Independence Day: O God, put out this fire for us
“Yesterday I went to Gujranwala and found the house where you were born. The house where you left behind your parents, drenched in their own blood,” wrote Mohammad Riaz in an e-mail he sent to his friend Mahinder Singh in Burke, Virginia.
“Now a family of Muslims from Jullunder lives in your house and their story is not much different from your story. So together we lit a candle for your martyrs in the house where you left behind your parents soaked in their blood,” he wrote.
Listen, when you go to India now, do visit the village where my sisters jumped into a well to save themselves from a marauding crowd.
“There, in the darkness of that well, you light a candle too for my martyrs.”
Mahinder wrote back, promising to do what his friend had done and said: “Once I illuminate the dark depths of that well, we will get together in Virginia and pray, for your martyrs and mine.”
So when Riaz returned to Burke, he went to a temple with Mahinder and later took him to a mosque in Springfield, Virginia. In both places, they said the same prayers.
“O God of all humans, forgive us. Forgive us because we have shed so much blood in your name that it has darkened the face of the earth. Our sins have defamed you.
“The seeds we sowed have turned our land into a volcano. The venom and hate it spits out is burning down everything,” they prayed.
“Forgive us and put out this fire for us. Our hearts are still full of hate, so we cannot put out this fire,” they said to God.
“Come and grow so many flowers in our garden that their aroma overcomes the stench of blood which still permeates our land.”
I heard about these two men, their e-mails and their prayers some months ago but I was saving this story for the Independence Day week, hoping to share this message of hope with those hundreds of millions of people who will celebrate their independence on Aug. 14 and 15.
But I almost gave up the idea when I read about 60 Hindu families from Balochistan and Sindh migrating to India because they no longer felt safe in Pakistan.
While looking for something else to write about, I discovered a little note of a conversation I had with a 10-year old Pakistani visitor last year.
“You know uncle, today I discovered that many people in this city are not Muslims,” he said. “But why did you expect them to be Muslims?” I asked. “Because most people in my city are Muslims,” he said.
I asked him how he felt meeting so many people non-Muslims. “Some of them were very nice,” he said, paused, and added: “Not all the Muslims in my city were nice.”
And I thought if a visit to Washington could convince a child that people of other faiths could be nice too, Mahinder and Riaz’s story could also have a positive impact on someone somewhere.
So here is a story that can only happen outside the Subcontinent because back home Indians and Pakistanis do not meet each other. They spend their entire lives believing in whatever they are told about each other.
Mahinder also believed that there were hardly any good people in Pakistan. Although he was a child, he never forgot how his brother and he had left their dead parents in the haveli in Gujranwala.
But most of his memories about the partition and the riots that followed were based on what he learned from his relatives and family friends, who also had suffered similar losses in the riots.
Although he had heard that Muslims too were killed in the riots, he had never met one who had lost parents, like he did. Not until he met Riaz.
It was a graduation ceremony for the daughter of an American friend where he met Riaz. Mahinder did not smoke. So when some people started smoking, he came out on the deck, holding a cup of tea. He noticed another man, sharing the deck with him.
The man was standing at an angle that the light from a nearby lamp exposed his hands. Mahinder noticed that his right hand had no fingers. It seemed as if they had been carved out by a surgeon. He wanted to but did not ask how the man lost his fingers.
But later in the evening, he saw the man talking to Brajesh, one of Mahinder’s close friends. So when the man left, he asked Brajesh why the man had no fingers in his right hand.
“Oh, they were chopped off,” said Brajesh. “Chopped off? How, when?” asked Mahinder. “He is a Pakistan Punjabi and he lost his fingers during the riots, in 1947,” said Brajesh.
“Sad,” he said to himself. “But still not comparable to losing your parents.”
The next morning he told his wife he had met a man who lost his fingers in the riots. The wife showed no interest and he too forgot about Riaz until he met him again, this time on the metro.
Like many commuters, Mahinder did not like driving to Washington during rush hours. So he parks his car at a metro station close to his home and rides the metro.
The man saw him and smiled. Mahinder smiled back, so the man came to him and said: “Riaz, Mohammed Riaz.” “Mahinder Singh,” said Mahinder.
They were speaking Punjabi, so Riaz said to him, “I can guess from your accent that you are from West Punjab.” Now Mahinder also noticed that the man had an East Punjabi accent and told him so.
They both laughed but the conversation did not go further.
A week after this brief encounter, Brajesh invited Mahinder to his restaurant for a business lunch. Mahinder was a car dealer and Brajesh wanted to buy a delivery van for his restaurant.
His restaurant was in an area with a large Muslim population. So Brajesh, being a good businessman, served only halal meat. Mahinder often made fun of Brajesh, a Hindu from Delhi, for being more particular than Muslims about halal and haram.
Brajesh always laughed and said: “Business, yaar, business.”
While eating, Brajesh said: “I am still very South Asian, never do business with strangers. You are my car dealer and Riaz is my property dealer.”
