Navdeep Suri
AFTER THE UNEXPECTED accolades surrounding the publication of Khooni Vaisakhi: A Poem from the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre, 1919 (Harper Perennial, 2019), I started to think about my next translation project. I was committed to taking up other literary works of my grandfather Nanak Singh, but the choice wasn’t easy. As the Father of the Punjabi novel, our Bauji had left behind a vast treasure chest of thirty-eight novels, along with several collections of short stories, plays and even an autobiography. Which one to choose?
A serious discussion ensued within the family. How about Ik Mian Do Talwaran (1960), the Sahitya Akademi award-winning novel about the Ghadar movement and the life of freedom fighter Kartar Singh Sarabha? Or, why not Chitta Lahu (1932), the novel that many critics regard his absolute masterpiece? Somewhere during these debates at our home in Amritsar, the conversation veered towards his Partition novels. Bauji had written four within the span of just over four years, between 1947 and 1950. Of these, Khoon de Sohile (1948) and its sequel Agg di Khed (1948) are widely regarded as a contemporaneous account of the Partition, while Manjhdhaar (1949) and Chittarkar (1950) take up the post-Partition trauma of the refugees.
Even as these deliberations were underway, the Government of India announced ambitious plans to celebrate the seventy-fifth anniversary of India’s independence. It would be a grand carnival of India’s accomplishments over the seven and a half decades since that famous tryst with destiny on 15 August 1947, we were told. But what about the Partition, which was the flipside of the same independence? What about the price paid by Punjab and Bengal—the millions who were forced to flee their ancestral homes, the hundreds of thousands who were killed in the most senseless sectarian frenzy the world had ever seen? On the eve of Independence Day in 2021, the government announced that 14 August would henceforth be commemorated as the ‘Partition Horrors Remembrance Day’. But the intent behind this belated move isn’t clear at this point. Would it serve to inflame communal passions once again? Or would it also carry a message of healing, as my grandfather attempted through his novels…
It had to be those two—Khoon de Sohile and Agg di Khed—if only to provide some additional context and texture to the seventy-fifth anniversary. I’d read both books as a teenager but didn’t recall too much of the storyline. Reading them now from the perspective of a translator provided fresh insights into the mind of my own grandfather—an opportunity to appreciate Bauji’s unwavering commitment to humanity, his abiding respect for other faiths even as he remained a devout Sikh, his loathing of communal and sectarian elements and his courage and honesty in telling the story as he saw it.
In an essay written in his autobiography Meri Duniya (1949, updated subsequently), he laments that his idea of a united India was rudely shattered by the Partition. To use his own words, ‘My readers would bear witness that each time I pick up the pen, my words reflect my deepest desire to see a united, independent India. The plots in my novels may have varied but their purpose was unambiguous—to foster unity between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs and to warn against the perils of falling prey to communal forces…
‘Through my writings over the years, I had conjured in my own mind this image of an independent nation where the unity and amity amongst its peoples were its two brightest jewels—an image that became ever more vivid as we marched towards independence. I could never imagine that a crazed bloodlust would hit our nation with the force of a tornado, its gusts carrying away everything that I held sacred and shattering the image of Mother India that I had nursed with such fervour.’
He writes of the mind-numbing savagery that he witnessed on the streets of Amritsar and his own helplessness in doing anything to provide comfort, barring the one occasion when ‘he could somehow save a group of Muslim women from the raging flames at a mosque in Chowk Paragdas and get them safely on a truck that was heading for Pakistan.’
And he acknowledges that the havoc wrought by the Partition left him in a state of acute depression. He spent the days brooding, unable to sleep or eat. His family got especially worried when he started to lose weight and finally persuaded him to see a doctor from Guru Ramdas Hospital. The doctor administered a plethora of Western medicines and vitamins, along with a set of twelve expensive injections. But to no avail. He wanted to write, to find an outlet for the darkness building within him but neither his mind nor his body were up to the challenge. His family struggled with ways to entertain him, getting him books to read and even taking him to the cinema hall. Nothing worked. Listless and morose, he drifted from one day to the next until his exasperated wife, our much-loved Bhabiji, told him that maybe he should try to find some solace in the Sikh scriptures. He agreed and reluctantly started to turn the pages of the holy Guru Granth Sahib. I was therefore not surprised to learn that the novel’s title Khoon de Sohile comes from a verse of the Guru Granth Sahib: ‘Khoon ke sohile gaviai Nanak rat ka kungu pae ve laalo.’ It is believed that Guru Nanak composed these lines after having witnessed the devastation caused by the first Mughal emperor Babur’s invasions of north India between 1519 and 1526. The four hymns written by Guru Nanak are collectively called ‘Babur Vani’. The lines can be translated as: ‘The paeans of blood are sung, O Nanak, and blood is sprinkled in place of saffron…’ The reference to saffron is poignant because it was sprinkled on clothes at the time of weddings as a celebratory tradition.
Coming back to our Bauji’s story: the first few days were hard, and he struggled to concentrate. But he soon found himself drawn into the hymns and began to appreciate the true meaning of the verses. He felt lighter as he immersed himself deeper into the text, rediscovering a spiritual dimension that he had cherished in his younger days. He would wait for the family to go to sleep, for the clatter of bullets, of exploding bombs and of shrieking victims in the streets around him to subside. And he would quietly tiptoe up to the rooftop to close his eyes and meditate. To his own surprise, he still retained the ability to disconnect from the immediate, to feel his untethered soul soar into the unknown. He found that he could once again experience that unique feeling of bliss, that ecstasy which comes from the stillness of mind.
