Read here my English translation of one of Bhisham's Sahni's masterpiece short stories on the Partition.
अमृतसर आ गया है
अमृतसर आ गया है
WE HAVE REACHED AMRITSAR
By
Bhisham Sahni
There
weren’t many passengers in the compartment. The sardarji sitting on the berth
in front was narrating his war experiences. During the War he had been at the
Burma front. He was making fun of the white soldiers and breaking into laughter
every now and then. Besides us there were three Pathan traders in the
compartment, and one among them, wearing a green dress, was reclining on the
upper berth. He was of a genial temper and cracking jokes with a lean and thin
babu sitting by my side. That thin looking babu seemed to belong to Peshawar,
because now and then the two would break into
Pushto. On my right in a corner sat an old woman with her head and face
covered, counting prayers on her rosary.
These were the only passengers in the compartment. There might have been one or two others, but I don’t remember.
The
train was moving slowly; the passengers in the compartment were chatting. I was
in a cheerful mood for I was going to Delhi to participate in the Independence
Day celebrations.
Whenever
I think of those days I begin to suspect that it was all an illusion. May be,
with the passage of time the whole of past looks like an illusion, and as the
future unfolds itself before us the illusion becomes still stronger.
The
declaration for the creation Pakistan had been made and people were making all
kinds of guesses about what the future had in store for them. But they were not
able to go very far. The sardarji sitting in front of me was asking again and
again whether, after the creation of Pakistan, Jinnah sahib would stay in
Bombay or go to Pakistan; and every time my answer was he would not leave
Bombay. He would keep visiting Pakistan off and on. There was no logic for him
to go and live there permanently. People were making guesses about Lahore and
Gurdaspur, wondering whether these cities would be part of India or Pakistan. They
were gossiping, laughing, cracking jokes as in normal times. Some were quitting
their homes and others making fun of them. No one knew what the right step was
and what the wrong one. In one group of
people there was the excitement at the creation of Pakistan; in another
the coming of freedom. Many places were
hit by riots, and at many the preparations to celebrate the Independence Day
were on. In this atmosphere people believed that the riots would stop by
themselves when the country gained independence. In this illusory belief a kind
of golden dust was in the air combined with an uncertainty; and in this
uncertainty one could see a glimpse of the future relationships among people.
Perhaps
the train had crossed the Jhelum station when the Pathan sitting on the upper
berth opened a packet and began to serve
boiled meat and naan to his companions. Then, while eating, he began to offer,
out of fun, a piece of meat to the babu sitting by my side, saying he would
become strong like them. His wife too would like it. ‘You are weak because you
eat only daal.’
The
passengers in the compartment began to laugh. The babu said something in Pushto
and kept on smiling and shaking his head.
The
other Pathan said, laughing, ‘O zalim,
if you don’t want to accept it from our hands, come on, pick it up with your
own hands. I swear it’s goat meat and nothing else.’
The Pathan
sitting on the upper berth said, ‘Oh you son of a khanjir, no one’s watching you here. We won’t tell your wife. You
eat meat with us and we shall eat daal
with you.’
People broke into laughter at this too. The
thin looking babu kept smiling, shaking his head and uttering a few words in Pushto.
‘How
bad that we’re eating and you are watching...’ All the Pathans were busy eating.
‘He’s
not eating because you haven’t washed your hands,’ said the corpulent sardar,
and started giggling. In his half reclining posture the bulk of his belly was
hanging down the seat. ‘You’ve just woken up, and started eating. That’s why
the babu is not eating from your hands. It’s nothing else.’ And he broke into a
long giggle again. Sardarji looked at me and winked, and started giggling
again.
‘If
you don’t eat meat, babu, go and sit in the ladies’ compartment. What’re you
doing here?’
One
again there was a roar of laughter.
There
were other passengers too in the compartment, but they were short distance travellers,
boarding and alighting. These people had boarded the train at the origin and a
kind of bonhomie had grown among them.
‘Oh,
come and be seated among us. O zalim,
we shall tell stories to each other.’
