AND SO, THE December–January month of Poh rolled by in our blessed little village, sprinkling the land with splashes of winter rain. The following month of Magh was eagerly awaited by young and old alike, because it ushered in the much-anticipated festival of Lohri and its long night of music, dance and festivities.
Lohri, like most other festivals in these parts, was celebrated together by the Muslim, Hindu and Sikh communities. There was something particularly intoxicating about the magic of Lohri night. Folks could spend half the year reminiscing about the enchantment of the last Lohri and the other half in feverish anticipation of the next one.
A couple of timely rains had done wonders for the season’s crops. The lush green carpet of wheat fields extended to the furthest edge of the village and the joy on the face of the villagers was a sight to behold. ‘God willing, the harvest this year will be the best in the last twenty years. Haven’t seen such a rich growth in quite a while,’ the old-timers proclaimed as they pointed to the stalks leaning forward under the weight of the grains.
‘How many days till Lohri?’ the youngsters would ask. The countdown had begun, and each passing day heightened the air of excitement. Groups of young boys traversed the village with cries of ‘Sunder Mundriye’ as they went from door to door to solicit wood, dung cakes and other fuel for their Lohri bonfire. Bands of young girls went around on a similar mission, singing, ‘Give us some wood, o lady … may your daughters live long, o lady.’ Every little addition of a log or a handful of dung cakes to their kitty fuelled their single-minded determination, ‘This Lohri, we must have a bigger bonfire than the boys.’ Every home was fair game, and the boys and the girls would stand on the doorstep singing at the top of their voices until the residents gave them what they wanted.
Naseem’s house was a special target for these groups because her brother had recently gotten engaged to a girl from a neighbouring village. One evening, a band of some twenty or twenty-five young boys and a similar sized group of girls landed up at her place around the same time. The courtyard was soon resonating with their songs, the rising crescendo making sure that each group drowned out the voices of the other. One song led to a second and to a third and for a while, the two groups merged into one. Naseem’s mother stepped towards them with a plate of raw sugar and a one-rupee coin for each group.
‘What? Just one rupee to celebrate Aziz’s engagement? No way, Chaachi … You might as well take it back … we aren’t going to accept this pittance…’ The game of bargain, reproach and accusations of stinginess might have continued for a while, but a silence descended as soon as they saw Boote Shah enter the courtyard. He quietly placed a five rupee note in each tray.
Six rupees was a princely sum, certainly a lot more than they had expected. They whooped in joy as they left the place.
Last year, the boys had managed to build a much bigger bonfire than the girls, and had exercised their bragging rights over the last few weeks. There were rumours, of course, that the boys hadn’t exactly won fair and square. Their collections of wood had been quite meagre until some enterprising fellows managed to steal some extra wood from here and there. But the fact that they had the better bonfire still rankled with the girls.
With two days to go, the girls redoubled their efforts. Anyone passing their way, young or old, Hindu or Muslim, would be accosted by their band. The younger girls would tug at the passer-by’s clothes while the older ones would start with their songs, ‘Don’t want your change, don’t want your pennies … a rupee, a rupee will do just fine.’ Rare was the person who could escape their entreaties without paying his tax.
The Khatri community in the village wasn’t very large but they made sure that every Muslim home in the village received a tray laden with the seasonal bhugga sweetmeat, a bowl of vermicelli pudding, lumps of the season’s fresh jaggery and more. It was the other way round on Eid when the Khatris would receive more sweets from their Muslim neighbours than they could consume during the entire month.
The long wait finally ended. It was Lohri and everyone seemed busy preparing for the festivities. There was no time to tend to the fields, except to fetch some ripe sugarcane sticks for the evening.
Nooran, the one who roasted the corn kernels in her clay oven, had been working nonstop through the day without time to even scratch her head. She had set up an additional oven and had brought in her husband Haadu to lend a helping hand. There was an unending stream of girls coming with pouches of kernels that they had hoarded over the days in order to savour Nooran’s fresh popcorn. A few waited patiently, while others dashed off to Mohra’s oven. They knew that Nooran was slow at the best of times, while poor Haadu suffered from Parkinson’s and his nodding head could take forever to roast a handful.
