‘Hid in fields during the day and walked by nights to cross border’

Gurvinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, August 12

It was a sudden change of heart as things took an ugly turn with spate of killings, butchering and bloodshed during the Partition. Neighbours, who had love in their eyes, turned into foes.

“Though I was a toddler at the time of Partition, but I vividly remember the times,” he says. “Ours used to be a family of vaids and hakeems. My grandfather and uncles had big shops in Sangla Hill, a town of Sheikhupura district. My father, an employee in the Postal Department, was posted there,” says Yashpal Bangia.

“We used to stay in Dhaba Singh Mandi. I have happy memories of everyone living together. There was never any religious divide. Just like Sikhs and Hindus live together in Punjab now, same was with Muslims. All used to live in harmony,” he adds.

“During the time of Partition, because of bloodshed and fear there was hatred every where. My elder brother Jatinder Bangia tells me that after the Partition was announced, a train, which was headed for Amritsar, reached Dhaba Singh Mandi. Not one person aboard the train was alive. All had been butchered,” he says.

“Everyone started leaving. Our mother just picked up a tumbler. That was all she could carry. We had to leave everything behind,” he adds.

“To save ourselves from being killed in that ‘storm of hatred’, we walked during nights and hid in fields in the day. There was ‘keher’ from all sides. It did not end here as with widespread killings the weather also turned inclement. Many areas were flooded. Those were ominous times,” he says. “We walked for three nights before reaching Nankana Sahib, which was at 250 miles,” he says.

“When we reached Nankana Sahib, people were being served langar. There a train arrived with only three passenger coaches. The rest were wagons for carrying goods. As three Britishers on board the train, so it was safe. Everyone just boarded the train and just managed to reach here,” he adds.

“When we reached Amritsar langars were being organised at the railway station. There was too much turmoil as people going to Lahore from here were also being butchered,” he says. “We were well-off in Pakistan, but came back as paupers and empty-handed,” recalls Bangia.

“We reached Jalandhar and then went to Sultanpur Lodhi where we had nothing to eat and no work. We had to find junk, empty bottles etc and sell these to buy something to eat. All the three brothers had to do menial work and labour. We were allotted a place in Kartarpur, where our family lived for five years,” he says.

“My father got a job in the Postal Department in Kartarpur at a salary of Rs 35 per month. All had to work to contribute something to eat. After seven years, we shifted to Ludhiana. Despite hardships, our parents educated us,” adds Bangia.

Bangia still has happy memories of the native town Sangla Hill and his childhood home where he used to play together with others.

“But, I still write that I was born in Sangla Hill in ‘united’ India,” he says.