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it shot off into the air flapping its large wings with a heavy, muffled thud-thud. One of the feathers came off and sailed down to the ground. I was then a keen collector of peacock feathers. As I saw one sailing down in its rich dazzling colours, I threw down my book and ran for it. But it never touched the ground. Rahmte had grabbed it from the air before I could.
    â€˜Hand it to me,’ I said a little tensely.
    â€˜I got it first,’ she replied coldly.
    â€˜None of that!’ I threatened, ‘You have to give it to me.’
    â€˜Oh, I have to, have I?’ she scoffed. ‘In that case I shan’t!’
    â€˜Come on, hand it over and I’ll never ask anything more from you.’ I tried to sound suggestive and grown up. She flushed.
    â€˜Take it, there,’ she said curtly throwing the feather away. She collected the fodder into a sheaf, picked it up and started home. I could not take my eyes from her slender figure, straining under the weight of the sheaf. I was left wondering whether I had really offended her.
    Back in the graveyard I found Noora’s father the saintly Badru, saying his
namaaz.
Noora stood by humbly. Both the father and the son had incongruous yellow scarves, the symbol of the Sikh religion, around their necks, for they, along with others, had recently agreed to ‘conversion.’ These were the days of communal riots and the yellow scarf guaranteed security to the Muslim minority in East Punjab.
    The Partition of the country had torn India into two parts and conversion had been made a condition by the Sikhs, for those Muslims staying on in India, in retaliation to a similar declaration by Muslims in Pakistan for any Hindus or Sikhs there. The majority, no doubt, in our area were Muslims, and that too of the orthodox sect of Sunnis. But what could they do? They were in India and whoever did not convert to Sikhism was killed.
    After the invitation for conversion a huge number of steel bangles, wooden crescent combs and yellow scarves were procured for an elaborate conversion ceremony. Just when the
parsad,
the sanctified sweet, was being prepared for initiating the Muslims to the Sikh religion, a phlegmatic voice said:
    â€˜What good is this initiation, bound by outward symbols? These cannot deter them from continuing to be Muslims at heart!’ It was Baba Phuman Singh, pausing to fling a pellet of opium into the hollow cavern of his mouth.
    â€˜What else do you advise us to do?’
    â€˜Feed them with pork,’ he said.
    â€˜Our own people have been made to eat beef on that side of the border,’ said another.
    Everyone agreed to feed pork to the Muslims gathered for initiation. Four or five pigs were killed and cooked immediately. This ceremony had been carried out in a similar manner in neighbouring villages also.
    The Muslims listened and watched with the resigned passivity and indifference of those who no longer cared whether they live or die.
    â€˜Our Gurus baptised with
parsad
only,’ my father whispered to
Babaji,
in mild protest.
    â€˜Keep your mouth shut, man. Nothing like silence,’ he said and drifted towards the pots of meat to examine the quality.
    In a little while all the Muslims were initiated into the Sikh religion. Wearing the five symbols of Sikhism they started swallowing the pieces of pork served to them.
    â€˜We have always been Hindus. Only that blasted Aurangzeb made us change,’ one of them said in a futile effort to seek justification for his acts.
Babaji
and a jew other village elders, sat a little separately from the rest, in their own superior elite group of Sandhus.
    â€˜The Maharaja of Patiala is a Sidhu,’ I heard him say. ‘Sidhu and Sandhu are equal. The only difference is that our
jagir
provides us only with opium while the maharaja’s gives him all the luxury he could dream of.’ The talk did not interest me.
    â€˜Noora and his people are not being baptised?’ I asked