Anchor Books, NEW YORK, 1999, ISBN 0-385-49604-4
En meget rig bog, der når vidt omkring. Skildringen af en sikh-kvindes liv fra 1937 til 1947 (hun er 16 ved begyndelsen)er selve historien, men Indiens/Pakistans opnåelse af selvstændighed (1947) har en fremtrædende rolle, som den samfundsmæssige baggrund for hendes liv. De religiøse stridigheder mellem sikher, hinduer og muslimer skildres i et dagliglivsperspektiv. Det er en af bogens store kvaliteter.
Som det fremgår af forfatterens navn, er hun af sikh-oprindelse. Det giver en større bredde i skildringen af trosstridighederne. Hun har - fremgår det af noterne - læst relevant litteratur om sikhismen. En detalje havde jeg gerne set nærmere behandlet. Før 1937 (hvornår) var der en bevægelse for harmoni mellem hinduer og muslimer. Hvornår og hvordan fik englænderne nedbrudt den ?
En anden kvalitet ved bogen er skildringen af hovedpersonens (Roop) udvikling fra at være en undertrykt datter af en "godsejer", der bruger hele sin formue til storesøsterens medgift, hvorfor hun skal være glad for dog at blive gift med en velhavende mand (meget engelsk-uddannet ingeniør, sikh) selvom det bliver som 2. kone med det, at føde ham en søn, som eneste opgave. [deputy ?, Jagirdar ?]
Sikhismens tro på, at man genfødes til et nyt liv, illustreres også ved, at Roop længe efter 1. konens død nærmest overtager hendes personlighed - og giver sin datter hendes navn.
Roop ender som en stærk kvinde og udviklingen sker så langsomt, som i virkeligheden.
Handlingen foregår i Punjab, som ender delt mellem Indien og Pakistan. Begivenhederne omkring delingen beskrives så dramatiske som de var. Og det i det nære perspektiv. Og endda uden at mord og lemlæstelse bliver så dominerende, at det bliver uudholdeligt. Det i sig selv er en forfatterpræstation !!
Roop flygter fra Lahore til Delhi, samme vej som hinduerne - muslimer flygter den anden retning - men alle på samme vej The Grand Trunk Road - og det er 100.000er, der flygter. Det bliver ikke klart for mig, hvorfor sikherne følger hinduerne - men det fremgår klart, at de heller ikke selv er helt klare over den sag.
Udover Roop, hendes medkone og mand, bliver også et par tjenestepiger skildret som hele, troværdige personer.
Jeg anbefaler bogen til alle feminister og til alle med interesse for de tre religioner. Og så er det også en god antikolonialistisk bog. Englænderne optræder netop som dem jeg oplevede i Kenya - hvor dansk Danida/ambassadepersonale forresten også kunne udvise kolonialistisk adfærd på Buffalo Springs lodgen i 1985 ! Den adfærd, som nu karakteriserer de amerikanske koloniherrer i Iraq, Afghanistan o.s.v. Den oplevede jeg første gang ersonligt hos amerikanere da jeg var i Thailand, så der skal ikke større formaliteter til før DE optræder sådan. Og de lokale er naturligt ressource bevidste - der kan vi lære noget, siger den gamle miljøpolitiker.
Shauna Singh er ikke bare politisk bevidst - hun er også politisk begavet det viser hun i sin kritik af proceduren ved selvstændighen. Det er utroligt, at udråbe en selvstændighed uden at have sikret en forfatning med mindretalsgarantier - ikke mindst i et så sammensat land som Indien. Men selvfølgelig - gør man sådan, kan man jo siden købe på kriseudsalg bare ved at yppe kiv mellem grupperne, det bliver lettere, hvis de lokale også kan strides om retten til en flods vand. Metoden anvendes jo endnu, f.eks. af amerikanerne i Iraq og Afghanistan, i 1960 i Congo o.s.v. Del og hersk, traditionel engelsk kolonipolitik. Stadig effektiv.
Shauna Singh har en fornuftig indstilling til religion - i hvert fald lader hun Roops fader give udtryk for en sådan.
Hun kalder et sted i bogen Jawarharlal Nehru "the Kashmiri Pandit", er han fra Kashmir ? Hvad dækker titlen ?
Den med at male klanmærker på husene anvendtes i Kyrgysztan for nylig. Hvem der så aktuelt er skyld i kaoset der !
Hun nuancerer også billedet af Gandhi - passende, så vidt jeg kan se.
Roop is a new Sikh, then, an uncomprehending carrier of the orthodoxy resurging in them all. Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, they are like the three strands of her hair, a strong rope against the British, but separate nevertheless. 3
"Then" - says Papaji, "I went to see Jallianwala Bagh - you know Jallianwala Bagh, of course."
