Rehana Waheed: We did not know till much later in our life that our family was part of a mass migration — arguably the biggest of the 20th century — during the massive upheaval that took place in the Subcontinent in 1947. This is our story, our contribution to the making of Pakistan. I was only nine years old and Patty, as my brother Pervez is affectionately called, was seven, but we remember that time as if it took place yesterday…

We lived on the outskirts of Simla [now Shimla], a hill station and the summer capital of British India. The area was called Sanjauli, ruled by a benign Hindu Raja, where ‘people did not mix water in milk.’ Our younger brother, affectionately called Puppoo, was just turning two…

Our father, Dr Aftab Ahmad Khan, started his medical practice there in 1937…

Pervez Khan: He was the only doctor in the little township of roughly 5,000 people, of which around 70 percent were Tibetees [Balti Muslims]. Many of them had prospered over the past 60 years and owned properties. Most of these Tibetees were Shigris, such as Mirza Hussain and Khan Bahadur Badaruddin. The only exception was the Kashmiri family of Khawaja Abdul Ghani, who owned a massive English manor house in Sanjauli, known as the North Oak.

By the end of August 1947, stories and exaggerated rumours started pouring in from Pakistan about the mass killings of Sikhs by Muslims in Rawalpindi.

The Partition of the Subcontinent resulted in a bloody mass migration, which claimed over a million lives and uprooted at least 10 million people, many of them children. Rehana Waheed was nine and her brother, Pervez Ahmed Khan, was seven at that time. Together, the siblings recall the traumatic events of their own migration from Simla to Lahore in 1947…

HOLED UP IN A HOTEL

RW: Sometime in mid-September, our parents told us that we would not be going to school, but staying with other Muslim families in Simla at the prestigious Elysium Hotel, as it seemed ‘safer’. We packed a few clothes for a short stay but, as fate dictated, we would never return to our home again!

While at the hotel, Daddy decided to fetch some valuables from home. He went to the house with our cook, Shakoor, but found out that anger over the treatment of Sikhs in Pakistan had locals, including recently migrated Sikhs, seething. The SHO [station house officer] was also a Sikh and knew my father. He told him that it would be better for him to stay locked up in a cell at the police station till morning, and that’s what he did.

PK: Half a mile across the Elysium Hotel was the main ridge of Simla, below which was the sprawling township. There, the Sikhs had a large gurdwara, where they would gather every night, which ended with ferocious chants that resonated across the valley. This sound was petrifying and we expected an attack on the hotel every night. Men between the ages of 18 and 70 stayed on duty through the night, guarding the hotel with shovels, hoes, large axes, etc, as we had no guns or swords.

My mother told me to fetch a piece of rock, and then she pulled down one of the brass curtain rods. She sharpened one edge of the rod on the rock to the extent that it became almost like a spear. “If there is an attack, I shall kill a few before I die,” she told me.

THE CAMP IN KALKA

RW: There was a little corner in the hotel’s verandah, where father would treat patients. One day, we saw a young man with his bare back — it had been slashed and there was a deep cut. He said that a Sikh man, armed with a sword, had almost cut him down.

Another three weeks or so of anxiety followed, after which we were told to leave by train for the town of Kalka in Haryana, in early October. There, a camp had been set up, from where migrants would leave for Pakistan.

We finally arrived in Kalka after a journey of six hours or more. The families set up their respective tents and we would live in them for almost three weeks, sleeping on darees [thin rug or carpet].

As our father was the camp doctor, he was asked to put up his tent — two bed sheets tied together propped on sticks, with a red cross painted on it — at the west end of the camp, so that it was easily discernible. A church was located just outside the camp, where father set up a makeshift dispensary and would go there for a few hours every day.

PK: While we were at the Kalka camp, three ladies arrived from Simla in a private vehicle. One was a Zoroastrian, another a Christian and the third was a Hindu. They brought with them ample stock of life-saving drugs — at their own expense. They would make three such trips.

ESCAPE FROM DEATH

RW: On October 20, we were told to get ready to go to Pakistan. My mother borrowed a huge steel pot from one of the Balti families that were camped nearby — it would prove to be life-saving — to cook parathas for our train journey to Pakistan.

