Risky Routes and Rootless People

In the middle of almost nowhere, an unmarked smuggler’s route through a jungle short-cut in the badlands that fall between Mehsana in Gujarat towards Barmer in Rajasthan, in the middle of the night before dawn, we stop for diesel. And a cup of tea, which, suddenly brings back a taste and scent I have not experienced for the last 30-odd years. Bengali tea, the way it is made in the shanty towns along the Grand Chord, here in the approaches to the Thar.

A little bit of a diversion. Life, and 500 kilometres or so, from the "normal" Mumbai - Delhi route, this stretch of State Highway back road takes us along the alignment that people have been using for centuries now to link Hyderabad, Sindh with Hyderabad, Deccan. And points beyond on both sides. Yes, we know, a border runs through the desert now, at Munnabao, but that doesn’t stop nature. Nor does it stop the camel riders, hustling tourists during the day, from reverting to their time-tested occupations at night.

Gently put, if you are not careful in these parts, you will lose your possessions. And more. So, you place rulers and governance in position, which spurs human migration, following economic growth, and then you also place barriers on the path, to profit from it. That’s natural. How else would pearls from Basrah and gold from the Levant, reach Golconda, then, probably in exchange for spices and slaves?

So over the centuries, along these routes, grow these way-stops. Temporary resting places, the Mughals called them ’sarais’. Some grew, for example Mughalsarai went on to become the biggest railway switching yard in the continent, maybe even the world. Others did not.

But they all have one thing in common - they evolve as melting pots of cultures and serve as marker posts for human safety along dangerous routes. Respite is temporary, sanctuary is for as long as you want it. That’s the beauty you get to see when following the dangerous paths of human migration, often also called "illegal", but how can something be illegal if it has been going on as far back in history as you can comprehend? As the saying goes, "do you remember when your fore-father’s caravan reached here?"

And human migration is about as natural as travel gets. Tracking the routes they take, in real time, more so. Close co-operation between different communities and religions is but natural in such environs. In modern day terms, we call it "secularism". Having grown up, amongst other places, in the mobility of Eastern and North Eastern/NE Frontier railway towns in the North East, Bihar and West Bengal, and having seen as well as heard about the realities of life first-hand as it impacted 1947 and 1971 there, my view on many things "secular" happens to be, often, very different from the black and white that is used to portray saffron and green.

To understand this more, to understand just one more patch on an old quilt, you may want to travel towards Kanchrapara and Naihati, 40 odd kilometres from Sealdah, and meet the local Muslims there. In the middle of the Great Calcutta Killings of 1946-47, some railway officers, led by a Mr. Southcombe, a Mr. Mishra and a few others, and in those days most railway officers were also part of the "Territorial Army" so they knew how to bear arms, mobilised a locomotive, hooked on a rake of passenger wagons, added a few friendly soldiers, and rescued Bihari as well as local Muslims in transit towards East Pakistan, who were being butchered by, you guessed right, the East Bengal Muslims who did not want them in the soon to be formed East Pakistan. Why the East Bengal Muslims were aided and abetted by Pathans and Punjabis is something I never understood, till I went to Pakistan about 2 years ago, and figured out what I had always heard whispers of.

I also remember travelling to Kanchrapara in the mid-60s as youngsters just entering our teens, riding footplate on steam locos on the Sahibganj Loop Line, and how those people, many of whom had by then become railway employees, including the best of the best - ace engine drivers for mail and express trains, took care of us, how their families met and adored us, because they knew how our fathers had risked their lives to save them.

A few decades later, when 1971 rolls around, and there is communal as well as sectarian violence in East Pakistan again. Once again, Kanchrapara and Naihati become important railway hubs, with commerce as well as human tragedy rolling through on the same broad gauge line that saw the sorrows of 1946-47.

Cut to the present. Gujarat. An unfortunate Muslim gets burnt alive by a frenzied Hindu mob outside Vadodara, and it makes headlines for days after that. That’s news for our vibrant and free media. But. A few million Muslims who migrated from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and Bengal to East Pakistan have been dying a few million deaths everyday, first at the hand of the local East Pakistanis (now Bangladeshis) who did not want them before 1971, and then at the hand of local West Pakistanis (now Pakistanis) who did not want them after 1971. That’s not news. Why?

But we get ahead of our story. Which has to do with this ultra-clean and safe "dhaba" at one of the lesser used and relatively unknown crossroad on the Mehsana - Barmer route. The gent at the filling station, with an album displaying his achievements as a judoka displayed prominently behind the counter, responds in the affirmative when we ask him if there is any decent establishment on our route where we can stretch our legs and grab a meal as well as a cup of tea. (Note - do NOT ask for coffee on highways in Rajasthan or Gujarat. You will get sugar sweet milk with large amounts of cocoa butter masquerading as chocolate syrup, served luke-warm. Espresso means they will sprinkle more cocoa butter powder pretending to be, what else, chocolate, on top of the foam. And it will cost thrice as much as the tea.)

So here we are, at a dhaba run by Gujarati Muslims. Neat and clean, with separate kitchens and enclosures for vegetarians and non-vegetarians. This, incidentally, is the first place in India that I have seen where the "chotu" brings a six-glass carrier with a choice of bottled water, ordinary water in open glasses and "soft drinks". So you take whatever you want right away instead of sending him back. And a very young boy, speaking a patois of Hindi and Bengali which I have almost forgotten, is serving me tea the way his forefathers did in the delta of the Padma.

Long story short - but a dhaba on a desolate crossroad in Gujarat is the place this young Muslim boy, parents gone adrift in the tussle between East and West Pakistan, finds sanctuary. Not wanted by the Promised Land his parents were never allowed into. And now serving the thousands, including those from his part of the country who flow from East to West and then back again like water trying to find its level. With tea made the Bengali way, in Gujarat, while millions die trying to get there and back.

Sometimes, I wonder, why doesn’t this make the headlines? Why is it only when Hindus kill Muslims or vice-versa, that it is news?

We tip heavily, and we drive on, towards Rajasthan. To seek answers. Where, amongst other things, we find a tazia perched on top of the Jaisalmer ruling family’s personal temple. Probably the most secular symbol I have ever seen in my life.