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Tonight
when
you asked me to read you a bedtime story
I
got lost in the labyrinth of my past.
I
remember
reading
you bedtime stories
when
you were a little girl
stories
that
grandmothers read to their granddaughters
stories
in
which Princes marry Princesses and live happily ever after
stories
that
are based on fantasy rather than reality
stories
that
act as lullabies and put little girls to sleep. But the story I am going to share with you
tonight is different from all the stories that I shared with you when you were just a
child. It is a new story. It is a story that will take the whole night to tell. You are a
young woman now and you can easily miss a night of sleep. This story you will one day
share with your own granddaughter and it will be passed on from one generation to the next
and cherished by the children of our future generations.
It is a
story of a mother and a motherland in which the mother was separated from her children as
they decided to leave home and explore other worlds. Those children lived a life of exile
and adopted other motherlands. Their natural mother, who had fed them with her milk and
nurtured them with her own blood became lonely, sad and felt very alone in her old age.
This is the story of that sad mother.
My
Dear Child!
Once
a mother or a motherland
becomes
so old and barren that
her
body becomes a cactus,
her
hands start to tremble
her
eyesight becomes weak
and
her
breasts secrete poison rather than milk and honey
then,
when
her
children try to embrace her
they
get bruised and hurt,
they
cry and bleed,
they
leave their mother
and
go to far off lands
and
never return
and
even when they do return
for
short visits,
they
come
out
of sympathy
and
pity
and
a feeling of obligation.
They
return
to
console her,
and
not
out
of genuine
caring
and
affection
and love
and
that delicate and sensitive thread
that
binds them together
is
torn apart.
The
umbilical cord is severed;
the
sacred relationship is wounded.
They
lick their wounds,
mother
on one side
children
on the other.
My
Darling!
After
I returned from my world trip
in
which I visited
my
children and grandchildren
who
are spread
from
North America to South Africa
from
Western Europe to the Middle East
where
they have made
those
foreign lands their homes,
I
have been experiencing sleepless nights.
In
the last few months
I
have consulted numerous
doctors,
hakims,
medicine men
and
spiritual healers
Some
say
my
illness is physical,
Others
say
it is
psychological,
while
some others insist
it is
spiritual.
It
is an illness
that has
swept
my whole body,
my whole being.
It
is an illness
that has
no name
no treatment
no remedy
no solace.
It
is an illness
that
haunts
every vein of my body
every cell of my mind
every depth of my soul.
It
is an illness
that has
poisoned
my every hope
my every desire
my every prayer.
My
Child!
If I were
a poetess or a writer I would have artistically and eloquently written my biography and
the history of my motherland, but I neither have a pen in my hand nor a university degree
in my pocket. I am an illiterate and uneducated person in the eyes of others. I am well
aware that it is not because I was stupid, rather, I was smarter and brighter than my
brothers, but I was deprived of a formal education because I was a girl. In the
environment in which I was raised, girls were not allowed to go to schools, colleges and
universities. They were trained to do household work and taught to cook, clean and wash.
They were conditioned to sacrifice their lives and their futures for their families. So
while my brothers achieved university degrees I looked after the household duties. I never
acquired the wealth of education. I remained poor and one can imagine the future of a
community where half of the population is raised in the darkness of ignorance. They cannot
read or write a word, they cannot sign legal documents. But I loved knowledge so I started
to study the book of life and realized that to learn about life one does not have to study
textbooks or have a formal education. I met so many uneducated people who have greater
insight into life and are wiser than those who have university degrees.
Dear
Child!
I am so
glad that you obtained your Masters in Journalism. I am so proud of you for having
achieved such a heightened sense of social consciousness that you write the stories of the
oppressed and the deprived of our society. Perhaps one day you can write my story, the
story of your own grandmother, a story that is not only the story of our family but also
of our time.
It is the
story of our motherland that we call Punjab, a land that embraces five rivers which
irrigate our farms. The farms produce crops for the farmers. Unfortunately the farmers
never reap the fruits of what they sew. While those farmers feed the whole country their
own children go to bed hungry and they don't have enough money to marry off their
daughters.
Darling!
Whether
they are rivers of Punjab
or
any other motherland
they
are all related
to
the tall, graceful mountains,
the
mountains who wear crowns of snow
upon
their heads.
When
those crowns
melt
in summer
they
descend to the valleys
and
flow as rivers.
As
rivers
they
acquire names and identities
but
then,
one
day those rivers
merge
into the ocean.
In
that process
who
knows
what
they gain
and
what they lose.
Dear
Daughter!
Our
family is not any different from those rivers. We started our journey from the mountains
and valleys of Kashmir, where our forefathers and foremothers used to live. Kashmir was
always known for
chirping
birds
fragrant
flowers
starry
nights
sunny
days
and
beautiful
lakes.
People
from
all over the world
used
to come
to
spend summers in Kashmir,
a
paradise on Earth.
But
then
our
ancestors had to leave
that
paradise.
They
packed their belongings
and
carried their tents
on
their backs.
They
said goodbye
to
their motherland.
It
was the first immigration
within
our family;
it
turned out to be
the
first of many.
When
people
leave
their home
they
sever their bond
with
their homeland
and
then they are unable to find peace
in
any other homeland.
So
the
caravan of our family left Kashmir
and
came to Punjab
where
they
attached
their tents and their hearts
to
the new land.
