Escape from Lahore

IT was the summer of May and the heat of Lahore was at its peak. Schools were closed for summer vacations, though they were also closed because the attrition between the Muslim League and Indian National Congress was heating up.

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Just before our house and car could be burnt, our panicky Muslim landlady saved us in the nick of time by shifting us out of the Muslim-dominated locality. My mother was in her fifth month of pregnancy.

We were used to spending our summers in Shimla and left Lahore for the hills. I remember vividly, as a child of 10 years, the journey to Ambala. We were to take a night’s rest at the house of my father’s bosom pal, Sardar Gurdeep Singh.

But we could not reach his house as just past the border, our car had a puncture and an eerie dusk had settled in. The guards protected us by sharing their bedding and meal of dry rotis and log-fired smoked dal. The tastiest dal ever!

We felt secure outwardly, but a gnawing fear began clutching our hearts as we, the children, heard the head guard telling our father how lucky we were that our car had broken down near their camp, as further on, the hillocks on either side of the road were man-made. They covered bodies of riot victims.

Our journey was without any mishaps thereafter. We reached Kalka and felt safe with our parents close to us and the jovial Sardarji taxi driver keeping us in good humour. Unknowingly, we had bid farewell to Lahore forever.

We were very excited about travelling up the hill in a “toy train”. Our journeys to Shimla had hitherto been by car. That May, my parents decided to travel by train as several boxes with our clothes and kitchen paraphernalia had been brought to Kalka from Lahore by train by our domestic helpers. They also escorted our two Alsatian guard dogs, Peter and Paul.

The hairpin bends were most fascinating to see. I remember looking out of the window to see the caterpillar-like train climbing up the hill, belching out black smoke. Its sound of huff and puff and shrill toot-toots still ring in my memories of the escape.

Finally, we reached Shimla to an already booked palatial bungalow, Erron Villa, overlooking the deep valley below. However, my father returned to Lahore to his job with the British company, not fearing the hell and fire let loose all around. We lived without him for four months. By that time, the escalation of riots had reached unexpected heights. Curfew was imposed in Shimla, too. My younger brother, all of nine, became the man of the house. When there would be a two-hour break in curfew, my mother would send him with a helper to buy rations — Campbell tomato soup, tins of Milkmaid condensed milk, besides the spices, atta, dals and vegetables.

We were a large family living in the bungalow. The upper floor was occupied by my paternal aunt and her six children and we occupied the ground floor. For us, it was freedom from school, and we spent our afternoons playing. Sometimes we would go hiking at the hillside around our bungalow. Just one hour was spent studying at the Grammar School run by a jovial Thai lady next to the Bandstand on the Mall in a large hall.

Between June-July, rioting did happen, and how! Doaba became red with blood. As arson, looting and murder began in full force, Uncle Gurdeep lost his temper with my father. “Lal Prasad, are you out of your mind? The fire of hatred is burning on both sides of the border. Muslims are being butchered and looted in Amritsar, Ambala and other cities, just as the Hindus in Lahore and elsewhere. I am coming immediately to fetch you, even if I have to tie you and bundle you in my car.”

That brought some sense into my father. By the time Uncle Gurdeep arrived, rioters brandishing swords, knives and torches could be heard a mile away from my father’s residence. As the car sped, the distance between them increased. But soon, the old car began to heat up and lose speed. They could hear the shouting militants, “Catch the rascals — a Sardar and a Hindu. Don’t let them escape.”

Uncle pressed the accelerator harder. The aim was to reach Wagah border, now just a furlong away. The jalopy was steaming and coughing, and the crowd running faster than the vehicle. “Maar dalo saalon ko (Kill the rascals),” the escapees could hear.

Sheer guts made them reach the border just in time. In split seconds, both rushed out of the overheated car that went up in flames.

After a fond farewell, the friends went to face their respective futures, but not before Uncle asked for a favour. “I am sheltering a Muslim family whose home has been taken over by a refugee Hindu family. I will feel good if we can give them your house in exchange.” And so it was done without much ado. In fact, my father met that family much later after Partition when an exchange of people was allowed for them to retrieve some of their belongings.

After leaving Amritsar and visiting his much-relieved parents, he continued his journey to Shimla. But his ordeal was not yet over. There were refugees all along the road. Somehow, he joined a Shimla-bound caravan of a Rani having an army escort. On knowing that his family was in Shimla and the wife was pregnant, a guard took pity on him and hid him in a goods truck. The Rani was very strict and with a whip in her hand, she rode up and down, striking the vans to check if any stowaway was taking a free ride. The most painful part of the journey was when the vans went over the pontoon bridge. The bumps were most hurtful in a crouched position as my father had no space to shift.

We came to know of all this only after he reached Shimla well in time for my mother’s delivery. All’s well that ends well.

We stayed on in Shimla for a year. My father’s company, too, was dislodged from Lahore and we were transferred from place to place all over India till its headquarters moved to Calcutta. In 1950, our family was finally settled.

My uncle, a lawyer, stayed back in Amritsar to help in the legal problems of the refugees of both religions. My younger paternal aunt was the District Inspectress of Schools in Amritsar. She stayed back as she was doing yeoman service with her teams in schools all over from Tarn Taran to Amritsar, administrating the refugee camps in coordination with the government bodies. It was actually she who had persuaded my father to shift the family to Shimla in May as she had seen and handled the start of the refugee problem from Lahore.

We all say in the family that our youngest sibling saved us from a terrible catastrophe. We left Lahore well in time before the mayhem and my father was saved in the nick of time by a loyal friend who risked his life. The baby was the incentive to go through all kind of hell.

Names have been changed to protect identity

— The writer is a Delhi-based author