The train
stopped at a station and a crowd of new passengers thronged into the
compartment.
‘What
station is this?’ Someone asked.
‘Perhaps,
it is Wazirabad,’ I said looking out through the window.
The
train took some time to move out of the station but before that something
happened. A passenger alighted form the adjacent compartment and walked towards
the tap to get water, but before he could fill his lota he ran back towards his compartment. Water from the lota was spilling out, but the manner in
which he had made his dash told much. Three or four others at the tap had also
run towards their compartments. I had already seen people running like this.
The platform had emptied in no time. But fun and banter continued in the
compartment.
‘Something’s
wrong,’ said the thin looking babu.
Then
we heard some noise from the door on the wrong side of the platform. A passenger
was trying to force his entry into the compartment.
‘Why're you forcing yourself in? There’s no room here,’ Someone said.
‘Shut
the door. Everyone’s trying to enter here.’ One could hear this in many voices.
Whenever
a passenger tries to enter a compartment, the passengers inside resist his
entry. But once he’s inside the
opposition stops, and the same passenger joins the rest in shouting at those trying to enter the compartment. ‘No, there’s no room here.
Go to the next compartment. Don’t try to get in.’
The
noise at the door was increasing. Then we saw a man in dirty clothes and drooping
moustaches entering the compartment. His dress was awfully dirty. Turning his
face towards the door and a deaf ear to the protests, he started
dragging a black iron box into the compartment. ‘Come in, come in. You also
come in.’ He was urging someone behind him. Then I saw a lean and thin woman
come in followed by a darkish teenaged girl. People were still shouting.
Sardarji had to sit up on his haunches.
‘Shut
the door. They barge in without enquiring, as if it is their father’s lodge. Don’t
let them come in. Push them back…’ Many others were also shouting.
The
man was dragging his luggage inside and his wife and daughter were standing
close to the toilet door.
‘He
couldn’t find any other compartment. And he has brought these women too.’
The
man was drenched in sweat and dragging his luggage, gasping for breath. After
the box, he was dragging in a dismantled cot tied with a string.
‘I’ve
a ticket. I’m not without ticket.’ Most of the passengers in the compartment
stopped protesting. But the Pathan sitting on the upper berth shouted at him,
‘Get out of here. Can’t you see there is no room here?’
And
the next moment the Pathan lunged one foot forward to hit the man but instead of
hitting him the foot landed on his wife’s chest and she sat down crying with
pain. That man had no time to settle scores with the passengers. He was just
dragging his things inside. Dumbness reined in the compartment. After the
dismantled cot came in a few bundles. At this the Pathan lost all his patience.
He began to shout, ‘Throw him out. Who’s he?’ Hearing this the other Pathan,
sitting on the lower berth, pushed the man’s box out of the compartment where a
coolie in red uniform was loading the man’s effects.
The
passengers had become silent after the woman had been hurt. Only the old lady
sitting in the compartment was pleading, ‘Oh God’s people, let them sit. Come,
daughter, come and sit beside me. We shall manage somehow. Stop, you cruel men,
let them sit.’
Only
half the luggage had been loaded when the train began to move.
‘My
luggage has been left behind,’ the man was shouting frantically.
‘Pitaji, our luggage has been left
behind.’ The girl, standing near the toilet, was shivering from head to foot and
shouting.
‘Get
off, get off.’ The man shouted in a frenzied voice, and got off the train after
throwing out all the pieces of his luggage one by one. After him first his
daughter and then his wife also got off, all wailing with their hands pressed
against their hearts.
‘You
did something very bad, very bad.’ The old woman in the compartment was saying
it loudly. ‘All feelings have died down in you. There was a small girl with
them. You heartless fellow, you have driven them out.’
The
train moved on. An uneasy silence reigned in the compartment. The old woman had
stopped complaining. She did not have the courage to oppose the Pathans.
Just
then the slightly built babu put his hand on mine and said, ‘Look, something is
on fire.’
The
train had left the platform far behind and was moving out of the city. One
could see thick smoke and flames rising from somewhere in the city.