"Hanji," prompts Jeevan.
Roop is half listening.
"It's very close to the Golden Temple - a big clearing surrounded by the back walls of haveli compounds, so parts of the wall are very high and other parts are just one storey. I didn't think it would be so large. I went through the passage into Jallianwala Bagh, you know which passage I mean, na? I tell you, it was hardly one camel-length wide - a little more than seven feet. General Dyer said he marched his Gurkhas through there because it was too narrow to drive an armoured car. Imagine that - he was going to bring an armoured car against the people gathered there!"
Walking the site of General Dyer's massacre of civilians nine me years ago has deepened the event in Bachan Singh as if it had happened just yesterday.
'I thought of those people, some talking, laughing, playing cards. telling stories, some listening to speeches. Not even hearing the soldiers' boots in the passageway, then looking up and seeing rifles pointed in their faces. I stood where he had stood and ordered the Gurkhas to fire on the crowd because they would not disperse. How could he miss? Where were lose poor people to go? A Carpenter who saw the slaughter from his terrace overliooking Jallianwala Bagh said there could have been fifteen thousand, there might have been fifty thousand, some were just sitting, minding the shoes of people who had gone to pay their respects at the Golden Temple. Some were there because their homes were too small to fit all the family members who had arrived for the fair. He said when they sank to the ground crying and bleeding, women lying on top of children, men pulling dead bodies over themselves, he swore he heard an Enghshman shout, 'Fire low!' And then he said General Dyer's Gurkhas really fired low, reloaded and fired again - volley after volley. Fifty men. And sixteen hundred and fifty rounds, they fired. I saw a few hullet marks in the walls where those poor people tried to climb over, get away. And the Carpenter showed me where a hullet hit his home bellow the window he was watching from. No, most of the hullets found their mark."
"Why did the Gurkhas fire?" asks Jeevan. "Why didn't they put their guns away?"
"Who knows?! What love should a Gurkha soldier have for people from the plains? They must have been afiraid; any man who refused could have been shot right there on the spot, they could have been courtmartialled, they could have been hanged. Very loyal, the British call them. when they mean 'afraid to die.' You, you learn how they fight these days, so no one can make you afraid - understand?"
"My teacher said General Dyer didn't know there was no other way for people to get out," says Jeevan.
"Hein?! If they were English people, you think he would have fired? Only Indian lives are so worthless to them." 44-5
What I'm saying is, it was after that garden filled wath bodies of Sikhs that everyone—Gandhi, Jinnah and our own brave Master Tara Singhully understood the true nature of those ten-faced Ravans." Roop knowjws he means the British.
"Sikh martyrs. Aam-log. Ki kende ne?—what do you say in English? - ordinary Sikhs. Like you and me, not high-up Sikhs, gave their lives so that our leaders and all of India could learn what these Europeans really are. That they are not here to help India, not here for our progress, they are here to feed their greed by taxing us - taxes on everything, even the salt a man needs to cook food in his rasoi. Did they come here because we were poor? No. We were rich when they came and took Maharaj Ranjit Singh's kingdom and kidnapped his son. 46
No. Nine years ago, I remember very well Gandhiji protested the crawling order and the firing, and the deaths of the Sikhs who died there just as he has protested other deaths since. But now? It is a different time, now. These Arya Samajis in Gujarkhan, are trying to convert one Sikh at a time, back to being Hindus! Gandhiji should stop them, tell them they must understand that everyone should be allowed to follow the Guru and God of his choice."
Papaji forgets to remember that he no longer allows Revati Bhua to follow the God of her choice. Gujri is right, Roop thinks, men only see vomen from the corners of their eyes. Their eyes are like horses' eyes: they io not see what lies directly before them.
"Why doesn't Gandhiji stop them?" asks Jeevan.
'Sometimes you are stupid as an owl - get a
little wisdom, understand? Because after Jallianwala Bagh, the British had to
agree that each religion, each community should be represented in the
legislature of each province according to the numbers of its people. So now,
Muslims need more Muslims. Hindus need more Hindus, and we Sikhs need more
Sikhs. Mahatma Gandhi is a Hindu. He doesn't need to stop the Arya Samaj
movement he just needs more Sikhs to cut their hair and say they are Hindus next
time the census people ask." 47
The tattoo is
complete.
Roop examines her left arm with startled dismay. She had expected him to write in the Guru's script, Gurmukhi. Instead, he started from the right, and wrote her name in Persian script, as if he were writing in Urdu.
