Footprints on Zero Line

by Gulzar

  ‘You seem to be a chirimaar yourself … You are using stones to scare away the crows … Am I a crow? … Am I going to fly away?’

  ‘If you fly away, I will shoot you down with my gun, roast you and eat you up.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’ The man inside the check post threw another potato towards the man at the well. ‘Here, eat this potato.’

  ‘Don’t you have boiled ones? Send me some with a sprinkling of salt on them.’

  ‘You people have already betrayed your salt … now you want more salt?’

  The man at the well was silent for a while; then he spoke in a changed tone.

  ‘As though you have been true to your salt. You used to eat what we produced by dint of our hard work. In front of our eyes, you slaughtered those you used to call Amma and Abba … you tore them limb from limb, you bastards! … Traitors!’

  There was a perceptible change in the tone of the man in the check post.

  He asked, ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Bhopal. And you?’

  ‘Gujranwala … near Lahore,’ he answered after a pause.

  ‘You people did the same … You stripped them naked and paraded those you used to call your mothers and sisters. I had left my grandfather behind. You people didn’t even spare the elderly. You tore him to shreds and then you burnt our entire neighbourhood to the ground.’

  And suddenly a silence descended upon both.

  After a long time, a voice came from the well.

  ‘Listen … do you have a rope or a bucket?’

  ‘What will you do with it?’

  ‘I want to draw water from the well; I am thirsty.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what the tappa says: khu de kande baike pyaase mar gaye.’

  ‘You speak Punjabi?’

  ‘Why won’t I speak Punjabi? I am from Lahore! Do you understand it?’

  ‘I was raised in Punjab! Why won’t I understand it?’

  ‘Have you forgotten your Bhopali?’

  ‘How can I forget it? It’s my mother tongue!’

  ‘And Punjabi?’

  He spoke in Punjabi and asked him, ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Arun Bakshi. And yours?’

  ‘Bakhshi Asif Ali!’

  In his excitement, Arun got to his feet holding the gun in his hand.

  ‘Oye, you son of a … You sister-*** … Our names are almost alike.’

  Asif fired a shot from his gun.

  ‘Don’t you dare swear at me, you mother***! I will riddle you with holes!’

  The glass in the window burst. A shard hit Arun on his forehead and blood gushed out. The situation that had softened somewhat deteriorated once again. With great difficulty, Arun wiped the blood and tied a bandage.

  Now Arun too took aim and sat alert. A pane in the window hung loose. No one spoke for a long time.

  After a long pause, Asif’s voice was heard.

  ‘Ullu ke patthhe … are you hurt?’

  Arun did not answer. Instead, he crouched beside the window and tried to get a good shot.

  Asif spoke up again. ‘Oye, why have you gone quiet?’

  When there was still no answer, he popped his head up and said, ‘At least you should have said farewell before going … I was…’

  Arun fired a shot.

  The bullet hit the pulley on the well, making the wheel turn…

  Asif shouted: ‘What have you done? At least take aim properly … Now the rope and pulley have both fallen into the well.’

  Arun replied: ‘I will shoot your head off! Too bad I missed … Asking for a bucket, the bugger! Want water, do you? I will drink your blood!’

  ‘I’ll see you, you cook! Let’s see who is going to drink whose blood!’

  ‘Bloody chirimaar!’

  Once again, silence reigned. A kite flew across the sky. Its scream pierced the afternoon.

  Neither of them spoke. After some time, smoke could be seen rising near the well. Arun could see it from where he crouched beneath the window. He tried to get up and craned his neck to get a better look but, still, he couldn’t see too clearly. He spotted a helmet lying behind the sacks. He put the helmet on his gun and moved it up the window, as though he were getting up.

  Asif called out, ‘Cut out the act! The helmet doesn’t move like that when it is on the head!’

  Arun lowered the helmet.

  ‘If you have the courage, put it on your head and stand up. I will pierce holes through you.’

  ‘What’s with that smoke? Who are you signalling to? … You are in our territory. You will be caught.’