‘It’s
a riot. People were running about even on the platform. Surely there has been
rioting somewhere.’
Everyone
in the compartment came to know that fires had broken out in the city, and all
of them began to peep through the windows to have a view of the burning city.
When
the train had driven past the city there was dead silence in the compartment. I
looked around. I saw that the face of the thin babu had turned pale and a layer of sweat was visible on his deathly
face. It seemed to me that all the passengers in the compartment had sized up
each other. Sardarji came and sat beside
me. The Pathan sitting on the lower berth got up and joined the other two Pathans
sitting on the upper berth. Something similar was perhaps going on in other
compartments too. The atmosphere had become tense and people had stopped
talking. All the three Pathans on the upper berth sat quietly watching the
passengers below. Each eye in the compartment was wide open with suspicion.
‘What
station was it?’ someone asked.
‘Wazirabad,’
another replied.
The answer evoked another reaction. The
tension among the Pathans eased but silence among the Hindu and Sikh passengers
became still more grim. One of the Pathans took out a box of snuff from his jacket
and applied a pinch of snuff to his nose. The other Pathans also took out their
boxes and began to apply snuff to their noses. The old woman was fingering her
beads. Occasionally one could hear a weak trembling sound issuing from her
lips.
When
the train stopped at the next station quietness reigned here too. Not even a
bird could be seen. A water-carrier carrying a mashak slung on his back came there and began to offer water to the
passengers.
‘Come,
here’s water to drink.’ From the ladies compartment many women and children
pushed their hands through the windows.
‘There
has been a massacre. So many have been killed.’ It seemed he was the only good
Samaritan in this mayhem.
As
the train moved, people began to pull down the window shutters. One could hear,
along with the heavy clanging of the wheels, the noise of the shutters being
pulled down.
Troubled
by an unknown fear the thin babu got up from his seat and lay down on the floor
between two berths. His face still looked deathly pale. The Pathan sitting on
one of the berths began to tease him. ‘O you shameless! Are you a man or a
woman that you have left the berth and are lying on the floor. You’re a
disgrace to us men.’ He kept on talking and laughing. Then he switched to
Pushto. The babu kept quiet. The other passengers too had become quiet.
‘We
won’t let a man like you sit in this compartment. Babu, get down on the next
station and go to a ladies’ compartment.’
But
the babu’s response had dried out. He muttered something and then relapsed into
silence. After a short while he went back to his seat and kept on dusting his
clothes. He had lain down on the floor fearing that the train might not be
stoned or fired upon. That’s why, perhaps, the shutters too had been pulled down.
It
was difficult to say. May be a passenger had pulled down the shutter for some
reason and the others might have followed him for no reason.
The
train moved on in this heavy and
uncertain atmosphere. Outside, the darkness was thickening. The
passengers sat quiet and apprehensive. Occasionally the train would slow down
and passengers would look askance at each other. And when it stopped the
silence in the compartment would become more intense. Only the Pathans sat
relaxed. And they had stopped talking because no one was responding to them.
Soon
the Pathans began to doze off, while the other passengers stared in the
blankness ahead. The old woman covered her face and head, folded up her legs
onto the seat and went to sleep. One of the Pathans took out
from his pocket his string of prayer beads and started fingering it.
Occasionally
a passenger opened a window to peep at the landscape. Outside, the moon had
come out and the moonlight had made the atmosphere still more uncertain and
mysterious. Occasionally one could see a town in flames. The train roared
forward but sometimes it slowed down and continued for miles at a slow pace.
Suddenly
the babu looked through a window and shouted, ‘The train has crossed Harbanspura!’ There was great excitement in the way he had shouted. All the
passengers in the compartment were unsettled on hearing him shout. Many in the
compartment turned on their sides on hearing his voice.
‘O
babu, why’re you shouting?’ The Pathan who was fingering his beads asked. ‘Are
you getting down here? Shall I pull the chain?’ And he started laughing. It was
clear he did not know the situation in Harbanspura, for he did not seem to know
what Harbanspura was.
