The next day at 9:00 AM , Chand and I were standing outside the unwelcoming gate again. We had left Dosanjh early in the hope of catching the SDM at home. “Sahib is not in,” the sentry informed us. (I detest with a passion this colonial term of “sahib.” In India today it is almost mandatorily uttered by subordinates addressing seniors, the poor addressing the rich, and the weak addressing the mighty. Not coincidentally, the same word is often used to invoke or allude to the Almighty in religious discourses in India.) I peeped through the narrow spaces between the wooden planks of the gate and saw a middle-aged man in a nightgown walking around the yard. I immediately decided he must be the SDM . I called out, “ SDM - ji , we are two young men. We would like to see you. Your subordinates are asking for money to do their work.” The man opened the gate, heard our story and sent his guard back with us to the passport office, where we overheard the guard telling the clerk to do what we were asking. Moments like this reaffirmed my failing faith in the new India.
Before long we received confirmation that the Punjab State had forwarded my application to the nation’s capital for the issuance of my passport. Delhi was only about two hundred miles from Dosanjh, but to us it seemed like a million. The train took ten hours to get there. Undaunted, Chachaji set out immediately, taking the train to Ghaziabad, where he stayed with my cousin Siso, and then bicycling the rest of the way into Delhi. He must have had to push his way through crowds in various offices. And he might have had to find some “people of influence” in Delhi to return with my passport in hand so quickly.
It all reminded me of a time one winter when Chachaji had left home on his bike with a woollen blanket and a change of clothes in a cloth bag. I saw him leave, but I repressed my curiosity; it was considered a bad omen to ask a departing person where they were going, just as it was to call out after a person already on their way. A week later, Chachaji had returned with exhaustion writ large on his crumpled clothes and ashen face. His dishevelled beard and turban spoke to the tense moments he must have endured on his trip. Years later, I learned that Chachaji had been in Chandigarh that week, successfully securing the reversal of a decision by corrupt officials that had seen an acre of our land illegally registered in someone else’s name.
IT WAS MID-DECEMBER 1964, almost ten months since Har-jinder Atwal had bidden me farewell on the college lawn in Phagwara. The bumps along the way had thrust me into deep despair, but the Punjabi equivalent of “this too shall pass” — “ darvuttzamaana cut bhalay din avangay (gird up, persevere, good days shall come)” — always came to my rescue.
I had started to grow up, and I needed more practice in doing important things without Chachaji or Bhaji holding my hand. That was probably what prompted Chachaji to send me, rather than Bhaji, to Hoshiarpur to get some money from Masiji Gurmit. The money was needed for my ticket to England. Maybe Masiji owed Chachaji money, or maybe he had asked her for a loan. I didn’t know. Either way, I made the journey from the bus depot in Phagwara to Hoshiarpur and received the money from Masiji; it was also my chance to say goodbye to my sister Tirath, who was still living there to attend school. Nothing was said between us about my planned departure for England, however; I do not believe Tirath had been told I was leaving.
For reasons I cannot remember, I arrived by bus back at Phagwara late at night. I was carrying over two thousand rupees: not a small sum in those days, especially for the Dosanjhes.
From Phagwara, the direct road that followed the canal and passed by the Dosanjh School was not well travelled at night. The Banga road was much busier; late-night truckers, motorcyclists, cyclists and farmers on guddas ensured the night did not provide easy cover for robbers or the infamous bandits known as dacoits . Still, the rickshawalas wanted forty rupees for the trip on the Banga road at night. I could not afford that kind of money, and anyway, what robbers there were would think me rich if they saw me on a rickshaw. But I could not think of a safe place to spend the night at Phagwara, and I was hungry too. I bought half a dozen bananas and some peanuts for the walk back to Dosanjh and set off on the Banga road.
It was 10:30 PM . Phagwara was an industrial town, but not yet a big urban centre. In the roadside establishments, things were coming to a halt. The road lights stood as if fighting off the night. I was less successful in fighting off my fears. I ate some bananas as I walked, which helped assuage my anxiety. As I passed by the chungi where the police had stopped the farmer, in my mind’s eye I saw again the poor farmer’s son crying on the gudda . My eyes scanned every tree, caught every fleeting ray of light. The moon occasionally pierced through the canopy of branches overhead. The shadows wove a pantomime punctuated by the sounds and speed of traffic. A nightingale sang from the banyan trees.
After a while, I found myself in Mehli, at the turnoff to Mandhali, where the paved road ended. No canopy of trees here, and almost no traffic. In Mehli’s poor homes, divas were mounted in makeshift windows. Those better off had electric bulbs affixed to their plastered gates. The two kinds of homes sat next to each other, framing the chasm between wealth and poverty. On my left was the primary school where, during the monsoons, I had sometimes taken shelter from the pelting rain on my way to or from college. Silent and solitary, the school seemed to be calling to me for company, even for just a moment, in return for the comfort and reprieve it had offered me.
Even bricks and mortar can speak, I believe. To hear them, you need to let the voices enter your being. It had happened to me once before, at the Jallianwala Bagh at Amritsar, where Meeto Bhenji took me to have my wandering eyes corrected at the Medical College. My family knew an ophthalmology student, who arranged it; the surgery was done by visiting professors in private practice as part of the student’s practicum. (Only the surgery to my right eye was successful; the left one still wanders when I’m tired.) Walking through the narrow passage that served as both entry and exit from the Jallianwala Bagh, I imagined General Dyer ordering his riflemen to gun down the peaceful and unarmed protestors listening to speeches for the freedom of India in 1919 . Having just visited the Golden Temple and the Durgiana Mandir, both abodes of Indian spirituality, might have rendered me susceptible to the power of suggestion. The sound of gunfire, the screams of men, women and children, and the sight of General Dyer frothing at the mouth with hate and imperial arrogance vividly entered my soul that day.
Lost in these memories, I finally crossed the railway tracks that led on one side to Saila and on the other to Phagwara and beyond. A cyclist rode by, noticing me, and quickly stopped. “Who are you, and what are you doing here this late at night?” the rider asked. I told him who I was, giving my father’s name and village. The man was Comrade Harbans Singh of Mandhali, and he ordered me to hop behind him on his bike, promising to drop me within Dosanjh village limits, where I would be safe. He left me no more than a mile away from our khooh building.
All danger past, I began to dread explaining to Chachaji why I was this late at night. Why had I not waited overnight at Masiji’s place in Hoshiarpur, rather than taking such a big risk with so much money? Bhaji would have been smarter about it, I was sure.
Soon I was passing by the land on which we toiled. Gobs of cattle dung, with its distinct, fresh smell, lay on the road. Mixed and composted with household garbage of ash and greens, then allowed to mature for a few months in a heap at the khooh , the dung was a potent organic fertilizer. Whenever we needed manure, we dug some from the composted mound, piled it on a gudda and carried it to the field. From there, Chachaji or Bhaji filled up the tokras , wide-rimmed buckets made of cotton stems or tree branches that were lifted for carrying onto the spreaders’ heads. When we stopped for lunch and siesta on hot days, we would have to stand outside the chalha and use pots to pour water over our bodies to wash away the coats of manure.
Chachaji was still awake when I got home. I had once again disappointed him, and he got out of bed, filled with rage. He stood before me, and I felt his hand strike my cheek. It was not my cheek but my heart that was hurt. It was not until years later, when my own sons were in their teens, that I was able to understand the full anguish of a parent not knowing where a child might be.
10
I HAD LITTLE WINTER CLOTHING to speak of, so I packed one sweater, a couple