Chapter 40: A Dash to the Refugee Camp
In the group of forty two refugees Jagat, Dhumma, Gamma and Heera walked to Meram there were eleven men, thirteen women and eigjhteen children. The young children, old men and women unable to walk were on the gadda driven by Beeru. Two men and Jagat walked in front of the gadda, Dhumma and three men at the back of it and Gamma on one side and another man on the other. As they walked and the gadda creaked Jagat thought about his children left behind at the mercy of a gun, Sukhia and Preeti; and Preeti's rebuke about exposing her children to risk of injury and death reverberated in his ears. The truth of what she said made him feel guilty and only the creaking of the gadda, chirping of the few birds that were still awake or those awakened by the noise of the gadda and the occasional hushed conversation in the group or a child's demand for water and food interrupted his thoughts. Every now and then he called out to the back and the sides of gadda to ensure all was in order and urged all to push on briskly because he wanted get back to Qadian at the earliest.
Jagat and Alam Khan, one of the two men walking with him up front, tall, moustached and clean shaven, had known each other from college. Both being secular and non-religious. as they walked they decried partition, its violence and bloodletting.
"Jagat I didn't want to leave my roots but the threats and violence had left me no option," said a teary eyed Alam.
"I understand. I wish I could tell your to not go and guarantee your safety but I can't."
It was close to midnight and the mugginess made one gasp for a breath of fresh air. Suddenly emerging like slithering snakes from the roadside crops, marauders attacked the caraan from the front. Children screamed while the women tried silencing them.. The swords clanked and lathis clashed and in the mayhem Beeru saw Jagat defending himself with a sword from a lathi while unbeknownst to him a sword was coming at him from behind. Beeru screamed to alert Jagat and jumped in between him and the incoming sword, His throat slashed, he fell near the fatally wounded Alam Khan just as Dhumma landed a lathi on the attacker's skull fellig him to the ground. Notiicing one of their own hitting the gound, and perhaps dead, the murderers fled.
As the survivors and bodies of Beeru and Alam on it, the gadda hurried towards the Meram Camp, Jagat thought back to Gandhi at Dandi breaking the salt laws, the non-violent raid at Dharsana Salt Works, the demonstrations against Simon Commission, the cells of Gujranwala Central or Delhi's Tihar Jail, he couldn't ever have imagined partition or its horrors; they were simply unimaginable, beyond unforeseeable. All the way to the camp the scenes of the attack replayed in his mind as did what Preeti had said to him as he embarked on this trip -- all this as Alam's body, his head and clothes drenched in blood and the gash on dead Beeru's throat stared at him in the starlit night.
Alam's body was left at the camp to be buried; his wish to not leave the soil of his birth tragically fulfilled; Beeru's remained on the gadda driven as it turned around toward Qadian, a coffin on wheels. Jagat walked with the gadda holding one of its wooden posts at the tail end thinking of beeru and wiping his tear soaked eyes; he had known Beeru all his life; had it not been for Beeru's constant presence at the well (Khooh) how he, Jagat, may not have ever gone to high school because during his absence from Qadian he wanted someone to keep an eye on Amro.
About half way to Qadian, Dhumma stopped the gadda to urinate, Jagat and Gamma unburdened their bladders too.
The gadda's wheels squeaked again piercing the night along with crickets' chirping.
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