The
babu said nothing and just shook his head and started looking through the
window after throwing a glance at the Pathan.
Silence
reigned in the compartment once again. Just then the engine whistled and the
train began to slow down. Soon after there was a rattling sound of the train
switching its line. The babu peeped out to see in the direction the train was
moving.
‘We
have reached the city,’ he shouted. ‘We have reached Amritsar.’ He said it
again. He jumped from his seat and stood up and shouted at the Pathan occupying
the upper berth in front of him, ‘O you son of a Pathan, come down... you mother... come down. I will ... the one
who has given you birth...’
Babu
was hurling abuses at the Pathan. The Pathan turned on his side and said,
‘Babu, did you say something to me?’
‘Come
down, you mother...How dare you hit a Hindu woman? You bastard! That mother of yours...’
‘O
babu don’t bark. You son of a Khanjir...
don’t swear, I tell you. I shall pull
your tongue out.’
‘You
swear at me, you mother...’ the babu shouted and jumped on to the berth. He was
shivering from head to foot.
‘Stop
it,’ said the sardarji. ‘This is no time to fight. We’re at our journey’s end.
Sit quietly.’
‘I’ll
break your leg. Your father doesn’t own the train,’ shouted the babu.
‘What
did I do? Everyone was trying to push her out. I did the same. If he swears at
me I shall pull his tongue out.’
The
old woman spoke again, ‘O God’s men, sit peacefully. Come to your senses.’
Her
lips were opening like that of a ghostly figure and one could hear her feeble
muttering.
The
babu was still shouting, ‘You were behaving like a lion in his den. Now speak,
I shall ...’
Just
then the train stopped at the Amritsar station. The platform was overcrowded
with people. The people on the platform were peeping into the compartments.
They were questioning the passengers again and again. ‘What happened? Where did
the rioting take place?’
Everyone
on the over-packed platform was discussing only one thing: What had happened
back there. Many passengers had mobbed the two-three hawkers. They were suddenly
very hungry and thirsty. Just then three Pathans appeared in front of our
compartment and began to peep inside. The moment they saw their Pathan
companions they began to talk to them in Pushto. I turned and found that the
babu had disappeared somewhere. He had seemed to be mad with anger. God knows
what he he was planning. In the meantime the three Pathans in the compartment picked
up their luggage and walked out of the compartment and joined their companions
on the platform and moved towards another compartment.
The
crowd surrounding the hawkers began to thin out. The passengers began to move
towards their compartments. Then I saw the babu coming towards the compartment.
His face was still deathly pale and a bunch of hair covered his forehead
partially. When he came closer I saw him holding an iron rod in his hands. God
knows where he had got it from. He hid the rod behind his back the moment he
entered the compartment and pushed it under the berth quietly as he took his
seat. Immediately after he had sat down his eyes searched for the Pathans and
not finding them here he looked all around.
‘They
have bolted, the bastards and mother...all of them’. He beat his head and
shouted at us, ‘Why did you let them go? You are all impotent and spineless.’
But
the train was too crowded because many new passengers had boarded and no one
took notice of him.
As
the train began to creep he came and sat beside me. He was strung up and
muttering something.
The train moved haltingly. The old passengers in
the train had fed themselves on pooris and
quenched their thirst. And the train was now moving in the direction where
their life and property were safe.
The
train had picked up a steady speed, and the new passengers, who had been
gossiping till now, began to doze off. But the babu was still staring in front
with his wide open eyes. He was asking me again and again as to where the Pathans
had gone. He had gone crazy.
I
myself had begun to doze off. There was no room for me to stretch myself fully
and in sleepiness my head would droop now on this and now on the other side. At times when my sleep was broken by a jerk I
heard the sardarji’s snoring as he lay on the berth in front in an ungainly
posture. The passengers were seated in all sorts of awkward postures. From
their frightening looks it appeared the compartment was stuffed with dead
bodies. The babu sometimes looked through the windows, now open, or sat erect with
his back stuck against the back of his seat.