“Now that you have mentioned him, what else you know about this man, about his lost his fingers?” asked Mahinder.
“Not much,” said Brajesh. “Like you, he also lost his father, a brother and two sisters in the riots but I do not know the details.”
This was quite a shock for Mahinder. He had always believed that the Muslims did not suffer as much as the Hindus and Sikhs during the riots.
Whenever he came across a book or a newspaper article that contradicted his beliefs, he simply ignored them. There was no room for doubts in his world. “Muslims were aggressors, period,” he often said to his family.
But it was difficult to ignore Riaz. Here was a man who had not only lost his family in the riots but also a carried reminder of that tragedy with him, a hand without fingers.
So he asked Brajesh to invite Riaz and him to tea at his restaurant.
Brajesh did. But Riaz and Brajesh did most of the talking. Mahinder was mostly quiet. When they were leaving, he said to Riaz, pointing at his hand: “I am sorry about your fingers.”
“Oh, I do not always notice their absence,” he said. “This happened when I was a child.” Mahinder did not ask how and Riaz did not explain.
But when he met Riaz again in the metro, Mahinder asked him to have dinner at his home.
On the agreed day, Riaz came early, as Mahinder had suggested. He took him straight to his deck and asked his family not to disturb them.
While making tea for Riaz, he said: “Look, we are both Punjabis and Punjabis are straightforward people. So let me tell you why I invited you. I want you to share with me all that happened to you in 1947.”
“I guessed that much,” said Riaz, smiling. “Had you asked me before I came to America, it would have upset me. Not anymore,” he said.
Then he asked, “When did you come to America?” “Five years ago. My in-laws sponsored us,” said Mahinder.
“OK, so you have not yet met enough Pakistanis to overcome the pains of the past,” said Riaz. “I have been here 20 years and have met enough nice Indians to forget the past.”
He then explained how an Indian physician saved his daughter’s life when he was new in America and could not afford health insurance. “He charged no fees, gave us free medicine and even paid a specialist to see her.”
Riaz then told Mahinder everything about his village in Gurdaspur, about how a mob attacked his home and killed his father and brother, how his mother hid him under the quilts before the mob came, how his sisters jumped into a well to protect themselves from the mob.
He told Mahinder how his entire household was helping him hide and how everybody was dead when he came out. Everybody except his mother who was left injured because the mob presumed she was dead.
Although he was a child, he knew he should not cry as it would draw attention but at night he heard someone crying, ran out and saw his mother crying with pain.
His father, who was a school teacher, also served as a part time physician. So he had some medicines and bandages at home that her mother used to cover her wounds.
He told him how the two of them walked out of the village after midnight and later joined a group of Muslim refugees going to Pakistan.
How a mob attacked the group, killed many, and how one of them chopped off his fingers with a machete. The story ended when Riaz and his mother made it safely to Pakistan.
Mahinder got up and hugged Riaz for what seemed like eternity.
Wiping their tears, they went to the dining room where they hardly said anything to each other.
When Riaz was leaving, Mahinder hugged him again.
The author is a correspondent for Dawn, based in Washington, DC
Beautiful gift for independence day. Thank you
A heartbreaking story. There is manifest lack of interest amongst the political class in the subcontinent to repair the broken friendship. Is it too late to repair the damage we have done to our subcontinent? Post-partition, sixty five precious years have gone to waste. We must act before the whole subcontinent is corrupted irreversibly by bigotry and hatred.
Cooperation among the siblings, Bangladesh,India and Pakistan (BIPs) patterned on the European Union is one solution, in my humble view. To start with the three countries can experiment with a de facto arrangement for sharing action in social and economic matters.
Good luck, BIPs!
It was all due to the poor vision of the people who were at the helm of affairs British Government, Congress and Muslim League. This human tragedy woul not have taken place if they had given a thought.
I was overwhelmed reading the end. It actually brought tears in my eyes. Don't know why, but I really felt Riaz was just what my father would've been since 1947. Dad had opted for Pakistan Civil Services at the time of partition, perhaps hoping this line drawn would fade out soon and once again Hindustan will be one big Country, but as he bid farewell to his father, my Grandfather (Lalalji) and rest of the family on the station, Lalaji couldn't resist, so he pulled him in. His friends, closer ones, mostly Muslim also urged Dad to go along, "Omi, abhi yahan k halat thik nahi hain, hum chaha kar bhi tujhe nahi bacha sakenge, isliye abhi tu Lalaji ki baat maan le aur unke saath hi abhi nikalja. Jab sab thikh ho jayega, toh wapis aa jana, tera hi ghar hai" – That's how Dad came across this side to Jullandar, with only a Cross-pen in his pocket….I'm still looking for his best Friend, Ghulam Maiuddin Khan from Dayal Singh College, while Dad studied MA Stats from Govt College Lahore, Punjab University, 1931 Batch. Ghulam Maiuddin Khan saab should be in his 87th year now….is anyone, has a clue, please let me know….
