Harmonious labyrinths he couldn’t revisit

Manmeet Singh Gill

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 13

Who doesn’t want to visit his or her native place?

Though everyone longs for that, the answer will be an exact antithesis if Kapil Dev Sehgal (83) is asked. That doesn’t mean he hates his native village — Awan Dhaewala near Lahore in Pakistan. The reason behind this is the greed of the then army officials of Pakistan who took away gold and other valuables that several people had mortgaged to his father, a money lender, when the family was forced to rush to India after Partition amid communal discord.

Sehgal says even the thought of facing the people of that village sends shivers down his spine as to what would he answer about the failure of his family to return their valuables. The family can’t forget August 27 when they had to leave their native village forever. The memories of all streets of his village are still clear in his mind, but he can’t gather courage to pay a visit.

Now well settled in Katra Baggian, Amritsar, Sehgal says that there were only two Khatri families in the village. “We were into the money lending business. Our life was quite comfortable and we enjoyed the respect of the people. Our family decided to leave only after the Pakistan army asked us to do so on August 27, 1947,” he says.

Recalling the communal harmony with which the residents of Awan Dhaewala had lived for centuries, he says, “They had vowed to protect us and our elders were convinced that they would. When the army insisted, our elders wished to return the mortgaged valuables, but army officials assured us that they would do so. They took from us everything — gold, other valuables and even horses. However, these never reached the rightful owners. My father always regretted that if he ever came face-to-face with the people whose valuables didn’t reach back to them, what would he reply?”

However, he feels that people might be aware of the real story that goods were taken away by army officials. He says it was the communal harmony of the village that discouraged the family to leave until August 27 even when rioters had wreaked havoc in Lahore and surrounding areas.

The family owned a flour mill in the village which they handed over to a Muslim friend of his father. “That person came to Amritsar after several years and gave us appropriate money for that mill,” he says. The 40-member family reached Amritsar and settled in Katra Baggian. “Earlier, the locality was inhabited by Kanjris (female dancers),” he says, complaining that the property allotted to them here was much less in value than what they had left behind. The family tried its hands at many trades before setting up a newspaper agency that they have been running till now.

Kapil Dev Sehgal holds the Britishers responsible for the Partition. “Change in regime has been seen frequently for centuries, but exchange of people was seen for the first time. No one had thought of it in the wildest of their dreams,” he adds.