The small shops in the village were busy selling soap, vegetable dyes and a powder made from crushed glass.
An abandoned old mansion known as the Haveli of the Anands stood near the centre of the village and was usually the preferred venue for the Lohri festivities. Behind the slim red Nanakshahi bricks of its crumbling boundary wall lay a large open courtyard which came in handy for gatherings large and small. From the occasional evening with a visiting minstrel to performances by a travelling magician, puppeteer or acrobat, the haveli was the place where everyone came together. It hosted engagement ceremonies and weddings and many a marriage procession had assembled at its premises before setting off to its destination. Full moon nights often attracted groups of boys who would play games or yak away till late in the night. And every now and then, the older ladies of the village would get together to exchange some gossip and enjoy the winter sun.
The haveli was buzzing with activity that afternoon. There was a time not too long ago when the entire village celebrated around one large communal bonfire. That split into two when the youngsters separated themselves from the elders. And a couple of years back, a third bonfire emerged when the young girls decided to have their own party. They had resented the fact that the boys contributed little by way of firewood but tried to dominate the evening with their noise. But truth be told, there was another reason too. The girls were constrained by the presence of boys and felt that they couldn’t sing or dance as freely as they would have liked.
And so, the practice of three separate bonfires spread across the expansive courtyard became part of the village’s Lohri celebrations. Small teams of boys and girls worked feverishly through the afternoon to stack up their firewood for the evening, each lot keeping a jealous eye on the other to make sure that they stayed ahead of the game.
A walk through the village that afternoon would reveal that almost every home had washed the clothes for the evening. Colourful turbans and dupattas, freshly dipped in a mix of corn starch and crushed glass powder were being tugged at on both ends to stretch and dry out. They seemed to be embedded with a thousand tiny diamonds as the glass powder shimmered in the rays of the late afternoon sun.
The three bonfires were lit soon after sunset and for a while, the haveli’s spacious courtyard appeared to shrink as it struggled to accommodate the growing mass of visitors. The elders, neatly attired, were the first to come and form their own group. Then came the young boys, resplendent in their bright turbans, each with a little plume on top and a yard of the fabric nonchalantly cascading down the shoulder. The girls, of course, came in their own group, dressed in rustling silk tunics and salwars, the shimmering starched dupattas struggling to stay on their heads. They were also beaming with satisfaction that their bonfire was visibly better than the one put together by the boys. The boys, of course, weren’t going to take this lying down and a couple of them complained, ‘Stolen goods. Half their firewood is stolen.’ The comment was heard by one of the girls who swung around and retorted, ‘Stolen? What do you mean by that? You lot, who go around uprooting the neighbours’ fences in the middle of the night and then say that you’ve collected firewood? Sure! Only a thief thinks everyone else is also a thief.’
‘Why don’t you swear on the Quran?’ challenged one of the boys. ‘Take an oath and tell us when you’ve seen any of us uprooting a fence.’
The argument escalated into a shouting match between the two sides and might have continued if they hadn’t been interrupted by a booming voice from the elders’ bonfire. ‘Boys and girls! Behave yourselves, will you? Or I will have to come over and box a few ears.’
The warning had its effect, and both sides fell silent for a while.
The Khatri women were the last to arrive, carrying bundles of corn kernels, chidwa savouries and the coin-sized rewris made from jaggery and sesame seeds. Richly attired and with dupattas pulled low, covering their faces, they created an instant stir as they went around the three groups dispensing their goodies.
Each bonfire was now crackling with a healthy blaze, its warmth spreading to the groups squatting around it, adding its own magic to the evening. Their faces looked radiant, lit up in the golden hue of the fire. An enchanted cloud appeared to descend from the heavens into the haveli’s courtyard.
‘Listen folks,’ someone spoke from the elders’ party. ‘We haven’t seen Babaji today.’
‘His eyesight is failing, and he didn’t want to stumble over the rough ground. That’s why he stayed at home,’ Boote Shah responded.