Beautiful and sad.
Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh and 'Aj aakhaan Waris Shah noon' by Amrita Preetum should be mandatory reading for all on both sides.
I am pakistani Christian and very thanksful God Blessed me to Move to United States and God Bless America. It's very sad how Minorities get treated in pakistan I personally do not blame them Pakistan is only Islamic Countyr and Only Muslim should live and enjoy their live everyone else shuld leave and more somewhere else Because is not place for none muslims… Muslims do not that teach Social Justice whatever they teach world knows about it and MUSLIMS knows abut it as well I hope and I wish every Muslim get same treatment what Minorities get in Pakistan GOD BLESS AMERICA
A great story indeed! But when I remember of 26/11, Raza Academy protests in Mumbai and the forced migration of Hindus and Sikhs from Pakistan I feel the story is unfair in equating the Hindus loss with that of Muslims.
All is very touchy and bring someone's heart get drowned in tears and one think why all this,yes people ask this question and they look for answer and where they go,pray to god but how come you ask god for help and at the same time you are killing on his name,so where is the answer and how come in the west people of all background can live and work and still ask their god for help.People in the west if they have a problem ,they're solution to every problem and every problem have a solution,and people ask the right question and they try to solve the problem with logic and with discipline,it's not that I am saying that tomorrow make east into west and problem will be solved,it's just we have to ask the really cause and look for solution else where rather just say oh lord help us solve this problem and just go sleep!!!!!!!!!!!!'!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I see it as Punjabi versus Punjabi.
After living for many years in the UAE and in the USA, I came to the conclusion that there were and are good as well as not so good people in every society and that is a reallity to continue for people all aover the world that include people in both India and in Pakistan. Least we can do is to stop generlising and labeling or have any prejudice.
Amazing article for an Independence Day..Thank you very much
independance day? yes we can all celebrate once we get rid of the talibans and all these fundamental factions from our country, till than, stay hopefull.
I wish some friendly Pakistani can go to my House in Leyyah Distt, and send back some news about the place where I left my Bachpan. I will pay all the expenses and beyond.
I can go in above mention areas. Kindly provide me more detail on ahad2alam@gmail.com
Very touching story. I am sure there a many Riaz and Mahinder in the Subcontinent and overseas going through similar emotions. How can we convince our politicians and military industrial complexes to follow humane policies. Keeping people across the border divided for votes and big bucks serve the purpose of wealth accumulation by politicians, arm suppliers and people in uniform who have no other talents but to device ways to kill. India and Pakistan have great potential if they just decide to respect each other.
God Bless Anwar for highlighting such touchy tragic events happened during dividing India and Pakistan in 1947. In revolution certainly we lost ours kith and kin. After this heavy blood shed or independence of both countries in 1947. However Pakistan underwent again with massacre and this time the riot were not in between Hindu & Muslims but between Urdu-speaking & Non-Urdu speaking, a claim for freedom for an independent state from Non-Urdu speaking known as Bengali who were anti-Pakistan, a rampage civil disobedience started in 1970 & eventually ended in the formation of a new state Bangladesh on 16th Dec 1971.
Pakistan lost its East wing, during this internal scuffle in between Urdu speaking and Non-Urdu speaking we lost our lives and properties, most of us then repatriated to West wing of Pakistan.
I will not discuss that who were behind this split it will open another chapter. The revolution no doubt carries a lot of memories and when we recall them or mention before our children they listen the tale very minutely and ask will this happen again Baba? Tears rolls out in our eyes and pray Al Mighty Allah Long live Pakistan – Love Pakistan – Be proud to be a Pakistani – Say openly Yes I am Pakistani
We as a human race can move forward and live side by side and that is possible only if both parties are true and believe in `Live and Let Live' but alas it has never been and would never be so.
Please, try to find the following facts and you would find the answer:
- What was the percentage of Sikhs and Hindus living in Pakistan prior to partition and what is their percentage now?.
– In the mean time it would be worth comparing the percentage of Muslims living in in India before the partition and at present?
You are so right Mr. Paul, but no one wants to talk about this, which is the real problem.
There must be fresh start with out any "Hegemonic " designs mind set and approach.
Both the sides yes BOTH side must cut down the Defense Forces and spendings.
Slogans like Baharat Matta or Muslim Glory / Rise must be replaced with Co-existence .
Raj Neti ,Civil and Military establishments for sure will NOT like to let it happen both the side .
The external factor is very much participating in this game strings attached with the Puppets .
Live and Let Live with compassion must prevail for the sake of HUMANITY Rather than Domination.
Kar sako tu Payar karo Nafrat sey Bacho Zindgi Bohat Mukhtasir hay , Reach out to Give even A Smile please.
Stay Blessed every one in the Longer the best Human Values ameen .
From 1947 till now! We are enveloped with this Fire.