  There was a short interval. The bitterness in Asif’s voice had lessened somewhat.

  ‘Let them catch me. At least they will give me something to eat!’

  Arun’s tone too changed a little.

  ‘What are you roasting?’

  ‘The potatoes you had thrown at me. I am burning a little grass and roasting them. Do you want some?’

  Arun became thoughtful.

  ‘Throw a few more,’ Asif called out.

  Arun was hungry too but how could he ask the enemy?

  ‘We get packaged food … there are kababs and salads and tins of cut fruit as well.’

  ‘Oh come on, come on! Don’t fly so high! We are not in the American army; we are both equally poor. I know what you get to eat. At least we occasionally get to eat meat; you people must be getting only vegetables. Ladies’ fingers, brinjals, spinach and the blasted potatoes!’

  ‘Are your potatoes done yet … shall I give you some salt?’

  ‘Throw it across.’

  ‘You are going to eat our salt … and be faithless to it?’

  ‘Don’t sprinkle salt on my wounds, kutte-kamine!’

  This time, Arun laughed as he said: ‘You love to watch our films, don’t you? All our films always have this dialogue… Kutte-kamine!’

  ‘Tell me, how is our Dilip Kumar?’

  ‘I like that! How is he yours?’

  ‘He is our Musalman brother and he was born on our side.’

  ‘But you were not born there? So?’

  ‘Even you weren’t born there?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’

  Both found themselves at a loss for words. Suddenly, the sound of a helicopter was heard overhead. Arun went close to the door and tried to open it a crack. He fired once in the air. Then he locked the door from inside. Asif too had heard the helicopter. He tried to make a guess. He heard the shot and asked, ‘Hey, who are you calling out to?’

  Arun did not answer.

  The sound of the helicopter seemed to be coming closer.

  The helicopter was landing. Its blades were making the trees bend. Asif and Arun became alert.

  Arun asked, ‘Can you see?’

  ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Whose is it?’?

  ‘I can’t tell.’

  ‘You should run away; or surrender. Raise your hands and come out.’

  ‘You also come out. Raise your hands. Who knows whose is it?’

  The sound of the helicopter came closer still. Arun unlatched the door.

  Asif too sat on his knees, his gun at the ready. Arun loaded his gun and sat beside the door.

  Suddenly a large parcel fell in the open space between them, and the helicopter began to climb back in the air.

  Arun ran towards the parcel but Asif fired a shot. He rolled over and hid behind the tandoor. And when Asif came forward, Arun fired a shot. He rolled over and took cover behind the sacks lying in front of the check post.

  Both had been hit by a bullet each. Arun was bandaging his shoulder. Asif was clutching his leg and groaning. Both were now out in the open. One was crouching behind the well, the other behind the tandoor. And lying between them was a parcel, wrapped in a black sack.

  Both were panting. Both had their eyes glued to the parcel. Asif spoke up first: ‘What’s in it?’

  ‘Who knows? Could be letters … Or ammunition!’

  Angrily, Asif sa
id, ‘Has your mother sent so many letters?’

  Arun fired a shot. ‘Don’t talk nonsense!’

  With a scream, Asif rolled over.

  Instinctively, Arun called out: ‘What happened? Where did it hit?’

  ‘Your mother’s … skull!’

  Arun laughed.

  ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘What did you think? That your mother had sent you a money order?’

  After a pause, Arun said, ‘What did you think? Postal packages come like this out here.’

  Asif too laughed. ‘Bugger…’ And then he fell silent.

  After a while, Asif repeated, ‘Bugger…’

  Asif now began to hum.

  What if I had got hit in my heart

  You would have been left alone without an enemy

  The loneliness would have killed you in the desert

  You would have gone mad in this check post…

  Arun laughed and answered in a two-line verse:

  What will anyone do alone at the border

  Without an enemy, it has no meaning, no purpose

  The sun was going down. The darkness was spreading. In the same metre, Asif said:

  It seems we are the only people left on this earth

  Once we were one, now Time has made us two!

  And then Asif said, ‘It is almost night. If you have a light, switch it on.’