‘And what’s the point of having you boys, then,’ Chaudhry Fazal Karim turned around towards the boys’ bonfire and said tauntingly. His son Fatta was among them and was the first to get up even before his father had finished saying, ‘Go across and carry the Baba here on your shoulders.’
Within minutes, Fatta was at the head of half a dozen strapping young men as they left the bonfire and headed out of the haveli.
A peal of laughter went through the three groups when they saw the Baba’s mode of travel as he entered the haveli. ‘Babaji has arrived … look guys, Fatta is carrying him on his back … look girls, Babaji has come riding a two-legged horse … Wow! I wouldn’t mind having a ride like that…’
‘Don’t set him down yet, oye Fattya!’ the Chaudhry called. ‘Give him a nice little spin around the three bonfires first.’
A young man called out, ‘This round is in the name of my parents, this one’s for…’
That was the cue they needed. Baba Bhana found himself being passed around like a parcel from one sturdy back to the second and then to the third, each one spinning around in the name of his parents. The haveli’s courtyard resonated with the enthusiastic clapping of the girls and the laughter of the boys.
‘Oye! Stop it! Set me down now. You boys are out of your minds, I…’ the Baba was shouting but no one was paying any attention.
The merriment finally ended with the Baba being brought back on terra firma. He appeared a bit wobbly and out of breath, beads of sweat lighting up his face in the light of the bonfire as he gingerly made his way to the elders’ bonfire and took a seat among them.
‘Babaji! We’ve gone grey waiting here for you and you are happily sitting at home?’
‘What can I say, Khudabaksh!’ the Baba replied as he paused to catch his breath. ‘My eyes have deserted me. Up until a few weeks back, I could still manage. But they’ve become absolutely useless now. Otherwise, can you imagine me sitting at home on Lohri?’
‘Why don’t you get your glasses made, Babaji?’ asked the Chaudhry who was sitting next to him. ‘Last year that fellow, what’s his name …that Illahi’s father … he couldn’t see a thing … Used to sit like a statue all day. Look at him now, running around everywhere.’
‘I saw the doctor recently,’ the Baba replied, ‘he told me the cataract is still pretty fresh. Wait for a couple of months, he said. But I’ve decided I can’t wait much longer. I’ll get the glasses made by March or April. This life becomes pretty meaningless if you can’t see a thing.’
‘Absolutely. As the saying goes, there is no taste without the teeth and no world without the eyes.’
Embers from the bonfire were rising towards the sky and the crackling of the firewood was mixing with the joyous sounds of firecrackers being burst by some of the youngsters. The boys were craning towards the girls’ party, trying to discern the owner of a lyrical voice softly singing a popular melody.
The elders’ party had also warmed up, with animated conversations covering everything from personal adventures to the state of the world. One topic led to another and to a third, often jumping to a new subject while discussion on the previous one was still underway.
The warmth from the bonfire was adding it’s own heat to the conversation which currently revolved around a recent spate of thefts and robberies in the region.
Moola Kocchhar, whose addiction to opium made him look a lot older than his forty odd years, picked up a fat jaggery-filled rewri and rolled it around in his toothless mouth as he spoke, ‘You must know Mahtab Singh Bhasin from Gheelan village. Some burglars came and stole his milch buffalo the other night. He’d paid three hundred and fifty rupees for it not long ago. And what a buffalo it was! Like a portrait that you could keep gazing at for hours. The crooks thought they would outsmart the search party by walking the poor buffalo for a mile and a half down the Soan river. But hats off to the trackers who went after the crooks, especially one old cobbler from Dhakwan village. He was relentless and didn’t pause till he had tracked down the gang. To cut a long story short, the search party returned by dawn with the buffalo, which is now back with the owner.’
‘Must have been the man’s honest, hard-earned money that he got his buffalo back,’ Bhagta the brahmin commented as he gathered some popcorn from the base of the bonfire. ‘Otherwise, who’s ever heard of thieves returning stolen property.’
‘They are quite amazing, these trackers. I heard a story from around Lyallpur the other day. The cattle thieves covered the hooves of the animals with tart as they left but all credit to the trackers—they still managed to follow the trail and nab the thieves!’
