would like to hear Father’s Partition story. Father never told me the details.
Yes, I thought so, she said. I think about you often since our meal at the Gen’s.
‘Who? This boy Kirpal?’ interrupted the colonel.
‘No, no. Major Iqbal,’ she said. ‘He was the silent type, he rarely opened up. This happened before I met you. Once my ex-husband and I invited Iqbal for dinner. God knows what it was really, perhaps the combination of food and drink and music made the Major open up that evening, but when conversation turned to the Partition he grew silent again. I poured him another drink.’
The colonel’s wife stopped briefly and sat down in the chair. Why don’t you two sit down as well? she said, hitting her forehead with her delicate hand. The colonel sat down immediately, and I sat on the ground. But she stood up and stepped towards me and extended her hand and helped me move to the empty chair. The colonel looked in the other direction. At first I felt uncomfortable in the chair, but it became increasingly clear to me that she wanted to treat me like a son. This is how she related my father’s story to me in the colonel’s angry presence.
Month of August, 1947. India had just been partitioned by the British. Thousands of Sikhs in the city of Lahore suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the new border, your father, Major Iqbal, told me. I was nine, he said. I used to tie my long hair into a knot on my head; I had not started wearing a turban yet. I used to cover the knot with a tiny patch of muslin (my mother had devised a rubber band mechanism to hold the patch tight). Breakfast was ready, and my uncles and aunts and grandparents were all gathered in the living room. I can see the carpeted floors, I can see the velvet sofas, and through the window I can see the mango tree in the yard. Grandmother had prepared aloo-parathas in the kitchen, she tried to persuade Mother not to send me to the class because of tension between communities, but Mother said education was important. I ran all the way to the school with my heavy satchel only to find a big notice at the gates. School was cancelled. The city was on fire. The cinema halls were closed, and there was fire and smoke all over and Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim bodies were burning everywhere, and I ran back to our house through charred streets. When I got home, I found all the doors open and the water faucet running for no particular reason. In the living room, on the velvet sofas and on the red carpets, I found the chopped-off heads of my grandparents and mother and siblings and other family members; the killers had gathered them up, and piled them up neatly, as if they were market fruit.
That evening, I boarded the train to India. But it ended up it was the wrong train, said your father. It was filled with Muslims. The train had come to the newly created Pakistan from India and it was not returning to India. He said, I cannot forget the look on the faces of my fellow passengers, it was as if they were worried for me. I was very afraid, but I tried not to show it. I kept staring at the woman sitting on the seat across from me. She stood out from the human mass around her, she was eating a mango, sucking it (that is the right word), and now and then drops kept falling on her green toenails. She was wearing heels, and three layers of her clothing were touching her feet, the innermost circle or the hem belonging to her white petticoat, the second hem belonging to her red sari and the outermost belonging to her black burqa. Her face was not covered, but her head and the rest of the body was covered by the black burqa. Her hands and feet were not covered, and they appeared so liberated. The three circles or the three hems of petticoat, sari and burqa were swelling and shrinking in the wind, the train window was open and the wind was hitting us all a bit violently.
The train stopped at a crowded platform. The wind stopped as well; now the air in the carriage
Yes, I thought so, she said. I think about you often since our meal at the Gen’s.
‘Who? This boy Kirpal?’ interrupted the colonel.
‘No, no. Major Iqbal,’ she said. ‘He was the silent type, he rarely opened up. This happened before I met you. Once my ex-husband and I invited Iqbal for dinner. God knows what it was really, perhaps the combination of food and drink and music made the Major open up that evening, but when conversation turned to the Partition he grew silent again. I poured him another drink.’
The colonel’s wife stopped briefly and sat down in the chair. Why don’t you two sit down as well? she said, hitting her forehead with her delicate hand. The colonel sat down immediately, and I sat on the ground. But she stood up and stepped towards me and extended her hand and helped me move to the empty chair. The colonel looked in the other direction. At first I felt uncomfortable in the chair, but it became increasingly clear to me that she wanted to treat me like a son. This is how she related my father’s story to me in the colonel’s angry presence.
Month of August, 1947. India had just been partitioned by the British. Thousands of Sikhs in the city of Lahore suddenly found themselves on the wrong side of the new border, your father, Major Iqbal, told me. I was nine, he said. I used to tie my long hair into a knot on my head; I had not started wearing a turban yet. I used to cover the knot with a tiny patch of muslin (my mother had devised a rubber band mechanism to hold the patch tight). Breakfast was ready, and my uncles and aunts and grandparents were all gathered in the living room. I can see the carpeted floors, I can see the velvet sofas, and through the window I can see the mango tree in the yard. Grandmother had prepared aloo-parathas in the kitchen, she tried to persuade Mother not to send me to the class because of tension between communities, but Mother said education was important. I ran all the way to the school with my heavy satchel only to find a big notice at the gates. School was cancelled. The city was on fire. The cinema halls were closed, and there was fire and smoke all over and Hindu, Sikh, and Muslim bodies were burning everywhere, and I ran back to our house through charred streets. When I got home, I found all the doors open and the water faucet running for no particular reason. In the living room, on the velvet sofas and on the red carpets, I found the chopped-off heads of my grandparents and mother and siblings and other family members; the killers had gathered them up, and piled them up neatly, as if they were market fruit.
That evening, I boarded the train to India. But it ended up it was the wrong train, said your father. It was filled with Muslims. The train had come to the newly created Pakistan from India and it was not returning to India. He said, I cannot forget the look on the faces of my fellow passengers, it was as if they were worried for me. I was very afraid, but I tried not to show it. I kept staring at the woman sitting on the seat across from me. She stood out from the human mass around her, she was eating a mango, sucking it (that is the right word), and now and then drops kept falling on her green toenails. She was wearing heels, and three layers of her clothing were touching her feet, the innermost circle or the hem belonging to her white petticoat, the second hem belonging to her red sari and the outermost belonging to her black burqa. Her face was not covered, but her head and the rest of the body was covered by the black burqa. Her hands and feet were not covered, and they appeared so liberated. The three circles or the three hems of petticoat, sari and burqa were swelling and shrinking in the wind, the train window was open and the wind was hitting us all a bit violently.
The train stopped at a crowded platform. The wind stopped as well; now the air in the carriage
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