Independence

The well-worn pages of history fluttered over. A historical past that is shared. Two countries born out of much bloodshed and heartache – Pakistan gaining independence a day earlier, India following suit a day later – the fourteenth and the fifteenth of August respectively.

As August approached with intermittent bursts of torrential rains, crops were watered and canals dug. The earth was nourished and fed. My city began its yearly ritual of adorning itself with green and white flags (of all shapes and sizes), fairy-light-draperies on trees, festive decorations, patriotic jingles, and a certain unmistakable flavour. The kind of flavour that you can taste in the air.

The 14th and the 15th of August have been marked by history as significant milestones – independence for the subcontinent. The Youth Initiative for Peace (YIP) movement had been planning a vigil at the (Wagah/Atari) border for Independence Day. Local chapters of YIP India and Pakistan had been coordinating the event.

The idea was to go to the border (Wagah border on the Pakistani side, Atari border on the Indian side) and have a vigil there - people coming together on both sides of the border, united in a celebration of their independence, actively being able to not let a shadow of the past make a violent intrusion upon the present, lighting candles together for sustainable peace, freedom, justice and harmony.

Lots of people were collecting at my house before leaving for the border. Much of the morning was spent in making frantic last-minute-phone-calls, waking people up; efforts at coordination and cohesion...I was wearing green and proud to be Pakistani.

We left for the border a little after 4.00pm. The cavalcade of cars was amusingly funny, barat style. Twelve cars, in a procession, out of which only two actually reached Wagah. Mira, Ali, Mehru and myself were sitting in Mira and Ali’s car, bringing up the rear of the procession. Braving the heat, the insane traffic, the fanatic melas on the streets – it was incredible. The feel of energy and charge surrounded all of us, empowering and inspiring, brewing a distinct kind of inexplicable magic. I wish I could have captured and distilled some of that mood and preserved it for the way back...

It was oddly surreal. We seemed to be traveling through time itself, for as we traversed out of the more familiar part of town, into the less frequented areas, civilization as had come to know it was showing signs of decaying anachronism. Brick and marbled glass structures gave way to green fields slowly snoozing in the late afternoon sunshine. Old pictures and history books were identified with, as nothing seemed to have changed since early 20th century.

The car crossed over an ancient-looking bridge that was positioned only some feet away from the rushing water beneath. We looked around; astounded at the traffic inflow...it seemed as though everyone and their entire neighborhood’s family had decided to go to the border.

‘If the bridge collapses, I’ll rescue-mission all of you, one by one,’ said Mehru, with the lolling ease only a swimmer could have felt while looking at the dirty swiftly flowing water.

‘I’d rather that didn’t happen,’ replied Ali, uncertainly.

I gazed out the window, and prayed that the bridge would survive through the day. Did any of us have any slight inkling then, regarding the fate of that straining bridge? And if we did, would we still have proceeded? No, and yes. [The bridge collapsed about half an hour after we went through. And out of the initial eighty people (that I knew of), leaving for the border, for the vigil, only ten managed to reach the border].

Our world was screened by layers of dirt and swirling dust particles.
Dust-ridden and sweaty, we started walking towards the gate from the parking lot. Before leaving for the border and in the many days (prior to August 14th) spent trying to mobilize people for the vigil, countless people had come up to me and had imparted words of wisdom and fearful suspicions about the Wagah border, India and Pakistan, and Independence Day. My mind whirled with notions of bomb threats and violent mobs and rampant lawlessness and ‘what to expect’...I had been chastised several times for sheer folly. I had been dubbed an ‘idealistic’ sharifa (custard apple). I had also been heaped praise upon and congratulated for daring or perhaps attempting to ‘do something’ – (“it’s all about the initiative...”) I must confess that I had known that there would be oceans of people, I had although vastly miscalculated the depths of those boundless oceans. [There were more miscalculations of judgment to follow – we were a group of ten people at Wagah; eight girls and two boys. I suppose we should have known from then onwards that events wouldn’t play themselves out the way we had divined them to be so].

Towering above us, I could see the structure of the gate; I knew that somewhere over there, beyond the sea of man, there was Indian soil. And in-between the barbed wire was a piece of unclaimed land...that bore witness to the animosity that compelled partition.