Papaji, Gujri, everyone will be angry. Urdu is a language only Muslims use. 52
'No one is blaming you, no one will send you away." Refuse has begun piling up and Gujri wants Khanma to put her twig broom to work and take it away; no one in Bachan Singh's family is born to this work. So she says, soothingly, "This is all karma."
But Khanma's Allah doesn't offer her the promise of a next life, and so she wails, "Someone will!" Untouchables, even if they turn Muslim like Khanma, always get blamed for anything unpleasant in life. 56
Ginger whiffs past her nose - Gujri waving a ladle at her from the rasoi. "Ay, you'll get dark. No one will marry you if you lie in the sun." 57
Even Roop knows Papaji is stretching the truth, for Jeevan said once that Mahatma Gandhi only began preaching against untouchability once he found out how it felt to be treated like an untouchable, while Guru Nanak, the first Sikh Guru, always preached against it, even though he was from a high-up family and never really felt what it is like. Jeevan knows these things because he says he's going to teach history some day. 61
While they have been at Bhai Takht Singh's, learning the Gurus' shabads and embroidery, so many events have passed them by. Mahatma Gandhi walked two hundred and forty miles to pick up a lump of salt and refused to pay the British tax on it. Freedom fighter Bhagat Singh climbed the gallows and swung for tossing a bomb into the legislative assembly to make the deaf hear; his Sikh friends and relatives say the Mahatma stood by as if he were deaf himself and, in the name of non-violence, just let the British kill him. The Mahatma raised the national flag of a free India and it did not have a strip of deep Sikh blue as he promised; across Punjab, Sikhs mutter the reason - the Mahatma doesn't care for meat-eaters. A famous pir gave a speech in Jhelum and he told Abu Ibrahim to give all of Pari Darvaza's donations at his mosque to the All-India Muslim League. Sikh demonstrators led by Master Tara Singh protested when the British gunned down Pathan Muslims in Peshawar; they were beaten senseless by the police just north of Pari Darvaza on the Grand Trunk Road. Now freedom fighter Subas Chandra Bose has been arrested for appealing to the Sikhs of Punjab to produce more men like Bhagat Singh.83
If there isn't enough left for Roop after Madani's dowry, she might have to stay unmarried. Then she'd be like Revati Bhua and have to just live with Papaji in Pari Darvaza and be religious all day long. 98
Papaji is quiet. His brown turban slumps forward a little.
Roop's heart is beating hard against her ribs. Why is Papaji so silent? Why does he not exult as Roop is ready to do?
"I think - " says Papaji. "I think he is older, quite a bit older, no?"
"Just a little more than forty years old. Healthy, like a tiger. An engineer. But you know this." Sardar Kushal Singh sounds impatient.
"And it is true he has one wife?" says Papaji. His brown turban sinks lower.
Is that so bad? Roop wonders. Papaji's father had four wives. That's how Shyam Chacha and he are half-brothers.
'Only one," says Sardar Kushal Singh, comfortingly. "And childless." Hat, poor woman, what kismat! [Roops tanke]. 109
Oh, to be married, to be married!
To have a family ask for her before she turns seventeen and people in the village start their chattering. And to Sardar Kushal Singh's brother-in-law! Sardarji, a jagirdar, lord of any number of villages the size of Pari Darvaza. She is saved, saved from living the rest of her days in Pari Darvaza like her mama, saved from being a guest like Revati Bhua in Papaji's home forever. 110
So Roop will be good for this man, fruitful, compatible. Of course, Deputy Bachan Singh does not think to ask: will this man or his Mangal be good for Roop? 112
After the meal, Gujri pours water from an earthen jar for Revati Bhua, Jeevan, then Kusum and Roop to rinse their hands over a rain drain in the corner of the courtyard. Not a drop will be wasted; the water will flow down the centre drain in the tunnel to nourish the fields. 116
Today, in the India desired by the Indian National Congress - though Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru say often that they fight for a secular India, so that the holy days of all religions shall be proclaimed gazetted holidays - Muslims fear that Hindus will make their raj in the very image of this British raj, claiming to be the origin of all ideas, claiming all knowing, categorizing each man by blood, caste and skin, auctioning opportunity to the privileged few, controlling protest by blows of hard bamboo sticks, by torure and prisons, and by guns. 127
When Roop told her, "I do not know how to cook," and hastened to add, "but I will be glad to learn if Sardarji really wants me to," a great cackle burst ftom Mani Mai.
