Manav Mander
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, August 13
Hand-written notes pasted at railway stations were the only source of information about the whereabouts of the near and dear ones during Partition.
Kewal Krishan Luthra’s father pasted one such note at Amritsar Railway Station, telling his friends and family that they had shifted to Ludhiana from Nankana Sahib. The city-based elderly couple, Kewal Krishan Luthra and Kanta Rani, sharing the harrowing tales of Partition, said the time had been etched in their memory.
Luthra said it was July 1947 and the schools were closed for summer vacations. “All that we listen everyday were high-pitched slogans, some demanding Hindustan and others Pakistan, and finally, the fate was decided and the country was divided into two,” he said.
Luthra’s father owned a cloth shop and they had their house on the upper floor. Adjoining to their shop was the shop of Mela Ram Halwai. “Some Muslims came to Mela Ram’s shop and ordered nearly 100 kg of laddoos as they wanted to distribute them to celebrate the formation of Pakistan. Meanwhile, some Sikh groups came to know about the order placed at the Mela Ram’s shop. They came in a large group and destroyed all laddoos at the shop. Sometimes when I close my eyes and think about the old times, I still see those laddoos scattered all over the street, crumbled and broken. These laddoos were not just a sweet but they actually depicted the state of mind of every individual, broken and shattered, at that time,” he recalls.
After that curfew was imposed and tension further griped the country. The entire city of Nankana Sahib was turned into a refugee camp. The Indian military safely transported people to India while the Pakistan military brought people from India.
My father said: “Praja nahin badalti, raja badalta hai”. But during Partition, it happened the opposite because there the people were changing places rather than the rulers. Luthra, along with his father, mother, grandmother, three brothers and two sisters, came to India because theconditions in Pakistan were no longer favourable to live.
The Indian military was transporting people free of cost to India while a few private people also got engaged in the work who demanded Rs 100 and allowed to carry as much luggage as one wanted while the Indian military allowed limited number of articles to be carried along.
The Luthra family reached Amritsar and from there they came to Ludhiana by a goods train. Since it was a goods train, a ladder was attached to it to reach the rooftop and the person standing near the ladder demanded 2 aane for climbing atop.
The train halted near Jalandhar for five days. “We made chullahs nearby and collected flour and other eatables from the nearby localities and cooked food for ourselves. Then we finally reached Ludhiana on the sixth day and after reaching here, we came to know that Panipat was allotted to those coming from Nankana Sahib and we went to Panipat. But we came back to Ludhiana and my father started hosiery business from here,” he said.
Kanta Rani, wife of Luthra, was just seven years old at that time and she vividly remembers 1947. She belonged to Rawalpindi. “My mother only took the tiffin along while leaving our home. She set everything in place at her home and even spread the new bed cover because she wanted her home to be spic and span, once she returns. She was very sure that they will return but something else was in store for us,” she said.
She remembers the evening of August 12 when her mother was making chapattis on the “tandoor” and some shops were burnt outside. “We had to leave our house because it was not safe to stay there any longer. There was a gurdwara at the back of our house. We all hid there and from the roof we watched everybody’s movement. When things became little normal, we moved out and came to Ludhiana in a military truck,” she recalls.
Luthra, sharing another detail from the time, said during night, people used to keep a glass of water with caustic soda and red chilli powder at their bedside as a precaution if in case anybody attacks them during the night. Luthra is also writing a book on the partition times and wishes to get it published. Luthra, who has five daughters, is at present living with one of his daughters, Rajini, and son-in-law Sunil Sofat at Haibowal.