‘These aren’t real thieves, my friends,’ interjected old Deena the carpenter. Sitting on his haunches with a small blanket draped around his knees, he continued, ‘Sadly, you haven’t seen the real burglars. These ones passing off as burglars are no better than the urchins who steal your slippers.’ His voice rose as he emphasized the last bit, triggering a bout of coughing. He cleared his throat and carried on, ‘You aren’t a real burglar if you get caught so easily. We’ve seen experts in our times who could steal the kohl from your eyes, and you wouldn’t know it.’
‘Oh, come on now! There should be a limit to these tall tales. Are you talking about a thief or a magician?’ piped up one outspoken fellow.
Baba Deena flared in anger. Turning his steely blue eyes on the upstart, ‘Why don’t you sit quietly, young man! What do you know about the world? Still wet behind the ears and he wants to share his experience!’ He turned towards the middle-aged Arju Sabherwal and said, ‘You won’t believe it, Arjana! Let me tell you something that I’ve seen with my own eyes. We’d gone to this big Vaisakhi fair and as luck would have it, I ran into an old friend of mine who was acknowledged as a genuine master thief. That’s right, a master thief.’ The old man turned his face to let out a loud burp before continuing, ‘He was known in those days for pulling off thefts one can barely imagine. Anyway, we decided to spend the night under the open skies near a rose garden. Like me, he had also spread his rough cotton wrap on the grass and was lying down. We kept chatting till about midnight as he regaled me with stories of his escapades. I observed that a couple of Khatris had spread out near us and my eyes were drawn to the sheet on which they were sleeping. To be honest, it looked less like a wrap and more like a stole that a princess would adorn. It had bright red corners woven from a silk thread that were wider than both my palms, with these gorgeous yellow stripes running along the sides. Indeed, its rich fabric and fine embroidery would have made it a fine present for a king! The more I looked at it, the greater my temptation grew. I finally turned to my friend and said, “Look Umardin, you’ve been telling me some great stories. But I’ll believe that you are a real thief only if you manage to steal that wrap from under the Khatris and bring it to me.”
‘Folks, telling a fib in an august gathering like this is worse than going to a whore, so let me continue. My friend didn’t demur for a second. He got up and said, “Come on, that’s hardly a challenge. It’s the kind of job that I would assign to my apprentice.” And he quietly walked across to the sleeping Khatris and somehow managed to slide between the two of them. He lay still for a while, with neither of them aware of the interloper’s presence. I saw him spend the next few minutes gently pushing one guy a few inches, before turning his attention to the other one. Each time the fellow moved a bit further, he would pluck out a bit of the wrap from under him.
‘Before I knew it, he had managed to pull out the entire wrap and was standing next to me with a wide grin. The two Khatris were now sleeping on the grass, snoring away without the slightest idea of what had transpired. Now that’s what I mean when I say that a real thief can steal the kohl from your eyes.’
‘Wow … Now, that’s really something … What an artist…’ The old man’s eyes lit up as he heard the murmurs of appreciation from the audience. Scratching his ash-grey beard with the index finger of his right hand, he continued with a renewed burst of energy, ‘This was actually child’s play for him. Let me tell you what happened the following day.’
‘The next day, we were part of a huge crowd that was making its way to the big local fair to see the wrestling competition. We were all being shoved and jostled as we walked along a narrow track between the farmlands. That’s when I noticed the person walking ahead of me. He seemed one of those wealthy Pathans, a Khan perhaps. But what caught my attention was his footwear. He was wearing a traditional jutti, richly embroidered with gold thread. It looked brand new. Must have been worth twenty or twenty-five rupees, at the very least. I turned to my friend and joked, “Just take a look at that jutti, Umardin! Imagine the intoxicating pleasure of floating around the fair in a pair like that.” He looked at me and said, “So should we get you to experience that pleasure? Here, give me your jutti for a bit.” I was perplexed as I reluctantly handed over my simple jutti to him and began walking barefoot. What was he planning now, I wondered!