"Don't worry. Cooking is not what women like you are for." 154
She holds her stomach before her with a waiting smile as if a baby's temporary residence within her were a licence to enforce her will on any relative within miles. Before now she kept her gaze lowered before Satya and Sardarji, but in these days of waiting, when her craving for the tart taste of mulberry sends Sardarji shouting for a servant to climb the tree shadowing the main drawing room, she even goes without her chunni occasionally, and her body seems unapologetically on fire. Her surma-rimmed eyes have attached themselves to Sardarji. Her tongue seems to have grown too big for her mouth; she has developed a childish lisp, and with it, she tests her power over them all. 160
And as he [Roop's broder Jeevan] has moves from posting to posting and teaches them to fight, he says he has learned it is not only, as the English believe, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Marathas who can fight, but all men whose bodies remember humiliation and anger from this and past lives. 165
[Mr. Farquharson] The diary is preparation for a memoir that will settle his score with India and tell how fitting should be the emotion of gratitude, even if Indians like Sardarji cannot quite bring themselves to feel it.
"See what the Dutch have done in the Dutch East Indies. I draw your attention to the cruelty of the Frenchman, the Belgian in the Congo. But the English man - always the gentleman! It's our undoing. Education, uplift, banning of that awful habit women have here - what's it called? Selfimmolation on their husband's funeral pyres. Yes, suttee - the railroads, the telegraph, these canals." Mr. Farquharson's arm sweeps the horizon. "And what do we get? 'Inquilab zindabad!' Positively ridiculous. Protest for protest's sake. Troublemakers all, enjoying the trouble they create."
Sardarji bites into a cucumber sandwich. There is no reason why Mr. Farquharson cannot get his tongue around Indian words, having lived in India most of his life, but Mr. Farquharson lives for the preservation of his incomprehension. 175
Satya's heart lifts inexplicably. Now, now they have a child, will he not see the future as she does, a future without Europeans trampling his spirit?
Of course he will. He is a Sikh - and he'll change when people of his quom need him, because what choice will he have then?
Mr. Jinnah changed when his Muslim quom needed him. Did he not return from England, more than sixty years old, clad like Sardarji in the European monkey-suit and tie, and did he not begin to be heard by hindus in the Indian National Congress? 186
Quotations, he has discovered, are the way to Mr. Farquharson's approbation - they convince him, if he needs further convincing, that Sardarji has no thoughts of his own but those of occidental thinkers. A part of Sardarji's library moves with him on every posting, hallmark of his gentlemanhood, each book pre-approved by Cunningham, except for a few Punjabi and Persian volumes and the Guru Granth Sahib. 200
Rai Alam Khan is a qualified man, a government man. Like Sardarji he is a member of the suited set, the heaven-born, the Indian Civil Service, and like Sardarji he has enough land that he need never work, but sees his civic duty in governance. He is a Cambridge man - Sardarji doesn't hold that against him - for he is an ICS accountant and a trusted old friend ever since Sardarji needed a negotiator between himself and the Muslims working in his flour mill in 'Pindi. They met soon after Sardarji's return from England, when Rai Alam founded the Tuesday Lunch Club for qualified gentlemen to dine together. It was the fashion of the times, what people in those days called Khilafat, the harmony movement between Hindus and Muslims. 301
A few years ago, when he last visited Rai Alam Khan in Simla where the central government had moved for the summer, they'd had a vigorousous debate over British investment in India - Sardarji said the canals and railways and the postal service the British had given India were bringing a commercial revolution. Rai Alam said most of the money for that revolution came right from the "crippling" revenue that landowners and farmers paid to the British, not out of British people's pockets. And he talked of how capital transfers had been far exceeded by land revenue payments, for so many years. 202
"But he just proclaimed that India will participate." Rai Alam Khan is speaking of the Viceroy. His diction is thespian, elegant as Sardarji's.
"It was constitutionally correct," says Mr. Farquharson sincerely.
Sardarji clarifies for him, "Yes, my dear sir, but it was quite unwise not to consult the Indian National Congress. It was quite predictable that they would resign from all provincial ministries."
The resignation of Congress ministers has paralysed the government.
"Did the broadcast say whether the Viceroy consulted Mr. Jinnah - or any other member of the Muslim League?
Mr. Farquharson dismisses Rai Alam Khan's question with a wave. "Not to worry - the governors of the provinces are fine upstanding fellows. A little direct rule and we'll have the whole country stiffened up, ready to stomach a little war." [October 1939] 207
Sardarji studies his baked vegetables, pauses, remembering. "Do you know, during that war, I met Princess Bamba, the daughter of Maharaj Dalip Singh. Maharaj Dalip Singh was the son of Maharaj Ranjit Singh."
Roop looks up at the mention of Maharaj Ranjit Singh, the same who Papaji told her ruled all of Punjab before the British.