With that stillness, he also quickly regained his health. That familiar itch to pick up the pen and write was back. His mind was buzzing but he needed some solitude. His family acquiesced as he packed his bag and took a bus for the sleepy little hill town of Dharamshala on 1 August 1948. This had been something of an annual ritual for him over the last fifteen years or so, going up to Dharamshala for a month or two in summer and returning each year with a fresh novel. He describes Dharamshala as one of the less attractive hill stations of the north, not quite comparable with the charms of Dalhousie, Kullu-Manali or Kashmir. But the upper floor of a small house in a predominantly Muslim area of the McLeod Ganj suburb of Dharamshala, the hospitality of its owner Munshi Abdullah and the company of a bunch of adorable kids from the neighbourhood had combined to make it especially salubrious for his pursuits. Over the years, he had developed a strong affection for Dharamshala.
As he left for Dharamshala that morning, he recalled his previous visit in July 1947 when the situation in Punjab was going from bad to worse. Taking advantage of a short lull in violence, he set aside the warnings from friends and family to board the familiar bus. His mind was humming with everything that he had seen and heard over the past few months, and he desperately yearned for the quiet of the hills so that he could put pen to paper. The warnings, however, proved accurate and he was forced to pack his bags early and return to Amritsar barely a fortnight before the convulsions of Partition were unleashed in full measure. He writes in Meri Duniya that among his modest baggage as he clambered aboard the bus from Dharamshala was the semi-finished manuscript of this novel. Going by the timelines gleaned from his autobiography, I would assume that he completed the novel in Amritsar during the ensuing weeks. It’s lengthy foreword, drenched in his own anguish over the Partition, was written in February 1948.
While working on this translation, I had several conversations about the book with my father, each one revealing something new about our own family. He reminded me of our old home at 489, Green Avenue—the one that he had built in 1968 after we moved from the cramped quarters of Gali Punjab Singh in the walled city. Do you remember the mango tree near the gate in the front yard? I do, I responded. It had those small juicy mangoes from Illumdin’s orchard near Bauji’s home in Preet Nagar. ‘Yes, but there’s a story behind the seedling from which that tree grew,’ he said, smiling. ‘Your mother and I shared that particular mango and lovingly placed its pit in the spot where you now see that huge tree. We were inspired by the story of the mango tree and it’s link with the eternal love of Naseem and Yusuf in Khoon de Sohile and Agg di Khed!’ Really? As kids, we had seen that tree grow from a little sapling but never knew the story behind it. And now, even as I am immersed in Yusuf and Naseem’s world again while translating Agg di Khed (to be published next year), it seems fitting that my wife insists that we do the same in the home that we are building in a newer suburb in Amritsar. With a mango from the same tree to carry forward the legacy!
My father and I also spoke at length about the Partition. He was fifteen at the time and had some fairly lucid memories as a teenager growing up in Amritsar during that period. Three of his recollections stand out. He had a vivid recall of the time Bauji came home with blood-soaked clothes after he had rescued a couple of Muslim girls from being butchered by a Sikh mob. My father also spoke of the day he had accompanied his older brother and one of his more adventurous cousins to Maanawala railway station on the outskirts of Amritsar. This was the preferred stop for relief trains to pick up Muslim refugees as they sped towards Lahore. A train that had been waylaid by rampaging mobs on its way from Delhi was standing at the platform and my father remembered the horror of seeing scores of dead bodies spilling out of the doors and windows of the carriages.
In one of our conversations, I probed him further. Yes, there were people he knew who had joined in the arson and looting of Muslim shops and homes. Some of them were from our own neighbourhood and later, after some hesitancy, he revealed that one of them was close to us. It was chilling to know how far the hatred had seeped in and that someone from our own circles had indulged in savagery of this kind! But had he or any of his brothers been tempted to pick up a knife or sword and join other youngsters of his age to attack Muslims? No, he responded firmly. Bauji’s unequivocal position had perhaps provided them with some inoculation against the pestilence. They also knew that any drift towards that direction would invoke Bauji’s wrath.
Translating this book was also a learning of a different kind. Having grown up in Amritsar during the 1960s and 1970s, we had little appreciation of the close social engagement amongst communities in the Pothohar region in undivided India. We came of age amidst the Indo-Pak wars of 1965 and 1971 and the reality of Pakistan-backed Khalistani terrorism in Punjab in the 1980s, peppered every now and then with some elder’s lurid stories of the massacre of friends and relatives by the murderous Muslims. Amritsar itself had been largely depopulated of Muslims during the Partition, the desolate masjids of the walled city standing as mute witness to its once thriving Muslim community. For the average Amritsari during those days, contact with Muslims was limited to the occasional visits by Kashmiri or Afghan businessmen who continued to maintain their traditional links with traders in Amritsar. The ‘othering’ of our erstwhile neighbours was complete.
Lahore, for long regarded as Amritsar’s larger and more influential twin was still a mere forty miles away. But a city that my parents could visit in the late 1950s and early 60s to see cricket matches was now a distant mirage. I have friends in Amritsar who have travelled the globe but haven’t contemplated a visit to Lahore, inhibited by cumbersome visa regulations as much as by some lingering antipathy. And if Lahore is distant, the rural areas around Rawalpindi where this book is situated might as well be from another planet.
Translating this book provided me a window into those areas, into the texture of life in a part of rural Punjab that now lies on the other side, a glimpse into its sights and sounds, into its colours and contours. It also brought home the message that Bauji was trying to convey through his characters. The machinations of the Muslim League were evident, and the violence inflicted on the hapless Hindu and Sikh communities of the Pothohar was real and he portrays it in all its gory detail. But the bonds between the communities were equally real and the raw courage of some of the Muslim protagonists while trying to save their Hindu and Sikh neighbours is palpable.
In trying to deal with the trauma of Partition, the book provides a message of healing that is as relevant today as it was seventy-five years ago.
Amritsar
20 January 2022