When
at times the train stopped at a station and the clangour of the wheels stopped
a strange silence reigned all around. Then
it seemed something had dropped on to the platform or a passenger deboarded. And
I sat up with a jerk.
In
the same way when I once woke up from sleep with a jerk I found the train had
slowed down. I looked out through the window from where I lay. Far at the rear
end of the train I could see the red light of a signal. It was clear the train
had crossed a station but had not speeded up.
Outside
the compartment, I heard an indistinct voice. Far away I saw a vague black
smudge. I tried to figure it out with my sleepy eyes and then gave up. It was
dark inside the compartment, with the lights switched off but outside the day
was breaking. At my back I heard the noise of someone scratching at the door. I
turned to look. The door was closed. I heard the sound again. Someone was
knocking at the door with a lathi. I saw from the window that a man had in fact
climbed up the footboard. He had a bundle slung on his shoulder and a stick in
his hand. He was wearing worn-out clothes and supported a beard. Then I lowered
my glance and saw a woman running along the train, barefooted and carrying two
bundles on her head. She was unable to keep pace with the train because of the
load on her head. The man standing on the footboard was urging her in a gasping
voice, ‘Come on, come on, get onto the footboard.’
Once
again there was a knock on the door. ‘For God’s sake, open the door.’
The
man was gasping for breath. ‘For God’s sake open the door. There’s a woman with
me. We’ll miss the train.’
Suddenly
the babu got up from his seat and looked out through the window adjacent to the
door and said, ‘Who’s there? There’s no room here.’
The
man outside was cringing, ‘For God’s sake, we’ll miss the train...’
And
the man pushed his hand through the window and searched for the door handle
inside.
‘There’s
no room. Get down the train.’ Shouted the babu and then he moved abruptly and
opened the door.
'O
Allah...’ said the man as if expressing great relief at the opening of the
door.
Just
then I saw the rod in the babu’s hand. He hit the passenger on the head with full force. My
legs shook with fear. It seemed the blow had had no effect on the man for he
still clung to the handle with both his hands. The bundle slung across on his
shoulder had slid up to his elbow.
Just then I saw a two-three streams of blood
on his face. I could see his gaping mouth and shining teeth. He called out to
Allah once or twice and then his feet staggered. He looked at the babu with his
half-closed eyes, perhaps trying to guess as to why this man had hit him. His
lips fluttered again as if he was trying to say something. I thought he was
smiling but his breath had given way.
The
woman on the ground was complaining and cursing. She still did not know what
had happened. She thought her husband had been unable to get into the train
because of the weight of his bundle. She was running along the train with her
two bundles trying to hold on to her man’s legs and climb on to the footboard.
Just
then the man’s hands slipped off the handle and he fell down like an axed tree.
As he fell the woman too stopped running, as if their journey had ended there.
The
babu stood at the door close to me like a statue, still holding the rod. I
thought he was trying to throw it away but was unable to do it. I could not
breathe normally and was sitting in the darkish corner of the compartment
staring at him.
Then
the babu stirred and looked through the door towards the rear of the train. The
train was moving ahead and at a distance far behind one could see a dark heap.
The
babu moved and threw away the rod out of the compartment. He looked all around
in the compartment. The passengers were all asleep. He did not look at me.
He stood at the door for some time and then
shut the door. He looked at his own clothes carefully, then at his hands one by
one and lifted his hands to his nose as if to check if they smelled of blood.
Then he came and sat beside me.
Gradually
the day was dawning. Bright light was spreading all around. No one had tried to
stop the train by pulling the emergency chain and the body stuck with the rod
was left miles behind.
Sardarji
woke up scratching his body. The babu was sitting beside me staring in front. I
could see stumps of hair on his face, as if they had grown overnight. Sardarji started
talking to him ‘You’re a brave man, babu. You’re so thin but courageous. The Pathans left this compartment because of you. If they had stayed here you
would surely have broken their heads.’ And he started laughing.
The
babu too smiled a terrifying smile and
kept on staring at the sardarji.
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