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No reunion for a hapless couple

I was just seven years old when a series of turbulent events happened over 77 years ago in a couple of villages in Montgomery district (now Sahiwal) of west Punjab. One day, I was whiling away the hours with my...
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I was just seven years old when a series of turbulent events happened over 77 years ago in a couple of villages in Montgomery district (now Sahiwal) of west Punjab. One day, I was whiling away the hours with my friends, wondering which game to play. Nearby, there was a group of girls who had got someone to sling a rope around the stout branch of a tree to make them a swing. They were taking turns on the swing — it was a popular pastime of girls during the rainy season.

Among them was one who had been married recently to a young man from a nearby village. We overheard her telling her friends about her brother’s visit to her in-laws’ place. He had arrived there to escort her back to her parents’ home. At the time of her departure, her husband had said, “chheti aaween” (come back soon). A sense of pride was obvious — she wanted to convey to the whole group that her husband loved her a lot and could not stay without her for long.

It was July 1947. Muhammad Ali Jinnah had sounded the call for ‘Direct Action’ in support of his demand for a separate country for Muslims after India’s independence. We used to get our copy of The Tribune, then published from Lahore, a day later in our village. The daily papers were reporting incidents of violence involving Muslims and Hindus/Sikhs. It was quite clear that even villages would not remain islands of peace for long. My parents had a rough idea where the dividing line would be drawn. They decided to move the family to my mother’s native village in east Punjab.

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When British lawyer Cyril Radcliffe finally drew the all-important line, all our village folk formed a kafila (caravan) of bullock carts and started on a long journey eastward. They had gone only about 15 miles when an armed mob attacked them, resulting in loot, slaughter and rape. A few young men managed to run helter-skelter and save themselves. Among them, only a handful managed to cross the newly drawn border to safety. One of the survivors, whom we happened to meet, told us this tragic, heartbreaking story.

The man who loved his wife must have moved with a kafila from his village. We do not know anything about his fate. It is, however, apparent that the young woman never saw her husband again. We also know that the fate of this couple was the same as that of countless others during those catastrophic times.

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