  ‘Are you scared of the dark?’

  ‘I am not scared of you, but what if a snake or something comes out?’

  Arun got up. He left his gun there. He tottered inside, brought a lantern and hung it on the veranda outside. Then he sat down … right in front of Asif.

  The sun went down.

  Asif began to croon:

  Long are the sagas of borders

  The soil soaked with blood

  Heer’s Ranjha is dead.

  And in reply, Arun sang:

  Long are the sagas of borders

  The words of brothers hurt

  They speak with bullets now.

  Partition

  SOMETIMES LIFE leaps and bounds like a wounded leopard, leaving traces of its paws along the way. If you try and connect these traces with a single line, what a strange picture emerges!

  It was sometime in the year 1984-85 that a certain gentleman used to write to me often from Amritsar, saying I was his brother who had been lost during the Partition. His name, I think, was Iqbal Singh and he was a professor at Khalsa College. After the first few letters, I wrote him a long letter explaining that I was in Delhi during the Partition, that I lived with my parents, and that I had lost no brother or sister during the communal riots of those days.

  Despite this, Iqbal Singh remained convinced that I was his long-lost brother and that I was either unaware of the incidents of my childhood, or had forgotten about them. He believed that I was very small when, while travelling with a caravan, I had got separated. It was possible, he believed, that the people who had saved me and brought me to this side had never told me so; or, perhaps I was so grateful to those people that I was unwilling to consider any other eventuality.

  I even told him that I was not that young in 1947; I was close to thirteen years old at the time. But no matter what I said, Iqbal Singh was not willing to listen. Eventually, I stopped answering. After sometime the letters stopped coming.

  A year must have passed when a film-maker from Bombay, Sai Paranjpye, sent me a message. A certain gentleman from Delhi called Harbhajan Singh wished to meet me in Bombay. She didn’t tell me why he wished to meet me but she did ask me some rather mysterious questions – the sort I didn’t expect from her.

  ‘Where were you during the Partition?’ she asked.

  ‘In Delhi,’ I told her. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just like that.’

  Sai speaks beautiful Urdu but her next question was in English. ‘And your parents?’

  ‘They were in Delhi too. I was with them. Why?’

  She went on speaking for some time but I began to feel as though she were drawing the curtain of English over our conversation; for she always speaks to me in Urdu, an Urdu that she calls Hindi.

  Eventually, Sai burst out: ‘Look here, Gulzar, the thing is I am not supposed to tell you but there is a certain gentleman in Delhi who thinks you are his son who was lost during the Partition.’

  Now this was a new story. A month later I got a telephone call from Amol Palekar, the well-known actor from Bombay. He said, ‘Mrs Dandavate wants to speak to you. She lives in Delhi.’

  ‘Who is Mrs Dandavate?’ I asked.

  ‘The wife of Mr Madhu Dandavate, the former finance minister in the Janata government.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know. But when can she call you, and where?’

  I had nothing to do with Mr or Mrs Madhu Dandavate. I had never even met them. I was surprised. But I told Amol Palekar the timings when I take calls at my home and office.

  The story was beginning to turn. I didn’t even know this was a link in the Sai story but Amol, being an actor and a fine one at that, did a remarkable bit of acting and didn’t give me any reason. However, I am certain that he knew the reason when he called me.

  A few days later I got a call from Pramila Dandavate. She told me that a certain Harbhajan Singh, who lived in Delhi, wished to come to Bombay to meet me because he thought I was his son, a son who was lost during the Partition. I think it was the month of November, as I recall now. I told her, ‘I shall be coming to Delhi in January for the International Film Festival. I expect to be in Delhi on the tenth of January; I can meet him then. Don’t send him here.’

  I also asked her who Sardar Harbhajan Singh was. She told me he had been the civil supplies minister in Punjab during the Janata government.

