers. They abused them, thundering, ‘
Haramzadon, kafir ko panah dete ho
(you bastards are giving the unbelievers shelter).’ As a result, the children who would play with us, stayed away, and the bonhomie that we had once shared vanished overnight. People from different communities had begun to look at each other with fear and suspicion. The fear was on both sides and depended on which community dominated where.

I vividly remember the meeting at our village gurudwara to decide how to face the looming bloodbath. We had received ultimatums from the Muslim rioters demanding that we must cut our hair, circumcise baby boys, eat beef and embrace Islam if we wanted to stay on in Pakistan. These demands were unacceptable; how could we eat beef when we worship cows like our mothers? No, we would rather sacrifice our lives than convert to Islam. Another Sikh village had joined forces with Gobindpur and we were all prepared to fight with all our strength. The woman would take refuge in the gurudwara, the men would patrol the boundaries, keeping watch on all four directions, while the boys and young men would be on guard to protect the honour of the women. We had no guns, just dandas, kirpans, talwars and kulhadhis (axes), that were used to cut trees with, but our strongest weapon was our courage and belief that we would rather die than succumb to their threats and abuses.

On 14 August 1947, British India was partitioned into India and Pakistan. Then, at the ‘stroke of the midnight hour’ on 15 August 1947, India became an independent nation. Almost simultaneously, borders were being drawn along the west and the east that would divide the subcontinent. We found ourselves on the wrong side of the border. Almost overnight, the unrest intensified, plunging the lands along the newly drawn borders into chaos and confusion. Politics had poisoned people’s minds and hitherto friendly relationships were destroyed by the sweeping waves of hatred and communalism. People no longer behaved like human beings, they had become animals. Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims were brutally massacred, thousands of homes destroyed, mothers lost their husbands and children. There was only bloodshed everywhere.

Makhan, in the meantime, had got married to Isher’s sister-in-law, and he and his regiment, the Army Supply Core (ASC), were posted in Multan, some 100 kilometres from Gobindpura. When he heard the news of the terrible danger our village was in, he was given permission by his commanding officer to go home and rescue his family and friends. Accompanied by a few jawans, he left Multan in an army truck, but when they reached Kot Addu, they found the town in flames and heard the heart-rending cries of afflicted citizens. The widespread rioting horrified them, but there was little they could do to save the Hindus and Sikhs in a town where the Muslims were in a majority. An armed and angry mob surrounded the army truck. But just when Makhan and his fellow jawans were about to retaliate in self-defence, the police arrived and assured Makhan that since they were soldiers, their safety would be guaranteed in the town. They were told to hand over their weapons, so that the mob stopped seeing them as a threat. They also promised that help would be sent to our beleaguered village. Makhan and his fellow jawans were then asked to drive to the police station, but when they reached there, they were thrown into jail. It was at that moment that Makhan realized how shockingly they had been betrayed, and that instead of providing succour, the police had paved the way for the destruction of our village by passing on the details of our village to the marauders.

When Father heard the news that Makhan was in jail, he and my brother Daulat Singh left for Kot Addu at once. At the police station, Makhan urged Father to leave Gobindpur, warning him of the imminent danger the village faced, but Father refused. He stated that he would rather die than abandon his home and land and flee like a coward.