"Dalip Singh - the same who presented the Kohinoor to Queen Victoria?" says Mr. Farquharson, chewing slowly.
"The same. Though, of course, presented is not the word I would use, sir. From what his daughter told me, the British suggested to him that he make a gift of it in person to the Queen."
"It was part of the treaty Ranjit Singh signed," Mr. Farquharson corrects soothingly, as if willing to forgive his host a slight social blunder. "The boy merely presented it personally." His eyes narrow further, evaluating. 208
Understanding glimmers in Roop: Mr. Farquharson is the man who draws the circle beyond which Sardarji cannot go. The canal bungalow belongs to the British government; Sardarji occupies it at their pleasure. He cannot forbid Mr. Farquharson to light his pipe, even at his own dining table, and Mr. Farquharson has lit his pipe, though he knows it offends all Sikhs, especially those from old families, like Sardarji. 209
'We are not like them, we do not invade." 248
"Our Gurus are history," says Satya. "We have their own words, only a little over four hundred years old. Not gospels and tales others have told." 248
It is a pity there are not more here to see her, but Muslim and Sikh landowning families no longer attend Hindu festivals with the same enthusiasm as they did a few years ago. Muslim families, because Mr. Jinnah has begun wearing an Indian-style shervani coat in place of his Enghsh suit, and is being called Quaid-e-Azam - father of a nation - and has made a great speech demanding to estabhsh his majority-Muslim nation, a nation he calls Pakistan, place of the pure. 251
Sardarji says not to take Mr. Jinnah seriously, for he is by no means an observant Muslim - he drinks, and Sardarji is reassured by that. 251
"Hai, did you say 'no-ji' to Papaji, then?"
Kusum begins winding the plait to a topknot.
"No, baba! I said, 'achchaji,' and 'yes-ji-' Why give trouble saying 'nahinji' or 'no-ji' for little things?"
This is a new idea for Roop - for a woman to say yes-ji and not to obey immediately, perhaps continue doing whatever she needs to do.
So you never say 'no-ji'?"
'No-ji' is only for big things. I don't say 'no-ji,' but I don't do every:hing fut-a-fut, immediately, sometimes. You also, you could wait a little longer before going back. By then Bari-Sardarni will be feeling sorry. I know - she must be missing her little sister Roop by now, just like your children must be missing you. But, no no no, don't say 'nahinji' or 'no-ji' of course not. Why to make trouble for every little thing?" 264
"Tell her she should separate now. She has had four years since your second marriage, still she has had no son." He is pointing out the score, as if Roop and Satya had been in a race to produce sons. "Tell her she should go now." Bachan Singh is on the offensive, now, emboldened by Sardarji's quietness.
Jeevan, towering over Sardarji, his large, heavy hair-knot bobbing under his gold turban says, respectfully, "It will save all of our izzat."
Satya wouldn't harm his son in any way; she wouldn't dare. Her threats are those of a pitiful old adder who strikes an intruder though her poison sacs are empry. If Sardarji chose to cast her out with no support, she would simply have nowhere to go.
Ergo, she wouldn't dare.
But Satya has been interfering too much, she has gone too far. He will deal with her later.
But right now, Sardarji has a new and different concern. His walk through Pari Darvaza has shown him this is a village where most of his tenants are Muslim. This lambardar, Deputy Bachan Singh, appears to be one of the very few Sikhs - probably the sole support of the local gurdwara. It vould undermine his authority as leader of the village council if Sardarji were to publicly disagree with him over a mere woman and it might pave the way for some pir or worse to take Bachan Singh's place. If Sardarji is as harsh as he feels justified in being after the excuse - and of course it is an excuse - that they have presented, the Muslims in this village will say, "See, Sikh jagirdars are always harsh," and the Sikhs in this village will not be able to deny it.
"Yes," says Sardarji. "Achchaji." He drains the last of his tea, grimacing at its bitter dregs, places the glass in Kusum's hand. "It will save all from embarrassment. I will tell her she will have to live separately now." 283
Miss Barlow says all women's pain began there, from Eve eating an apple herself instead of offering it to her husband, Adam, first, and asking his permission - such a selfish woman, Eve was. 330 [NB Barlow er brit !]
Miss Barlow teaches English without knowing a single word of Punjabi - she says Punjabi sounds ugly, hard and rasping. Sardarji says Mr. Jinnah called Punjabi a peasant language by contrast with Urdu. Roop wants to tell her Punjabi is the only language her mama knew, so it is beautifull. She wants to say it was the language of Guru Nanak and of land watered by five rivers and the Indus. But Miss Barlow is deaf to this with both ears. If Roop speaks in Punjabi, her face blanks as if Roop were a jackdaw calling.