  I went to Delhi in January and stayed at the Ashoka Hotel. I received a telephone call from Harbhajan Singh sahab’s house asking when he could come to meet me. By then I had understood that he was some very respectable elderly person. The person on the telephone was his son. Out of respect, I politely suggested, ‘Please don’t put him to any trouble. Please come here tomorrow in the afternoon. I will accompany you to his residence and meet him there.’

  I was surprised to find Sai in Delhi, and Amol Palekar too, and both knew about my next day’s appointment.

  The next afternoon, the gentleman who showed up to escort me was Harbhajan Singh’s elder son. His name was Iqbal Singh.

  Punjabis age but they don’t show their age. Harbhajan Singh sahab got up and met me with great affection. I too touched his feet, as a son would. He introduced me to the mother, ‘This is your mother!’

  I touched the mother’s feet too.

  The sons were calling him ‘Daar-ji’. There were other sons, daughters-in-law, grandchildren – a full-fledged family. And a large house too! This openness is to be found not only in the lifestyle but also in the temperament of Punjabis.

  After the courtesies and formalities, food and drinks were brought in and Daar-ji told me where he had lost me. ‘There were terrible riots. Fires raged all around and, scorched in those flames, news and gossip reached us, but we stayed put. The zamindar was a Musalman and, being a friend of my father’s, was kindly disposed towards us. The entire qasba knew that till he was there, no one could even knock on our door at an inappropriate hour. His son used to study with me in school. Perhaps his name was Ayaaz. But, still, we would be terrified when the caravans travelling from the hinterland passed through our qasba. We would quail from within. The zamindar would come and meet us every morning and night and bolster our courage. He treated my wife like his own daughter.

  ‘One day, a caravan passed wailing and weeping so piteously that we spent the entire night standing at the roof of our house watching them go past. And not just us but the entire qasba was wide awake; it seemed as though that was our last night and the next morning would surely bring catastrophe. We felt as though we were being pulled out by the roots. It was as if this were the last of the caravans, an
d it was time for us to go. There would be nothing left after this. Like a traitor, I left my friend the zamindar.

  ‘He would tell me every day, “Come to my haveli, live with me. Put a lock on your house for a few days. No one will touch a thing.”

  ‘We pretended to keep up our spirits. In reality, we were terrified. To tell you the truth, Sampooran kaka, our faith was shaken, we were trembling to our very roots. All the caravans went past our house. We had heard that if you managed to enter Jammu from Mianwali, an armed contingent would escort you on your onward journey to the plains.

  ‘We left our homes as they were, open. To tell you the truth, our heart had made the call; it was time now to leave the soil of our homeland. It was time to go, to march onwards with two elder sons, a daughter who was then eight or nine years old and you, the youngest! It was a two-day journey to Mianwali on foot. We would find something to eat in the villages we passed through. The riots had taken place everywhere, in fact were still taking place, but everywhere the rioters had come from outside. By the time we reached Mianwali, our caravan had grown substantially. People from far and wide had joined us. It reassured us, son, when we saw others who were as dispossessed as us. We reached Mianwali at night. Several times in our journey, we had to let go of our children’s hands and, in a panic, we would call out to them frantically. There were so many others like us; there was always a commotion.

  ‘God knows how the rumour spread that there would be an attack on Mianwali that night. A bunch of armed Musalmans were expected to attack us. I have never heard such a silence of fear and terror. We set out on our onward journey in the night.’

  Daar-ji fell silent for a while. His eyes were moist. But the mother was watching me silently, her eyes focused unblinkingly on me. There was no emotion on her face.

  Daar-ji spoke softly, ‘And on that night, during our flight, God knows how we lost both our two younger children. If we knew how…’

  He left the sentence unfinished and fell silent.

  I can’t remember quite clearly, but at some point, some of the sons and daughters-in-law got up, others changed their positions.

  Daar-ji continued, ‘We waited for a long time after reaching Jammu. We went to each camp and we looked at every arriving caravan. There were countless people. Sometimes entire caravans went towards the Punjab; others moved down to the plains to wherever they had their relatives. When we lost all hope, we too went towards the Punjab. Here too we searched in all the camps. All we had now was a search. Our children were lost; we gave up hope.