Bios

This is a story of the revolution which took place in the Indian sub-continent, in 1947. The sub-continent was divided into two states, Pakistan and India. Mass migration took place as everyone was running to go to their respective units. I was then a little over five, living in Amritsar (in East Punjab, part of India) in a small family with my mother and my maternal grandmother. We too rushed to the railway station to go to Pakistan. Mother took my hand and grandmother took her parrot in a cage. There was a strange intimacy between her and her parrot. I used to wonder why he wouldn’t fly away when she took him out of the cage. Now, when I ponder, I realize that the cage was there to protect the parrot from evil outside. We left the fully furnished house without taking anything, under lurking threat. Our train reached Lahore (in West Punjab, now part of Pakistan) safely.

At Lahore, we had nothing to eat and no place to go. We took the refuge on the railway platform. Here, we started getting food from donors. On the third day, our grandmother announced happily that we had gotten a house. When I saw it, the roof of the house had fallen everywhere except in one room. We took refuge in this room very jubilantly without caring about our safety. During this period, our parrot remained neglected. He never asked us for food. He became weak and sick. He quietly left us one day. I was unable to understand why it died. I was asked to carry out the burial ceremony. Tearfully, I took the dead parrot in my hand, dug the ground and buried him. This was the first time in my childhood that I experienced the death of a dear one.

These were revolutionary days. On one occasion, I saw a crowd of men and boys running on the road. I started following them without realizing why they were running. They went into a street and broke the lock of a house that was fully furnished with all types of materials. Everyone was looting. I also joined the plunder and picked up a kite. This was my first loot in Pakistan. I remember that another boy, older than me, picked up some cricket kit. His elders advised him that looting is wrong and told him to place the cricket equipment back in the same house, which he did. Such people were few. I thought he was a better boy than me. This guilt is still part of my memories.