An early summer - II

The gruesome attack on a hapless farmer had the village up in arms and the next few days saw incessant rioting between Hindus and Muslims. The two communities had been living on barbed memories for too long. Of the few hundred families in Sultanpur there wasn’t a single one which hadn’t lost a member to the partition pogrom. With a history like that even the minutest of skirmishes resulted in rioting since many saw it as an opportunity to vent their hatred. Years of togetherness that the village had seen was stark in contrast to the bloodshed that was now commonplace.

While the riots went on unabated the sober voices of the village were cut-up, snapped and threatened to be choked. In all of this there was a young man, Rajbir Singh, all of 31, who stood in the way of rioters pleading aman (peace).

‘Please don’t do this, we haven’t yet even cleaned our previous wounds, how can we inflict fresh wounds on each other. Raab will never pardon us for this.’ Rajbir pleaded to the mob.

In a fit of anger someone from the mob attacked him. There was a deadening silence, rioters came to a halt. But sacrilege had been committed!

The prodigy was half-burnt. The news soon spread and a shocked village woke up to take cognizance of its inhumanity. Rajbir was now struggling for his life at the makeshift hospital.

Half-conscious, he murmured lines from one of his poems.

life at best, appears foggy

sometimes obvious, sometimes illusive

these are my chosen paths

to traverse them my fate

Rajbir was an exceptional poet who had won immense praise from litterateurs for his wonderful works and more so for the drift of his works. As a kid his major influencers were great poets like Bulleh Shah and Waris Shah. He grew up in an ardently religious family, his father was a Granthi in the village Gurdwara and his mother too was a devout believer in the creator’s artistry. While his own religion played an important role in his embryonic years, he was never far away from other religions. His was a respected family in Sultanpur with known lineage going back several generations. The Panchayat would often call upon his father to understand his views on ethos for the village.

Rajbir painfully lived on for a few months, serving a brutal reminder of the past. In his comatose state he did what no saint could do, no religion could. He brought together an embittered people, urged them to live up to human values. Sultanpur was witnessing a societal revival of sorts. Things were beginning to look up. Suddenly the skies seemed cloudless and beautiful horizons were all over.

Yet that fear remained. In a society all kinds of people live together, some move on in life while some hold on to their grudges. The day Rajbir chose to traverse his path and keep his tryst with the almighty, Sultanpur was on tenterhooks fearing a repeat of the past which would only insult the martyr.

Days, months and years passed eventually the fear gave way to optimism. Bhim Agarwal, who had seen Rajbir grow up in to a fine young man and a brilliant poet would often reminisce anecdotes from the poet's life at Panchayat meetings. Rajbir’s parents continued to stay in the village, leading a lackluster life, often finding courage in their son’s deeds.

Sulanpur still reveres its hero. At Rajbir’s memorial villagers still flock in remembrance of the poet. His epitaph reads:

Let bygones be bygones,

The exalted will rise again.

An early summer - I

In the small border village of Sultanpur in Punjab there was a horrifying hush. The village Panchayat was convened hurriedly. The Sarpanch, Bhim Aggarwal, a short man with a pronounced cut on his forehead, dressed in his typical Swadeshi attire, slowly made it to the raised platform under the village banyan tree. Surrounded by the other panchs, he began to speak only to flutter and look for support.

Summer had declared its arrival a little too soon that year. It was the year of the first democratic elections of independent India, 1952. India was looking forward to being one of the world’s strongest democracies, reaching a stage of self-autarky, stifling the internal bickering. While the country was gradually coming to terms with the newly-found freedom, the freedom struggle and the culminating partition-riots were still green in all minds. The memories of the ‘inquelab zindabad’ rants were stained. Gory images from the greatest human transfer stained those memories. Communal rioting had subsided but communal hatred remained a menace that threatened the peaceful existence of civil society. Bitter memories were hard to let go. India was five years young, struggling to walk.

Shattered (Sultanpur) villagers were gathering in the village temple’s courtyard. Women flocked towards one side and men stood in front of the raised platform. Whispers were now flying fast; the gravity of the matter did not escape anyone.

‘We are gathered here to mourn the passing away of our beloved Rajbir Singh, the cynosure of our eyes; the son of Sultanpur. The young kid freed us from shackles, taught us to live harmoniously under one roof, filled many a dry and enraged eye with tears. His loss is today threatening to take us back to the dungeons he took us out from, even while his memory pleads of us to stand for what he died’, said the Sarpanch.

He continued, ‘I have no commandments for you today, the candle’s endless flicker is no more, and that has left us in the dark, the choice is yours, either wait for dawn or set the sun on this village forever. Let not posterity remember Rajbir as a wasted prodigy!’

Sultanpur, now a battered border village, was once at the heart of united Punjab. It was often called the ‘purveyor of hearty revolutionaries’. The freedom movement that saw the emergence of a steely Indian resolve ended rather glumly with what came to be known as partition. Partition was not the end of the misery. In the years that followed the partition there were frequent riots which shook the country. Unfortunately, Sultanpur too was not to be spared.

The year was 1951, month December, while tending to his cattle a farmer from the village strayed into Pakistani territory. Torched. His body was found a few days later with a message, ‘Hindus who dare to taint our land will be charred to death’.

To be continued....