Listen to me, you are a woman, like me. Learn my language, it will not harm you Use the words I have and maybe we can say more than
This is a cat
This is a bat
This is a hat.
I do not have a cat. I have never seen a bat. And I do not wear a hat; I wear a chunni. 332
'Really? I hadn't heard - and if Master Tara Singh asks for a Sikhistan, where will that be?"
"Punjab Province, naturally," Sardarji says with certainty, Punjab being where the faith arose, Punjab where Sikhs once ruled, where almost all Sikhs live.
"But that will create yet another problem - how will you Sikhs guarantee the rights and safety of Muslims and Hindus who suddenly find themselves in your Sikhistan?" 336
'Alamji, I hardly consider you typical of Muslims, yet you seem to have no hesitation in espousing a Muslim 'nation.' There are more Muslims who speak Bengali than those like you who speak Urdu; do you plan to move your people east, to Bengal? Will you move there?"
"No, no - I'm Punjabi head to toe." Rai Alam laughs, shoots his cuffs under his navy blue blazer. "I stay in Punjab. Can you imagine me learnng Bengali? No, if the Quaid-e-Azam gets his new country, it will be right here."
Jardarji leans forward. "And how will you guarantee the rights and safety of Sikhs who suddenly find themselves living in your Pakistan?"
'But of course we will, Sardarji!"
A painful silence. 337
Roop says, a little on edge, "How is it you're still in burqa? I thought Rai Alam Khan was quite modern - so many women are going unveiled now, in Lahore."
Huma gives an exaggerated shudder. "Haw! I wouldn't want to go unveiled like you - you Sikh women are so fast. I see you sardarnis from my car in Lahore, you cycle everywhere on The Mali, even in Lawrence Gardens, so shamelessly, and your men don't even care. But I can go everywhere in my burqa without shame. Protest marches, meetings - it protects me. When I wear it no one knows I am a civil servant's wife." 344
The children cannot read and so they do not know that non-violent Mahatma Gandhi helped recruit two and a half million Indians to serve England in the war. 351
LAHORE, MARCH 1947 Faletti's is a good hotel for Sikhs to dine at - they don't serve halal meat from animals killed slowly as the Koran is pronounced over them, and they believe in serving enough for a hearty Sikh appetite. .... Sardarji raises his walking stick to the Muslim doorman employed in this Sikh-owned hotel.
A year ago I would never have noticed the doorman's religion.
Burhan-e-din, the six-foot-four blue-cummerbunded gold-braided doorman at Faletti's is a Pathan tribesman from the Northwest Frontier Province, who has learned to control his distaste for non-Pathans of all descriptions by learning to say "Ji. huzoor" as he opens doors at Faletti's. 357
Mr. Farquharson is saying,". . . no matter how, but the date for the transfer of power has been set by Prime Minister Attlee. June 1948. The date for your 'independence.' " His words are small darts in the advocate's face. Spitde gathers at the corner of his mouth. He leans back, closes redrimmed eyes.
That ass Attlee, Sardarji thinks. That utter rotter, setting a date for independence without a constitution to protect minority rights.
It will be," Mr. Farquharson pauses, "... interesting to see if you Indians can cope with it. God knows we've protected you in two world vars, trained you long enough.'
How Mr. Farquharson exaggerates. Two and a half million Indians just fought his war. The Statesman says twenty-five thousand Indians died for England. And who trained him, I'd like to know? An Indian. ...But Gandhi's non-violence has taken so many lives, caused so much suffering.
Surely violence might have been a faster, lower-loss route to independence.
"You Sikhs," Cunningham says. "Your blood boils so easily."
Aloud, Sardarji says, "Yes, but how will minorities like the Sikhs be protected? The date is set, but there is still no constitution. And the Akali Party las been insisting on a Sikhistan since its resolution last year. No one takes them seriously." 362-3
He knows now that in any demarcation of Jinnah's Pakistan, in any Muslim state that might be carved from India, his ancestral haveli sits in a Muslim-majority area like a loaded camel bound for Pakistan. So also do his villages, so does every apricot tree in his orchards, and his mill. And now he knows that Muslim policemen will not come to the assistance of any Sikh whose life or property are in trouble. In the chaos the British have created and are leaving behind, a man will no longer be measured by his achievement or contribution, but by his father's blood, whether he wears a round cap, a Gandhi cap or a turban, whether he is a circumcised Muslim, or an uncircumcncised hindu or Sikh. 372
He remembers the Tuesday Lunch Club discussion in March over fish and chips at Faletti's. Mr. Farquharson was griping over Prime Minister Clement Attlee's announcement that India would be given independence, and Sardarji was asking everyone: what about a constitution that will protect minority rights? At the time, Sardarji had thought March '47 to June 48 would be too short a time to carry out any partition, and he'd said so.
