SATNAM’S DILEMMAS SAW him trying to balance himself in two boats as he waited for his friends. He had a pretty good inkling of what his companions wanted. If they could have their way, they would push him from the lofty peak of idealism into the bottomless pit of the communal divide. The very thought sent a creepy sensation through every nerve in his body. But his mind would then drift towards the stories he heard every day about the involvement of Muslims in stirring up new kinds of trouble and he could feel that the rising tide of hatred within him was trying to overwhelm his positive and constructive approach. That tide would reach higher and the aversion towards Muslims would deepen the moment his thoughts moved to that image from yesterday, the sheer hopelessness on that innocent face. But there was a strong countervailing force within him that repeatedly pulled him back, a voice that seemed to come from the very depths of his soul as it warned, ‘Satnam! Be careful and stay firmly on the path you have chosen.’
He was in the throes of these dilemmas when he heard a call, ‘Satnam! Come down quickly, will you?’ Noting the sense of urgency in his mother’s voice, Satnam leapt from the bed and rushed down the stairs.
‘I couldn’t find them anywhere.’ Kesar Kaur couldn’t conceal her disappointment as she spoke. ‘I went to the serai, looked everywhere for them but they’d vanished without a trace. God knows where they’ve gone!’
‘Who?’ Satnam feigned ignorance and enquired.
‘Those two! The refugees we met yesterday and promised to bring home,’ his mother replied. ‘Listen! Why don’t you go and find out where they are. I hope they aren’t battling a new crisis.’
Satnam was even more anxious than his mother to have the pair reach their place. It was he who had reminded her after lunch that she should go to the serai and bring them home. And once Kesar Kaur had left for the Golden Temple, he had gone downstairs to take a close look at the room that had been prepared for them to make sure it had been fixed up and cleaned properly. His mother was perplexed when he reacted so nonchalantly to their absence and could barely hide her disappointment over his attitude when he casually added, ‘Don’t worry too much, Bhabo! We’ll host someone else! What’s the big deal?’
‘No, Kaka, no!’ she replied in a vexed tone. ‘That’s no way to behave. There is no dearth of refugees, of course. But the two of them looked particularly forlorn and I was really moved by that Baba’s fate. Poor man could barely see and was really struggling with that weighing scale. Besides, you are aware of the times we live in, my son. I wouldn’t put it past some rogue to bamboozle that old fellow and make off with such a pretty young girl. I am determined to find them, no matter where I have to go looking.’
‘But Bhabo,’ Satnam continued to feign disinterest, ‘what if the relief committee has sent them to some other city? You know well that the influx of refugees has led to overcrowding at several of the camps, and the filth everywhere means there is real danger of an outbreak of disease. That’s why the relief committees are busy trying to pack them off to other places.’
Kesar Kaur saw merit in Satnam’s arguments. Her mind conceded that they may have been taken to a refugee camp in some other city, but her heart refused to buy into this logic, nor could she get the two out of her thoughts.
They were still mulling over the subject when they heard several sets of footsteps above on the rooftop. Satnam figured it must be his compatriots who had crossed over the low parapets of neighbouring homes to see him. Abandoning the conversation with his mother, he hurried to his room upstairs.
In a short while, the chairs that he had arranged around the table were occupied by half a dozen young men. They were just a small group but each one seemed charged with enough zeal and fervour to represent at least a hundred other comrades and each one looked like he was ready to sacrifice life and limb for the sake of his crusade. The face of Sudarshan, the party’s leader, was flushed with volcanic fury and he gave the impression of one who is ready to challenge the towering peaks of the Himalayas all by himself.
‘I don’t want to say a lot,’ Sudarshan began in his fevered, high-pitched voice. ‘I have come today to seek a clear decision. I am fed up with your shilly-shallying, Satnam. You invoke the nation and the community each time we speak, so why don’t you clarify? Which country and which community are you talking about at a time when both nation and community are being pulverized into rubble. The stories of Calcutta and Noakhali have become history now, but the events of Hazara and Pothohar are taking place in our own neighbourhood. We don’t even have to go that far. Can’t we see our own city being turned upside down? Isn’t it living proof of the machinations of the Muslim League? Every day begins with new tales of bloodshed, of the murder of Sikh women and children, of Hindu mohallas turned to cinder, of bombs being hurled into this chowk or that. This unending chain…’
Gurdial Singh, who was seated next to Sudarshan, interjected, ‘I’d say that even if we were to bury everything else that has happened, what do you have to say about the outrage today?’
‘What? Where?’ several voices rose in unison.
‘At Daim Ganj,’ Gurdial responded. ‘When people cross the limits of inhumanity, you may call them brutes, and when they cross the limits of brutality, you may call them the Devil incarnate. But today, these people have gone beyond the diabolical behaviour of the Devil himself! I think our friend Sardar Satnam Singh ought to listen carefully, so that it opens his mind.’
‘Yes, yes!’ the somewhat diminutive Prahlad Singh chimed in from the other side of the table. ‘Let him hear all the gory details.’
‘Listen, then!’ Gurdial Singh snorted. ‘A group of Hindus were returning this morning after cremating a child, some eight or nine men and three or four women. As soon as the unfortunate souls crossed Hakims’ Gate, they were surrounded by a mob of Muslim Leaguers. The men were tied up with ropes and dragged inside the Idgah Maidan, doused with kerosene and burned alive. The younger women were abducted and there’s been no sight of them. An older woman eluded their clutches by jumping into the Badraoun drain and somehow managed to float to safety.’
‘And believe me, Sardar ji,’ Tirlochan Singh looked straight at Satnam as he piped up. ‘This won’t be the last time that you’ll hear of this kind of atrocity. I can assure you, there will be many such atrocities if you and your Unity Councillors insist on stuffing your ears with cotton.’
The young man’s lips were quivering long after he had finished speaking, his fiery eyes shooting embers at Satnam, his glowering countenance trying to incinerate the object of his wrath.
It wasn’t just Tirlochan! The five other pairs of eyes were also glaring at him with the same intensity. Did they have the desired effect? This could be gauged from the way Satnam’s lowered eyes were fixed on a corner of the table. He tried to lift his head more than once to respond to the incendiary questions that his friends had hurled at him, but his tongue failed to rise to his defence.
As the questions became sharper and the insults more pungent, the furrows on Satnam’s face became deeper and his discomfiture more evident.
When the meeting finally ended at half past eleven that night, Satnam could feel the stirrings of a new sensation within him. Instead of trying to straddle two boats, he felt both his feet were gingerly placed in a single boat. But his boat was moving quickly towards deeper, darker waters.