Coming home

Partition revealed the worst face of human bestiality. Equally, it was also a period when ordinary people wore the wings of angels.

Partition revealed the worst face of human bestiality. Equally, it was also a period when ordinary people wore the wings of angels. Until the summer of 1947, mother and I lived in Lahore. I was a school teacher. In June the Partition plan was announced. The rampage began within days of the announcement. Our friends and relations were fast making furtive plans to leave Lahore and urged us to do likewise. But we were unable to figure out where to go. In any case, it was no easy task for two women to move out safely unaided. While we were wrestling over this dilemma, by sheer accident we met a friend whom we hadn’t met in a while. He told us that he was proceeding to Shimla and could take us along in his jeep. Without a second’s thought, we decided to tag along with a few belongings.

On reaching Shimla, we landed at the home of distant relatives unannounced but were received unexpectedly warmly. While ensconced in their small home, we discovered that Shimla had limited scope in terms of employment. In any event, having imposed ourselves on our relatives for over three weeks, we realised that move out we must. But where, was the question.

At that point of almost utter despair, chance again brought a distant relative. A clerk in a defence establishment, he told us that a train was due to depart for Delhi the next day and that he would arrange to find accommodation for us on it. That’s how, two days later, we reached Delhi safely.

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More good fortune was to follow. To a civil servant friend of my late brother I wrote, inquiring if he knew anybody in Delhi who could help us find accommodation. He asked us to contact Delhi’s deputy commissioner. When I met the DC, his first reaction, as I had apprehended, was negative. There were thousands of refugees; and hardly any evacuee property to match. I stepped out of his room disappointed, but I had hardly reached the gate when his peon summoned me again. The DC told me that he had just recollected that he had requisitioned a house for government use. He now wanted me to go across to the owner and tell her that he would be happy to derequisition it, provided she agreed to rent a part of it to me. The landlady was only too happy to oblige. So now, we had a place to live in Delhi.

The next inevitable problem was to find a job. Here, too, chance and human kindness played their roles. Walking in Connaught Place one morning, I ran into a long-lost friend. When I told her I was without a job she said she could help. Two days later, she introduced me to a senior official in AIR who told me that the organisation was recruiting programme officers.

Within a fortnight, I had received an appointment letter. Mother and I were finally home.