‘He pushed his way a few yards ahead and headed straight for a thorny bush that was growing on the side of our dirt track, bending low to quickly pluck a few bristles before returning to my side. We were again following the Khan sahib. His jutti appeared a bit loose and I saw Umar bend once again and slip a couple of bristles into the Khan’s right jutti. The Khan walked a few steps before he felt the bristles pricking his heel. He stood on one leg as he raised his right foot to remove the jutti and shake out the bristles. No sooner had he placed the jutti on the ground to slide his foot into it than Umardin replaced it with mine. I swear by Allah that it happened in the blink of an eye! The Khan had no idea what was going on. Mindful of the crowd behind him, he quickly donned my jutti and continued walking. A couple of minutes later, Umar again used the same ploy to switch the other jutti. He then tugged my arm, led me away from the crowds towards a quiet spot and smiled, “Here’s your gold embroidered jutti, my friend. I hope that satisfies your hunger.” Now that’s what I call a real thief! Not these amateurs who sneak into a farm and walk away with a buffalo. Nor the ones who will ambush you with a knife and force you to hand over your possessions. Those bastards … they aren’t thieves by any definition. They are bandits, pure and simple.’
Tara Singh Chadha, who had slid back a couple of paces to avoid the direct heat of the bonfire, removed his expansive woollen shawl and commented, ‘It is one thing to steal a buffalo or to ambush a poor sod. But what about the sectarian bandits that are cropping up these days, the kind who will waylay a traveller and stick a knife into his back?’
‘Evil, pure and simple. That’s what it is,’ Baba Deena responded. ‘And such are the acts of bravery in these times.’
Reacting to Baba Deena’s observation, Bhagta the brahmin remarked, ‘The fact, Baba Deenya, is that these knife-wielding bandits aren’t the real culprits. That responsibility unfortunately rests on the shoulders of our leaders, the ones whose rousing speeches drive communities against each other so that they sit back and enjoy the spectacle. Look at the bloodshed in Bengal and ask yourselves who was behind it? And then it was Bihar’s turn. If the Hindus were the victims in one state, it was the Muslims in the other. Did the leaders lose their offspring in these riots? No, sir! It was the innocent sons of mothers from the two states. Have you seen any of the leaders die in these riots? No, sir. They will quietly incite the people to go at each other’s throats while they watch the carnage from a safe distance.’
‘You are absolutely right,’ Sant Chandioke commented as he used his hand to shade his face from the bonfire’s heat. ‘I don’t know when our people will grasp this reality. Or do these so-called leaders want us to battle with each other and finish off this country!’
Baba Bhana had stayed quiet till now, perhaps trying to recover his breath after being spun around by the boys. Having regained his composure, he replied to Chandioke. ‘The real issue, Santya, is that all leaders are also not the same. There are leaders who feel the pain of both the Hindu and the Muslim communities, but who listens to them? Gandhi went on a fast unto death to restore peace between Hindus and Muslims in Bihar. Nehru threatened to call in the army and destroy the rioting Hindu mobs if they didn’t cease attacks on their Muslim brethren in Bihar. And the two leaders didn’t leave Bihar until they had managed to restore a semblance of peace. But it takes both hands to clap, doesn’t it? If the leaders on the opposite side had made a similarly earnest effort, these riots would have died out in no time.’
‘Don’t involve yourself in sectarian matters, Babaji,’ an angry voice crackled from the other side of the bonfire. ‘You have no right to blame our Muslim leaders.’
The group’s attention turned towards the new entrant in the conversation.
The orange flames of the bonfire were rising higher, forcing the members of the group to move some distance away. The circumference of the group was growing larger with the warmth of the flames.
The man who had replied so insolently to the Baba was Munshi Abdul Rahman, a teacher at the middle school. A man of medium height and brisk manner, he had been late in joining the bonfire that evening.
Abdul Rahman lived in the neighbouring Koliyan Hamid village which was no more than a mile and a half away. He would walk down to the school every morning carrying a small packed lunch with him and return to his own village in the evening. Of late, though, he had occasionally started spending a night or two in Chakri and there was a reason for this.