Not that anyone was listening.
At the time, Prime Minister Clement Attlee had just sent Lord Mountbatten as the new Viceroy to India, charging him with the task of giving India independence by June 1948. But a few weeks ago, after the riots in Bengal, then Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Lahore - June 3rd, actually will he ever forget that date? - Sardarji heard Mountbatten's cool clipped tones on the radio, changing the date for the British transfer of power to India.
The new Viceroy had hastened the date. No more round-table conferences, no more cabinet missions, no more discussions about constitutions, federations, power sharing, special rights for the Muslim-majority states of Punjab or Bengal. No more objections that the time is too short. Now it will be even shorter.
Now it will be August 15, 1947. 381-2
Roop has gone ahead, south to the capital with his children; pray Vaheguru they reach it safely. He did not see any need to send the family until his neighbours on Club Road began painting sickle moons on their compound walls, sickle moons to alert hooligans that Muslims of their own quom resided in the bungalows within. The sickle moons made him want to leave, made him need to leave. Those sickle moons told him the situation in Lahore had become so unstable that hooligans of any persuasion could burn or loot even a government bungalow on Club Road, if a Hindu or Sikh might be found within. 393
Cunningham," he says, "Lahore is no place to be Muslim if it goes to India. And Lahore is no place to be Hindu if it goes to Pakistan. A Muslim can pass for a Hindu, a Hindu for a Muslim. But we Sikhs with our turbans - we are such easy targets." 397-8
Ignoring the natural watershed between Lahore and Amritsar, ignoring Sikh pleas and arguments for all the land up to the Chenab, Sir Cyril Radcliffe has drawn his boundary line through Punjab in equidistant points between the Ravi and the Sutlej rivers.
Lahore has fallen into West Punjab - Pakistan.
And the Radcliffe line has done more than break railway connections between cities, or tear headworks from canals - it has severed ties, severed all pretensions to culture, informed everyone of the savagery of which leighbours are capable. 430
"Akhbar? Newspipper?" he urges, trying his English on Roop. "Statesman, very good, very good, English pipper?"
She does not wish to read The Statesman's words about Indians. She knows what they will say - that they are doomed, that no European would have behaved as they have in the past few months, that the years of British rule and British authority kept the lid on the inborn savagery of Indians. That India will never last.
Nowhere in their editorials will they acknowledge their own rape and plunder of India. 437
The silent women are the ones who were raped; even widows pity their kismat; families with any sense of izzat are not likely to take them back. 440
By the time I came out onto the veranda, the whole circle of shops in Connaught Place was a deplorable shambles. The contents of showrooms littered the streets. . . a Sikh ran past me with his beard on fire. A fire started in the tack-and-saddle store - apparently it was owned by Muslims. It was all a jumble, everyone screaming and carrying on, you would have thought the world was about to end."
"What did you do?" Roop asks, a shade too innocently.
"Well, I did the most sensible thing. Put on my hat, gloves and macintosh and just waited upstairs in the dining room till the natives calmed down. When it blew over, I went out onto the veranda and there was a hawker lying in wait to tempt me with a quite charming paisley stole, the kind you get from Kashmir. Well, you know I can never tell if these darkies in Delhi are Hindu or Muslim, and I didn't know where he got it till he had the cheek to start at a hundred. 'A hundred?' I said. I know you itole it, you cannot deceive Miss Barlow.'
"And sure enough, I got the stole right away for thirty. But the cheek of him, starting at a hundred! I mean, what was the point? Things are getting completely out of hand." 442
The front room - Mama's room - yawned, a black and empty hole, its doors flung wide open to anyone, its contents for the taking. He moved to the niche in the wall near the door, took a candle and matches, lit one, held it at the level of his turban. By its wavering flame, he saw strange shapes backed up against the wall. Mamas and Kusum's dowry trunks thrown open, chunnis bordered with woven gold, lehngas, salwars, kameezes spilling over their sides, as if trying to flee.
A simple white-clad mound lay at his feet in the centre of the room. Jeevan shuddered, remembering how he shouldered Mama so many years ago - had she returned? Died again without taking rebirth?
He lifted the corner of the sheet closest to him. Took a deep breath, whipped the sheet away.
A woman's body lay beneath, each limb severed at the joint. This body was sliced into six parts, then arranged to look as if she were whole again. The candle guttered and dimmed, or perhaps it was that his eyes clouded to protect his heart from the sight.