It was while she was cooking, with us siblings inside the tent, that we heard loud explosions and saw flashes of light. The sky filled up with red and orange colours. My first instinct was to run. Patty did, and he disappeared in that chaos. I felt Daddy’s hand drag me back into the tent. Ammi was crying and shouting “where is Patty?” as she lay injured inside the tent, with my youngest brother, Puppoo, huddled nearby.

The attack continued for perhaps 20 minutes. Huddled in a corner of the tent, I was bleeding from my head and arm. Ammi had been hit by shrapnel in the abdomen and Daddy was hit in the lower back. Suddenly, there was a hush and the sound of gunfire stopped. I was later told that the commanding officer of the nearby regiment, a British officer, had immediately rushed in and stopped the attack.

PK: We were destined to leave for Pakistan on the morning of October 21, 1947. A day earlier, I saw my mother undoing the inside hemming of the end lapel of my knickers and inserting a 100-rupee note before restitching it. “In case we get separated, remember you have this one-hundred rupee note, which may come handy,” she told me. I think about this memory almost every day and it often tears me up.

At that time, I was sitting to my mother’s right and my sister was behind her, with my brother in between. My father had one of his leather suitcases open and he was busy packing. The moment it became dark, I observed a whitish sparkle 10 feet above to my right, coming from the dried nullah, which was about 30 feet away. A deafening explosion followed.

I ran towards the nullah, and in between the two was a two-feet deep hollow in the ground, where I used to play with marbles. While still a bit short of the ditch, there was an explosion very close to me, with shrapnel hitting my left thigh and causing excessive bleeding. Moving another foot or so, I slid into the hollow ditch. By now, the camp had turned into a battleground, with grenades being hurled on tents amid deafening gunfire. There were cries of agony. About 15 or 20 feet away, I saw my father crouching and shouting my name over and over.

Dragging my left leg, I moved slowly and stealthily in my father’s direction. Then, another stinging shrapnel or bullet hit the calf of my left leg. Somehow, I got close enough for my father to drag me inside the tent.

About 60 people died in the attack. What saved us was that borrowed steel pot, which took the brunt of the shrapnel. Lying as flat as possible, shielded on one side by two leather suitcases, none of us, including the badly injured, made any sound, as the explosions and gunfire continued. Only my mother spoke and said to my father: “In case I die, please look after my children.”

TREACHEROUS TRACKS

RW: Soon after, the injured were helped on to a big army truck and driven to the nearby church. They were laid upon the church benches, while the lights were kept off due to fears of another attack. I can still recall the night that went silent, with the stench of blood and the painful cries of the injured and those who had lost loved ones.

PK: I woke up the next day on one of the church benches, full of bandages. While lying there, I turned my head and spotted Ammi two benches away. She was absolutely still. I was about to scream, when she moved and I thanked God. She lived for another 59 years!

RW: I remember the team from the Red Cross, some doctors and even Daddy — despite his injured back — were helping treat the injured. We stayed in the church for one day. The priest was nice — he took Ammi and me to his house, next to the church, where she bathed me and washed out the blood that I was covered in.

By night, Daddy had Patty shifted to a large, dimly lit bogie at the railway station. An old injured man was the only other person in it. A soldier, with a large-brimmed hat, was stationed at the door and Patty was told that he was a Gurkha, and that nothing could go past him.

It was absolute mayhem at the station the next morning. The train was filled like a pack of sardines. People clambered on to the roofs of the bogies, with several of them falling off the moving train.

Finally, we were leaving for Pakistan. The injured were given preferential treatment and we had an entire wagon to ourselves. Patty was in a bad state, having lost a lot of blood. He was lying on the top berth for most of the way. Ammi, Puppoo and I sat on the bottom berth, taking turns to sleep in whatever awkward position we could.