Since Baba Bhana and Boote Shah were among the only literate souls in the village, they had taken the initiative to subscribe to a newspaper that arrived by the regular post. For those interested in developments in the world, the arrival of the post was the signal to assemble at the Baba’s haveli and hear him read out the latest news. But over the last few weeks, the attendance at the Baba’s assembly appeared to be thinning out, because Munshi Abdul Rahman had started to receive a Muslim daily.
The Munshi had begun in a fairly circumspect fashion, confining himself to reading out a few chosen stories for his audience. He built up an audience of regulars to his assembly and once he had achieved this objective, his tone and language began to undergo a metamorphosis. Over the last week or two, he had taken it upon himself to issue a grim warning to his audience—‘Muslims who paid attention to the newspaper of the Hindus could not claim to be real Muslims. They were kaafirs.’
The tempest of sectarian riots that started in Bengal was now moving rapidly towards Punjab and there were signs that its arrival in these parts was imminent. Worrying reports of sectarian violence were already emerging from the neighbouring Hazara region.
Baba Bhana and the other senior members of the Khatri community were mindful of the disturbing trends but saw no reason to panic. They felt confident that the generational ties between the communities of the area were strong enough to withstand any passing gust of sectarian violence. But as the Munshi’s activities gathered momentum, a sense of disquiet could be felt.
The unexpected rudeness of the Munshi’s reply to the Baba had turned everyone’s eyes on him.
‘Young man,’ the Baba spoke in his characteristically measured tone. ‘I think I understand sectarian issues better than you do. And I accord the same respect to other religions that I do to my own. I was speaking about the nature of our leaders. If all our leaders were like Gandhi or Nehru—’
The same angry voice again stopped the Baba in his tracks, ‘Are you trying to say that your leaders are very nice and ours are bad? Let me tell you, Babaji, these Gandhi and Nehru that you have been touting don’t even measure up to our Qaid-e-Azam’s shoe. What do you rustic folk understand about political matters? Living within the confines of this village, what would you know about the real face of Gandhi and Nehru? They are the biggest agents of the British—’
‘Munshi!’ a worried Chaudhry Fazal Karim intervened this time. ‘Stop it please. Let’s bring an end to this useless discussion. We were all having such a lovely time until you brought up this pointless topic.’
‘Pointless topic?’ the Munshi flared up again instead of taking a step back. ‘That reflects the ignorance of villagers like you. Sitting in your havelis, you can afford to make comments like this. Step outside and see the spectacle unfolding in the world around you. Take the trouble to read about the sacrifices of Hazrat Qaid-e-Azam, he who owns vast estates and yet toils day and night to serve his people. Why is he doing this? Not for any personal gain, I can assure you. He is doing this in the service of Islam.’
‘But Munshiji,’ Baba Deena replied, ‘I hear the British rule is coming to an end and we will soon have our own government in the country.’
‘Don’t you remain under that illusion, Baba,’ the Munshi retorted. ‘It’s going to be a jump from the frying pan into the fire. The British rule has had its own advantages. They’ve maintained peace between the communities. But mark my words carefully. The day these Congress party Hindus form the government, we Muslims will starve to death. The lives of Muslims will be safe only when we see the flag of Pakistan fly over these lands. Does anyone realize the existential danger that our religion faces at this point of time? It is easy to sit in your homes and gossip away over your hookahs but who is going to serve your community? And who ruled Hindustan till four hundred years ago? It was a Muslim nation and it was the flag of Islam that was seen flying high all the way from the east to the west of the country. And what’s your position today? Think about it for a moment! Poverty and hunger are widespread across the community. You have become so used to being ruled by others that a slavish mentality has seeped into your lives. What’s the point of living like this? Isn’t it better to die?’
The Munshi’s diatribe had a devastating effect on the congenial spirit of Lohri. The sense of joy and contentment evaporated from everyone’s faces, replaced by lines of worry and a sense of emptiness. Several of them were upset over the Munshi’s attitude and the blatant disrespect with which he had treated Baba Bhana. Chaudhry Fazal Karim sensed the mood and stepped in to restore the Baba’s honor. ‘You may be right, Munshiji, that an enslaved person has lost his self-esteem. But you can’t disregard the Baba’s words either. Isn’t it true that Gandhi went on a fast-unto-death to protect the Muslims of Bihar? And what do you have to say about newspaper reports that Nehru threatened to rain bombs on the Hindu mobs in Bihar? Babaji was merely trying to say that if the Qaid-e-Azam or other leaders of the Muslim League had made a similar effort to stop the communal riots in their areas, our country might have been spared this calamity.’
