WE’LL KEEP ASKING 

Another side to the same story

As covered in the Sunday Series episode organized by The 1947 Partition Archive on August 16th, 2020

Laali akhiyan di dasdi hai
roye assi vi, roye tussi vi

 The redness in our eyes tells it all, 
you have cried and so have we

  - Poet Ustad Daman

In 1993, when Surjeet Kaur or Jeeto stood at the door of her parents’ home in Delhi, her blind mother and longing brother broke down as they heard her voice. They were seeing each other after 46 years. A lot had happened since then, Jeeto was now Fatima, a mother of six children and a resident of Pakistan. Having been separated from her family in the communal riots amid the 1947 partition of British India, Fatima felt like she was born again after reuniting with them. When Niranjan found his pehna Jeeto with the help of his friend, Alta Ullah - the brother and sister wrote to each other in different languages across countries. But the difference between Gurmukhi and Urdu seemed to fade against the love and longing of their telepathic bond. 

As narrated by Singer Sonam Kalra in the recent Sunday Series episode organised by The 1947 Partition of India and hosted by Noor Anand Chawla, this story defines much of the pain that people of India and Pakistan endured 74 years ago. When we see the brimming Old Fort or Purana Quila in New Delhi, we notice the earthen bricks and the lake bustling with tourists. What we don’t see, however, are the injuries this place has sheltered over the years as a large refugee camp for the people who had migrated to the ‘new’ India from the ‘other’ side in 1947. As we celebrate Independence from colonial rule on August 14 and 15 in our respective countries every year, we often refrain from recognising these days with the suffering of the partition. Maybe because it brings too much pain for most of us, as it did for former International Sprinter,  Milkha Singh as per Writer and Director, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, “who was a world champion still running away from his demons” -  his horrifying memories from the partition. 

Assi teri kher puchhde rawange    
Assi tenu yaad karde rawange      
Assi tenu khad likhde rawange      

We’ll keep asking about your well-being
We’ll keep remembering you 
We’ll keep writing to you 

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, the chief guest for the evening explained beautifully how a Watan is different from a country; the latter is about politics while the former is about people. The aforesaid lines, as written and performed live by Sonam Kalra, left every viewer with a heavy heart. There is a sense of determination and hope that is reflected in these lines, one that explain what people may have gone through when the country was separated. You stand on one side of the land, searching for your loved ones, in misery and often poverty, as you long for the land you’ve now left, the one you once called your own. 

We are a land that got divided; we were one and undivided, and certainly not on the basis of religion. “Let’s keep the dialogue open” exclaims Kalra, “we were a family once.” Mehra mentioned as he remembered his childhood days in Lajpat Nagar, Delhi, a colony full of migrants, “given half a chance, people would have shifted back (to Pakistan).” This thought sadly seems like it belongs to the realms of imagination. “I hope we can change that,” expressed Mehra. The separation hurt both sides of the border equally as people looked at the divide with questions and heart wrenching hope. “Tussi India to aaye ho, bass twaadi shakal dekhni si,” Kalra recited in the episode, explaining how people who were now in Pakistan found it fascinating to meet the ‘new Indian’, for they hoped to see in them the land they had left behind. Almost as if meeting them would show how their own home was doing. Back in India, people craved to hear a few lines in their own ‘Lahori Punjabi’ as they would gather around someone who had come from their homeland or had not experienced a fade in their accent. “My god, you have been in Lahore. Tell me, how is it now?'” asked an excited man in Chandigarh, India as captured in this New York Times article from 1981.

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, who is the director of blockbuster and National award-winning movies such as Bhaag Milkha Bhaag andRang De Basanti believes that nations are made by people and that his movies are not an attempt to be politically correct. In his directorial blockbuster, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, a particularly moving scene shows marital rape in the refugee camps during partition. “Women and children suffered the most,” said Mehra on the topic. The heart-touching aspect of this scene stems from the stellar cast, including actress Divya Dutta and child-actor Juptej who plays young Milkha Singh in the movie. “I cast people not stars,” mentions Mehra, as is lucid in his movies where a Muslim actor has been seeing essaying the role of a Sikh (Amir Khan) and a Hindu playing the part of a Muslim (Kunal Kapoor) in Rang De Basanti (2006).

Child actor Juptej in BMB plays the role of a young Milkha Singh who fled Pakistan and arrived all alone in the new India, he can be seen running barefoot on pebbles and stones, hot surfaces and across rivers. While his performance was inspiring, the struggles of the people during the partition, often depicted flawlessly on screen, are unimaginable. “The trees at the Old Fort had no leaves” mentioned Mehra as he quoted a British doctor during the episode, who had visited the refugee camps at the time of partition. “People were so hungry; they had eaten the leaves”. The plight of a hungry man in a new land is inexplicable, not to mention the void of losing loved ones - all leading to a feeling of powerlessness - the virtue of an ordinary Indian or Pakistani at the hands of the decision makers. To that end, it is understood why Milkha Singh carried hatred against Pakistan for a long time until his heart melted after watching BMB.

It is undeniably comfortable seven decades hence, but one does wonder if both the countries received any peace after the partition. As depicted in the Bollywood movie, Kalank (2019) Alia Bhatt’s character is shown to have made peace with the life she has post partition and independence. So was the case with many others in reality, but life was only seemingly peaceful, especially in the background of shrieks from crowded camps and reminisces of strains of blood from the ‘ghost’ trains. The religious divide that India and Pakistan experienced in 1947 has not left our present unaffected. As portrayed in Mehra’s 2009 movie, Delhi-6, Chandni Chowk serves as a home to all the religions in India, with adjacently located places of worship. And so, political propaganda reeks of religious divide the most in these areas, further leading to clashes, closures and ‘motivated ethical tension’. 

To go back to the moving story of Jeeto and Niranjan, when the two are finally reunited at the latter’s home in India, the brother and sister pay their heartfelt respects to each other’s lords with immense gratefulness for making sure that the other has remained safe and healthy in the course of their separation. This brings to mind Mehra’s Delhi-6 character, Fakir who would hold up a mirror to everyone, asking them to take a hard look at themselves, for God is one and within us regardless of our religion. Until we can look through ourselves in that mirror and bring respite to the pain caused by division, we’ll keep asking... for your well-being. 

We want to thank Guneeta Singh Bhalla, the founder of The 1947 Partition Archive, for giving us the opportunity to cover a topic that we are so drawn towards but knew so little about. Let’s keep the dialogue open about the memoir of this tragic event, let’s continue talking about this.

Thumbnail credit: The 1947 Partition Archive