He swallowed, moved closer to see her face.
'It was my Kusum.' 446
Instead, he leaned over his wife and drew the sheet back over her body
He received the message. Kusum's womb, the same from which his three sons came, had been delivered. Ripped out.
And the message, "We will stamp your kind, your very species from existence. This is no longer merely about izzat or land. This is a war against your quom, for all time. Leave. We take the womb so there can be no Sikhs from it. We take the womb, leave you its shell." 447
Don't tell Papaji, when you see him," Jeevan adds. "He thinks we have something to go back to. Let him remember Pari Darvaza the way it was as long as he can."
But I must remember, thinks Roop. I must remember Kusum's body.
Roop will remember Kusum's body, re-membered. 451
Roop remembers Papaji once called Hindu beliefs "superstitions," when he was trying to become a better Sikh, but this is no time to remind him of that fact, either - though Satya would have.
"As we spoke," Papaji continues,"we heard the mob shouting,'Kafirs!'
'You know - unbelievers. As if their Allah and our Vaheguru had become separate instead of just different names for the same-same one thing.
"Abu Ibrahim said the mob was made up of Muslims from India, that Sikhs had killed their families and forced them to leave for Pakistan and so they wanted my haveli. Then he said they came looking for Sikhs 'in self-defence,' in case the Sikhs in Pari Darvaza began to kill Muslims. Huh! 454
"But Kusum, she was my responsibility... I said to myself: Kusum was entrusted to me by Jeevan, she is young, still of childbearing age. I cannot endure even the possibihty that some Muslim might put his hands upon her. Every day I had been hearing that the seeds of that foreign religion were being planted in Sikh women's wombs. No, I said: I must do my duty."
An old wave of pain begins low in Roop's tummy, a fear-ache that burns from above her womb to her heart. "Then?" she whispers, though she knows his answer. She knows it before Papaji speak, because of all the tales that burdened Vayu as Vayu swept through the railway station. Roop knows because Papaji's story cannot be so very different from other men who see their women from the corners of their eyes, who know their women only as bearers of blood, to do what women are for. She knows his story knows it like some long-forgotten, undeciphered dream.
But it must be spoken.
Roop wants her Papaji to say it, now. Tell this story, just one story of so many.
Say what he did.
"I called to Kusum - she was on the terrace, watching the kerosene torches flame in the hands of the mob at the edge of the village. I took her into my sitting room and I told her what Sant Puran Singh said we Sikhs must do, and that I had to do it now. She understood. Always she made no trouble. She said I should take her into the front room, your mama's room, so her sons, on the terrace with Revati Bhua, should hear no cry from her lips."
Revati Bhua was right - Papaji thinks that for good-good women, death should be preferable to dishonour. 455-6
Her feet were like this - not poised to run" Roop's shoulders hunch beneath the weight of Papaji's story, for his telling must be repeated to Jeevan, Roop knows. His telling is the telling that she will have to tell Jeevan's sons one day: that their mother went to her death just as she was offered it, baring her neck to Papaji's kirpan, willingly, Papaji says, for the izzat of her quom. 456
He, Sardarji and the Hindu and Sikh refugees around the bungalow compete in melancholy; it is becoming a way to tell the extent of their loss, could bereavement be measured. Sometimes he and his friends from 'Pindi shed tears loudly in public as if a great siapa were in progress everywhere. In private, they are wounded children and turn to their women for comfort. 463
Mama always said - "A beggar gives you an opportunity to be generous." 464
What would Satya do?
Satya would find a way to give him new heart now.
But how?
New hope, the strength of my youth for his second life in the new country.
Roop comes to Sardarji's side, takes his big square-fingered hand in her slender fingers.
This gift must he given so he never knows he was given it.
Something must be sacrificed for his haumai, his self-ness, to return, rise and move forward.
She says, "Sardarji, I must tell you something."
"Not now, Roop."
"Now, because we are alone."
"Say, then.What is it?"
He rolls away; his back is to her.
Roop crawls beneath the sheet with him and comes close, holding him from behind, smelling his unique scent past the scents of sandalwood and Brylcreem. She tells him her secret, carried so very many years. She tells him she has one bad ear, and only one good ear and assures him it is tuned to the message of his heart.
"How long is it since you cannot hear?" he asks, when she has finished.
"A few months only."
"How did this happen?"
"Who can say?"
Vaheguru, forgive me, but a woman must choose the wisdom of lies over the dangers of truth. 467-8
[bogønsker findes i *.wpd]
Orla Jordal, 2007
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