‘You really don’t understand these matters, Chaudhryji,’ the Munshi countered in the same belligerent tone. ‘They shed these crocodile tears to fool the public. But their real motives are so complex that your simple brain can’t even begin to comprehend them. Let’s assume that Nehru really did threaten the Hindus. Does that explain why he went up to the Frontier areas to meet the tribal chiefs? He went with a devious message—that he would bring education to their people, wean them away from banditry, address their financial problems. But do you know his real intention? Like the British, he also wanted to bribe them so that they would turn against the Muslim League. That was his real motive. He thought he was being pretty smart but before our leaders, he is no more than a child. The Qaid-e-Azam spun such a web around him that Nehru had to return with his tail between his legs. He is lucky he came back alive after that hail of bullets aimed at his plane. Had Qaid-e-Azam not intervened in time to stop the firing, you wouldn’t have found a trace of your Nehru! And those great supporters that he took with him, that Abdul Ghaffar and Doctor Khan … they would have been reduced to chutney in the hills of Malakand if Qaid-e-Azam hadn’t intervened to resolve matters.’
‘Umm … Where exactly was the Qaid-e-Azam at that point of time?’ Boote Shah had barely raised this question to the Munshi when Baba Bhana caught hold of his arm to restrain him. ‘Forgive me, Munshiji. You may have misunderstood me,’ the Baba interjected. ‘I never said that Hindu leaders are good or Muslim leaders are bad. All I meant was that if Gandhi and Nehru could intervene to stop the sectarian riots in Bihar, the Qaid-e-Azam could have done the same if he had wanted to halt this epidemic of violence in Muslim-dominated areas. Look at the way the situation has deteriorated in Hazara over the last month or so. Would it have continued for so long if an influential Muslim leader had stepped in to control it?’
‘There is no point in trying to stop these things now,’ the Munshi replied. ‘Whether you listen from your right ear or from the left, let it be clear that this matter is headed for a decisive conclusion.’
‘Decisive conclusion? What does that mean?’ the Baba queried.
‘It means that all Hindus and Sikhs should leave the Muslim areas and the Muslims should do the same from the Hindu areas. Last month, Hazrat Qaid-e-Azam had himself expounded on this issue. Since the Muslim and Hindu communities are intrinsically different, it is only natural that unless the populations of all the provinces are divided along religious lines, this kind of violence is bound to continue.’
‘But Munshiji,’ the Baba responded. ‘An exchange of populations would be an expensive proposition for the Muslims. After all, you will end up with thirty crore Hindus on one side and only nine crore Muslims on the other. Wouldn’t that make it difficult for the smaller nation to feel secure in the face of a much larger nation?’
‘Difficult?’ the Munshi sneered with renewed anger. ‘Babaji, you are forgetting a very important fact. The Muslims will never again be dominated by anyone else. Once we are all together under the Pakistani flag, you will see what happens to your thirty crore Hindus. We will make sure that they end up missing the days of the British, I assure you.’
The Baba refrained from responding. He could see that the fanatical Munshi had decided to don the mantle of a religious crusader even before Pakistan came into existence.
The group sat around the Lohri bonfire a little while longer, but the conversation had petered out, replaced by a grim silence, almost like they wanted to speak but could think of nothing to say. Quite a few were wondering, ‘From where did this inauspicious fellow land up in our midst? He’s managed to wreck the charm of an occasion that we await the whole year.’
‘Let’s drop this subject, Munshiji,’ Chaudhry Fazal Karim spoke with barely concealed irritation. Looking at the others, he said, ‘I think it’s time we headed home. The young boys and girls are also sitting quietly while we are around. Let them feel free to enjoy their evening.’
The group of elders started to abandon the bonfire and the gathering soon dispersed.