New Beginning

                              

The country was raging! Blood boiled, passions flamed, hatred brewed! Till yesterday all were brothers and sisters, loving neighbours, coworkers and colleagues and then Partition happened! Just as easily as paper is ripped apart, India was ripped apart, on the basis of religion!

The country which comprised largely simple rural folk, peasants and ordinary workers, who for centuries had been living in bondage under foreign rulers with a single point agenda of plunder were not capable to understand all that was going on. But the simple people are the easiest to rouse and mislead.

The small villages nestled in the Himalayas, were far from current happenings. They had seen foreign plunderers right through history. They would come charging down the passes stealthily, loot, plunder, rape destroy.

That evening under the starlit sky after feeding dinner to the family, as she sat down to have her own rotis, she heard the men discuss the news of unusual movements at the border. She did not bother her head much, as she focused on what she would cook the next day.

The men in the village had been summoned by the Raja, although erstwhile, the people had not yet removed his commanding designation. They were to surrender their arms. The ladies were not too worried. The day’s routine was tough; getting water for the house from the spring ten miles away, girls would also be roped in. Collecting firewood from the woods and forests, from hillsides and valleys and then shepherding their few cattle, they would have to cook, clean, wash, darn.

That evening as they rounded up their families, to give them their nightly meal, the men had not fetched up. As they did always, shouldering the responsibility, they fed the young ones, the elderly parents, tucked them in and sat down for their frugal meal.

Light and sound travel far in the mountains, specially at night. As the women gathered around her courtyard to wait awhile for their men, they could discern faint hoofbeats. First, they thought it was their own folks. But as they listened, their eyes drooping from the day’s endless tiring chores, they sat up. This was not the sound of a few horsemen. They listened and put their wits together. This sounded like a hundred or few hundreds. She asked the ladies to stay alert and be together, round up whatever weapons they could find to protect their families. Sticks, stones, and scythes. Herself she ran to the valley at the edge of the village overlooking the pass.

In the starlight it was difficult to see the dust billowing from the hooves of hundreds of horses and their riders, Afghan irregulars. She was a pahadi, and could discern the sound. The movement in the middle of the night, cloaked in secrecy, raised her hackles. She instinctively knew it was an attack. Goosebumps! Not because of the cold mountain air but by the dangerous enormity of the moment. She turned around and ran to her house. Alerted her sisters, “Darna nahi, maar dalna” and left in the opposite direction!

In the dark she ran as fast as her legs could carry her over the pebble strewn trails towards Rajouri. The Indian army had just reached there a few days back. Her feet were flying over the rocky boulders as she realized the trail was long and winding. She tucked her dupatta around her head and wished she had taken her ‘loi,’ her roughly spun blanket to ward off the chill. Then praying to God, she disappeared into the thick pine grove, towards the stream. That was the shortest route to the camp. Branches brushed her face, caught her clothes, and scratched her arms. The rocks lurking in the pine needles strewn, phantom path caught her feet and tried desperately to trip her over. But her mission was clear.

She recalled the paths in her mind’s eye that she had trundled over some day or the other and surged on! ‘Hey, Bhagwan Raksha, karna!’ By now she was sweating profusely, and blood was streaming from her numerous cuts and scratches. The dark seemed to be the ally of the enemies and an impediment for her. She didn’t have time to think. As she ran on…. She strained her ears, was that the horsemen?

She slipped and fell many times. Sometimes on the slippery needles, which hastened her on and sometimes into the cold fast-moving current of the river, where she hugged onto the rocks, boulders whatever she could lay her hands on. Onward she moved, glad that she could not here the horseback riders.

As the sky was turning lighter in the east, she found herself at the edge of the camp, near the barbed wires. “Tham, kaun jata hai!” she heard a ferocious cry, as she fell to her feet! ‘Khatra, bahut khatra hai sahib! She screamed. The guard came forward as he turned the search light on her. “Bahut khatra hai sahib! Who aa rahey hai! Ghodo pe savar, bahut bahut saarey log, dushman us paar se!”

She was taken to the officer in command immediately, who was alerted the moment he saw her state. Listening to her, in amazement he gave the orders. Thanking her he asked the medical attendant to take care of her wounds and the mess waiter to bring her nourishment.

That was the beginning of a new day and a new chapter in history!