Another August etched in memory

August 1947 redefined the Indian subcontinent. This may have been a time to celebrate Independence, but at least in the North, the shadow of Partition was overwhelming. My parents and those of their generation that I met or knew never referred to this as a moment of ‘Independence’ and a time of joy. There is enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that the ones who remained unaffected by Partition celebrated the break from imperial Britain, while some, whose lives were shattered, even bemoaned the schism. Few, if any, looked past the obvious to learn that much of the forces and convoluted processes that led to Partition were the direct result of colonial policy.

In the immediate aftermath of this cataclysm, there were two broad categories of perspectives — those who wholeheartedly condemned the British and their exploitative measures and, surprisingly, another group that quietly whispered, ‘We were better off as colonial subjects.’ Both groups had reason to feel what they did. But both, no matter what take they had on the matter, had been thrown off the deep end and now, Independence or not, Partition or not, survival was all that mattered. This was a moment when humanity as a collective had failed — and miserably at that. If anything, individuals with humanity lit small lamps of hope and kindness in the mass of darkness.

Some years later, in another August, war broke out with Pakistan. In 1965, General Ayub Khan launched one of our neighbour’s periodic misadventures and attacked India. I was a bare toddler when this war came. We were far away from any scenes of battle. Yet, given that my parents were of the generation that had gone through Partition, its trauma remained embedded in their minds. They, not unexpectedly, were fearful of loss and separation from their loved ones. For me, this came in the shape of a small silver bracelet that remained with me for several years. Then it went wandering and has not returned. It may be in some odd box somewhere, but the odds are that this piece of functional ornament, worn just once, has slipped away and gone to the great ‘wherever-whatever’ of missing objects.

This bracelet had my name on the obverse and the address at the back. In essence, it said, ‘If found, please return bracelet and wearer to owner.’ This bracelet was my parents’ way of writing down my home and origin, should I get separated from them.

Once the air-raid siren sounded, we would troop down to a room in a neighbour’s house that the Civil Defence had designated as the safest place to be. Almost everybody carried flasks of tea or coffee and something to eat. Our windows had been pasted over with brown paper crosses — “Shattering glass can be lethal”. In a canvas satchel, my father had a first-aid kit, with the essentials of the 1960s — gauze bandages, cotton wool, mercurochrome and tincture. In that half-darkened space, there must have been around 20 adults and children. In this world that has become increasingly hateful, and with people who had survived hate, what I recall in that room is an extraordinary sense of calm. Most, if not all, religions were represented.

As older memories become sharper and sounds heard long ago are not echoes but ring clear, apart from the occasional cough or sneeze, or of a flask being opened and closed, the only sounds were of rosaries clicking and a merging hum of the ‘Gayatri Mantra’ and the ‘Japji Sahib’.