Those
folks
who spoke
Kashmiri
as their
mother tongue
came to
speak Punjabi fluently
two
generations later.
They
believed
they
found a new homeland
but it
was an illusion.
The
happiness,
the hope,
the bond,
the peace
they had
discovered
was only
temporary.
The
sword of History fell
and
cut the hearts into two.
Not
only Kashmir and Bengal
but also
the motherland of Punjab
became divided into two,
and once again
we became refugees.
We
had to move
from East
Punjab to West Punjab.
At
first we experienced
the
massacre of Julianwala Bagh
and
lost
many
of our dear ones
and
then
one
day
at
midnight
one
motherland became two
and
two brothers
who
were born from the same womb
breast-fed
by the same mother
spoke
the same mother tongue
cultivated
the same farms
became
bloodthirsty stepbrothers.
They
reminded us of the time
when
Habeel
and Qabeel
two
sons of Adam
fought
and
one brother killed the other.
My
Sweetheart!
The
second immigration
was
far more painful than the first.
In
the first
our
ancestors had only lost their homes
while
in the second
daughters
lost their innocence
and
fathers
their
pride.
The
disasters of the first
we
heard with our ears,
the
disgrace of the second
we
saw with our eyes.
God
knows how many
mornings
turned sad,
afternoons
remorseful
and
evenings
depressed.
I
used to snuggle up
with
my two daughters and two sons
in
bed;
sleepless
nights were spent
in
fear.
Your
grandfather,
who
was a Kashmiri Shawl merchant
in
Calcutta
used
to be away from home
for
months at a time
and
I
used
to look after
the
home and the children
all
by myself.
Those
days were hard.
Every
news that we received
was
bad news.
My
sister and brother left for Lahore and wanted me and the children to join them but I
stayed behind and waited for your grandpa.
Every
day that passed
seemed
like a decade
every
night like a century.
Finally
when
your grandfather arrived,
we
decided to leave.
With
empty hands
we
moved on.
We
left behind
our
property,
the
business
and
a furnished home.
Your
grandfather had a good friend who used to look after us when he was away. He loved us and
we trusted him. The day we decided to move, your grandfather's friend went to get us a
taxi so that we could go to the railway station; he never came back.
We waited
impatiently for him for an hour, and then another, until finally three hours or more had
passed. When he did not return we realized he had been killed by a sword, a kirpan or a
gun.
So your
grandfather went out himself to get a taxi. It was a risky affair. Halfway he met a
Sardarji, his childhood buddy.
"Khawaja
Sahib! Where are you going?" he asked.
"To
get a taxi for the children."
"Don't
go any further. If you approach the four corners you will be killed. Go back. I will try
my best to get a taxi."
After a
few minutes he came with a taxi, hid us in it and took us to the railway station.
When we
arrived at the station we found out that the train had been waiting for the past
forty-eight hours. The driver was afraid to leave the station as he did not want the train
ambushed and the passengers subsequently killed. People were clinging to the train like
honeybees to the honeycomb. People were sitting in the seats, on the floor, on the
footsteps and hanging from the windows. We asked the children to wait, perhaps for a
miracle, for surely a miracle was needed to transport us from the dangers of Amritsar to
the safety of Lahore.
After
twenty-four hours of waiting, the train whistle blew and we were ready to depart. Your
grandpa had a dangerous but novel idea. "Why don't we travel on the roof" and we
all climbed on top of people's shoulders and got to the roof of the train, risking our
lives in doing so.
The train
left the station and started to crawl cautiously, as if afraid. It was terrifying as we
slowly moved toward the border. We covered a two-hour journey in twelve hours. When we
arrived at the Lahore station everybody was relieved to have escaped what seemed a death
sentence. Your grandfather and I had tears in our eyes. Mine were tears of joy, happy that
my children had been saved, his were tears of sadness, as he had lost his friend. That
loss wounded your grandfather's heart. It was a wound that never healed. That immigration
was painful and heartbreaking. It was like crossing a river
a river
of blood,
a river
of fire,
a river
of divided loyalties
broken faiths
and shattered dreams.
Some
stayed behind,
some
drowned halfway
and some
arrived at the other shore.
We
would never know for sure what we had lost and what we had gained on that journey.
Those who
arrived in the promised land found a dedicated gardener and joined him in sewing fresh
seeds.
They
prepared and offered
the soil
of hope
the sunshine of ambitions
the blood of sacrifice
and
the water of prayers.
They
hoped that when the plants grew and became strong shady trees they would enjoy the fruits
of peace, justice and friendship.
Before
the first year was over the gardener parted. He suffered from tuberculosis. He had spent
sleepless nights pacing back and forth in his room worrying about the members of his new
family in the new motherland. He used to dream about the trees of democracy, secular views
and humanitarian values in his garden.
The death
of the gardener was a bad omen for the garden.
A stormy
wind started to blow.
It was a
wind that uprooted the new
plants and replaced them with seeds
of prejudice and religious
fanaticism.
The wind
blew out the candles of
tolerance and acceptance.
Friends
who seemed honest and caring
turned selfish and sadistic.
The
golden dream of the new motherland
turned into a nightmare.
My
sister in Lahore
who had a small home
but a big heart
let us stay with her.
We faced
pain
poverty
prejudice
but remained patient.
I endured
hardships
but did not complain
I washed
clothes
with chilling cold water in winters
baked bread
on burning coals
in hot summers.
I worked
hard
and was able to send
my four children |