Pakistan within

Dear Banno,

I still remember, how beautiful you looked when sleeping. Those petite lips contracting into a pretty smile, eyelashes fitting so perfect into each other, the face so peaceful. Of course, I haven't been able to sleep of late, I can't seem to forget the cross-roads near Karim's shop. Hope you remember that's where all of us friends use to hangout together. Ah, the good old days. But then most of my life has been nothing but re-collection of those days in here.

You always asked me what I thought of as I waited near the shop, for you. Why, dear it's you I thought of. I didn't mention it then , I should have. That tiny lane you came from, bordered by open sewers which used to flood during the monsoon,ah, what a stench. Look what I have started doing flowing away with the sewage.

I never said I love you, but then they said it before I could and then I could never mention it, could I? As I waited for you, while near by Ganges rolled on in all its holy majesty, I thought of saying my heart out to you. What happened then? Why am i here and you out there married, i guess, by now?

Pakistan had just been formed, my dear. That eternal damned moth-ridden state and a Pakistan had formed in the village, in all our hearts. The Great divide from which only blood migrated but the souls were left behind. One night a horde of 15 Muslisms came to my house and threatened to kill me if I didn't stop seeing you. How furious I was, how bloated in youthful anger? I promised to chop the head off every damned Muslim who said that but then i remembered your dad had intervened the day before and made the horde go away. The borders had been drawn, the migration was inevitable. But we were in India, this was the secular land, the land of a million religions, of religions people hadn't heard of, of religion people can't talk against. Why then did I have to go?

When I told you of the incident, you asked me to stay, to prove them wrong, to do something brave. Oh, how I wished to turn into the Aurangzeb and chop the heads of the dissidents, of anyone who dared to speak against you. Maybe, you wanted me to run away with you, I can never know. But that evening, when I went back home, my folks were very scared for my life. That same night a bigger horde came in and dared us to show my face so that they could kill me on-the-spot. My parents caring as they were hid me in the basement. They trapped the volcano amongst old boxes. Your dad had again intervened and saved the day. As I came out of my shelter, the lull was contagious. It was decided that I should leave my village. I should go somewhere, to Bombay.

I never said good-bye, did i? It was all so sudden, so out of the blue, but then I had to go for the sake of my parents if nothing else. A hurried suitcase was packed, the same one in which I had stared few hours back seething with rage and now, I stare with growing disappointment in life. With a caravan of 10-15 Hindu uncles and Karim I was sent off in the night local. As is reached station I had vague hope that you would come, your dad must have told you. And you, the unfettered, would break free and be with me. We would run away as you had planned, from this village which was mine but never ours. As the train gave its first puff, I thought I smelt you or maybe it was the banks of Ganges. As I lost the vision of the platform I knew there was to be no more Banno, there was to be no more me.

Mumbai, yes they call it Mumbai now, it has as many rats in its gutters as humans on the roads and equally filthy are both. The first few days were terrible. The nightmares of people pounding on my door, of you drowning in the gutter like Ganges, of you shirking off the news of my absence. But then a man has to eat doesn't he. Ah, life caught up on me and now its only when I am sleeping do i remember my village. I am afraid the only time I will forever be en my village will be in my dreams, the longest dream ever dreamed, in the eternal sleep.

But that's a very sad note to end on for a woman who must have a kid or more by now. Hope you bloom forever and forget me. Hope the star-less sky the engulfs my nights, lay's not a finger on your roof. Hope you do remember me. Hope, the hope never dies.

Falteringly yours,
Karn