We were surrounded by milling crowds. I could smell excitement and madness in the air, mingling with the smell of sweat and dirt. Jingoism too was rife in the guise of nationalistic pride. I had hardly begun to identify and separate the two emotions, when all of a sudden, danger appeared on the horizon. Blinking and flashing; a neon sign if there would be one. We were in the midst of a violent agitated mob. A mob that was being lathi-charged. Panic erased excitement and flooded the atmosphere. When terror and fear stake their clammy clutches around you, there are only three instinctive reactions – fear; fight; flight. ‘Fear’ immobilizes you; akin to driftwood in a tempestuous ocean. To ‘Fight’ is to take immediate action; what action does one take in the middle of a churning mass of bodies? ‘Flight’ is to flee; but what does one do when close to a hundred people, packed together, take flight all at once? Stampedes ensued.

We were all pushed and shoved, squashed, grabbed and manhandled...I could feel myself being pressed in from all sides. I couldn’t breathe. Frantically trying to excavate myself from the mob; an army of groping hands with fingers trained to pinch and squeeze. (Was it a mere coincidence that there were only men all around me?)

‘You know why they were chasing us?’ Ali asked me, as we walked through the parking lot. I looked back as I nodded, looked at the throng of men; dancing, jumping, shouting and celebrating; and I wondered whether if their jubilation was caused by Independence Day and bursts of nationalistic pride, or whether the elation lay in a much more convoluted testosterone-laden zone. A zone imbued with wet dreams, lustful gazes, sexual fantasies and stereotypes fed upon chauvinism and traditional mores. A zone that had found wish fulfillment cloaked in the garb of mobs, and the extended freedom and anonymity to freely indulge in any thrill-seeking activities. ‘Because of all of you,’ he added. He didn’t offer up anymore information, and I didn’t press him for any either – both of us knew who was the subject of the unwelcome attention. It was a profoundly sad silence that walked alongside with us, siphoning our zest and high spirits.

Directed by the ineffectual police, we had to take a dirt road, traveling through muck and slime on our way back to the city. Back to the city, where we could seek refuge in the comfort of our houses, and cold showers and food.

The city had come to a halt. A brightly lit, noisy, colourful albeit suffocating monster held the city in its grip. We were finally back in connected-by-cell-phone-land, so our parents were called and informed that we were safe (in manner of speaking), we’d keep being updated as to what the situation was like in Gulberg, on the Mall...(hail text messaging!) We seemed to be moving very sluggishly along the canal banks. (The road becomes wider and the banks narrower as you enter the city, as you move out, the tree-lined banks seem to stretch from here till far-away-there. Despite the wide road, the traffic was well and truly at a complete standstill). A friend called and asked if he could help us in any way.

‘Not unless you can get a canoe,’ said Mira as she smiled wryly.
Inside the car, we listened to Farida Khannum sing Faiz, and ate challis. Outside, burst silencers roared as motorbikes were revved up and raced alongside one another. Men danced on the streets, throwing fireworks onto the ground, yelling, singing, cheering, and ogling. [Since when did ogling at other people become a national pastime? I was made aware of this in India, a month ago, when I would walk down the streets, and feel overwhelmingly free and light, and not miss being stared at and checked out by the whole world]. I remembered a poem by Faiz, ‘Nisar mein teri galion par...’

“Picking up our flags from these grounds
will march forth more caravans of your lovers
For whose journeys’ sake, our footsteps have
shortened the lengths of the agonizing quest
For whose sake we have made universal
by losing our lives, the pledge to your faithfulness
We, who were slain in unlit pathways.”

Someone I met later in the evening told me about a cartoon in the newspaper; the illustration showed road blocks on all the major streets in Islamabad, paving way for traffic jams and wrought nerves. Beneath the cartoon was a sign boldly declaring, “HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!”

I still feel slightly numb as I write...I don’t really know how to formulate a reply to people who say “you should’ve known this was bound to happen.” But even if I had known, and hadn’t gone and been a part of the madness myself, it wouldn’t have stopped anything. How can you possibly choose to shut your eyes, block out screams, and deliberately walk away? For how long can you resolutely look the other way? Even if I “should have known” how can that even begin to excuse and justify insanity itself? I feel numb because I don’t know when these cycles will dissolve – cycles of violence, of anguish, of pain, of power, of hatred, of revenge, of destruction, of the opposite of beauty and love, of falsehood – vicious cycles of inequity and injustice, of crime and no punishment.

Independence Day...57 years onwards...I’m fumbling to find something to say, to be able to articulate myself. Why do I find myself agreeing with a friend when she said (on the way back home from Wagah, while we stuck in traffic) ‘I love my country, but I don’t think my country loves me.’
And why couldn’t I feel even the slightest vestige of pride on the anniversary of my country’s independence? And why do I still cringe with shame when I think of my country and my people, and independence.