PK: Whenever the train moved fast, we would lift the wooden window shutter to peep outside. We regularly saw piles of dead bodies, being preyed upon by vultures and other scavengers. For some strange reason, this Noor Jehan song rang in my ears: “Aandhiyan gham ki yun chalien, baagh ujarr ke reh gaya” [Such were the storms of grief, that they uprooted the garden]. To this day, I associate this song with that macabre scene.

RW: Daddy was always getting up to see where we were. At the Amritsar station, the train stopped for a few hours. Outside, the Sikhs were shouting and yelling. We were told not to open the windows, even for air, although it was suffocatingly hot. They probably wanted to kill everyone on the train but, fortunately, we were able to resume our journey without any attack.

But it was at a slow pace, with multiple stops. After what seemed like ages, we finally arrived at the Pakistani border. As soon as the train stopped, there was a loud cheer, with slogans of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ [Long Live Pakistan]. The constant fear of death, which was hanging like the Sword of Damocles on perhaps all the migrants to Pakistan, vanished in that instant. Freedom, at last! I can never forget that feeling.

‘PAKISTAN ZINDABAD’

At the Wagah station, tables were laid out for us, with biscuits, some rotis and daal, which were prepared by the villagers. After getting some food and water, the train finally left for Lahore.

When we arrived at the station, there was endless sloganeering, with shouts of ‘Pakistan Zindabad’ and ‘Quaid-e-Azam Zindabad’ punctuating the air.

Suddenly there was a hush. While the train was still moving, an eager and anxious man had tried to get off the train. But a misstep led to his body being crushed between the train and the platform. I still remember vividly his white clothes and light blue coat rolling between the platform and the train. His life was over, just as he had reached Pakistan! No wonder the silence and the hush.

This tragedy took place just as we arrived at our destination. Ammi and Patty were carried on stretchers, while the rest of us walked out with my father. Government buses were outside the station and they transported us to the Mayo Hospital, where we were taken to the emergency room for examination.

Both Ammi and Patty had splinters lodged in their body and had to be operated on the next day. Ammi had hand-grenade splinters in her abdominal area and Patty had bullet shells in his leg. Daddy also had a splinter in his lower back and my right thumb was injured, but luckily no bone was broken. The injury above my ear on the head had caused a lot of bleeding, but it was superficial. Puppoo, my youngest brother, had a graze on his head.

After being treated, we three were told we could go… but where to? Daddy flagged a tonga [horse-drawn cart] and we headed to Mozang to meet my mother’s relatives. You cannot imagine our absolute surprise, mixed with happiness, when we entered the house and found Ammi’s entire family there. We had made it alive!

We went to the hospital daily to get our wounds dressed. Ammi was discharged after a few days, while Patty had to stay for a month or so for him to regain his health and for his leg to heal.

Our joy and happiness on reaching Pakistan was greater than the pain we went through. Pakistan was a magical name, the country we all had prayed for. So many people had sacrificed and died for this cause and we were the fortunate ones who had survived.

PK: I was in the east ward of the Mayo Hospital, sitting on the bed and playing with marbles. The sun had set and the light outside was fading. There was a slight commotion at the right end of the ward and in walked Mr Jinnah, accompanied by the hospital staff.

He slowly walked past the other patients, inquiring about their health, before stopping by my bedside. “Tum ko kidder chote laga hai?” [Where did you get hurt?] he asked me. I replied: “Taang pe” [On my leg]. He repeated his question and I repeated my answer. When he asked the third time, one of the doctors explained that Mr Jinnah wanted to know the location. “At the Kalka camp in Simla,” I replied.

He shook my hand and said: “I am so proud that someone as young as him has shed his blood for Pakistan.”

I was proud, too, of completing a journey that was fraught with peril at a time of grave uncertainty. I was also hopeful, driven by the desire to work for a future that would do justice to those who had made sacrifices for the fulfilment of this dream.

Rehana Waheed, now a widow, was married to a prominent pioneering officer of the Pakistan Air Force. She can be contacted at rehanawaheed26@gmail.com

Pervez A. Khan is a mountaineer and naturalist, with a special interest in wilderness photography. He has also authored multiple coffee-table books. He can be contacted at pattykhan74@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, August 11th, 2024