The Wheels of Time

msouza #30
``
``Sure, Panjabis can live anywhere in India but given the choice they prefer to live in London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. ``

I didnot make that comment, I was REPLYING to it.

``India belongs to punjab ... ``

Good, thats what I thought. I often see no connection of what is said about Indians here and my own experience.

So long as Punjabis on either side of the border understand at the outset that I(and I trust my countrymen) will personally help dispatch every Punjabi out of India to any future Punjabi nation in preference to being left with the `both here and there contradiction` baby.

#22 by sadna on May 17, 2003 9:47am PT
+sameerJB #21
Please take IK Gujral with my best wishes. Also take Kuldip Nayar and the rest of the homesick Punjabi Hindu/Sikh crowd - soldiers included. I am sure you will keep them safe from the evil Indians. And at least then Kashmiri Hindus or Tamilian Muslims willnot be expected to foot the bill for this friendship.
But please, if you decide to have a Punjabi nation of your own, donot try to have it both ways again - take EVERY SINGLE Punjabi living in EVERY SINGLE corner of India into your nation, donot leave even one cousin by marriage behind.
I seriously doubt that another half and half deal with Punjabis this time(we are a separate nation and noone else can live in it but we can live anywhere in India) like happened with Muslims and Kashmiris- will be allowed by Indians to happen again. ++

Sadna..what have you been writing? Just read your post again. I think you misunderstood what others wrote.
Which Punjabi Hindu or Sikh is home sick? Do you now mean Pakistan is our home?? How can u say such a thing!!
Don`t u know that when our ancestors lived in paksitani area..that time it was not paksitan..it was India like the present day India. But now it is not. Why should we be homesick?? All we want to say is that no hindu who left his land behind could think of going back again to even see the total Islamic land they have made out of it. But India continues to have all religions

So what makes you think that any punjabi has any less or more right on the Indian land now.
If people say ask the Paksitanis to give us their part fo punjab so that Punjab can be a seprate country..do you know what we mean??
WE want to tell them that just like they keep harping about Kashmir..how would they feel if they had to give their Punjab away??
We want to tell them that before thinking of breaking India they should break their country first. It was formation of Paksitan that divided the land of Punjab...it was paksitan that encouraged terrorism in punjab so a s to break India...but were not successful..all that is history now.
Paksitan told punjab to break away from india but why doesn`t it give us its part fo punjab???

First of all --a question to you...who are Punjabis?? Don`t they include Hindu punjabis, Christians, muslims and all...just like all other states?AND..Where would the hindu punjabis go if punjab becomes a country(not that it will ever).
And who says nobody else can live in punjab except punjabis?? Sadna..you wrote some imaginary stuff in your last para..

Do you really think indian punjabis want a seperate country? BIG NO thousand times. We are more of if not as much of real Indians than anybody else..we contributed so much in freedom struggle..and suffered so much in partition..so how can our country belong more to those who did not..

#28 by sadna on May 17, 2003 9:16pm PT

``Sure, Panjabis can live anywhere in India but given the choice they prefer to live in London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. ``

No ...you don`t have any right to make such harsh judgements...
don`t live in your imaginary world....we prefer to live in our motherland India more than any other state people. India belongs to punjab and vice versa..as much as any other state does...
One partition was enough...we are not going anywhere now..OK? The contributions of all communities have to be valued in India itself..

``If there is in future a Punjabi nation, they will have to leave. ``

IT`S A PITY..you SERIOUSLY TALK ABOUT THIS..we only tried to tease and provoke pakistan to give its part of punjab..and you took it seriously...
anyway ...we should not care what you say abt punjabis..India doesn`t belong to south indians alone..or north indians alone...nor will

`` The issue of Punjabis in India seems to be a lot more hot topic among Pakistanis than their own people. ``

As if we care if it does....
---------

Sadna..you need to know more about Indian punjabis..esp hindu punjabis..before making any judgements about them

sameerJB #27
The article is a good one as were the others written by Mr Chadha. A number of people have partition-era stories - even my own family which is nonPunjabi has one. I prefer to comment on your comments.

``Sure, Panjabis can live anywhere in India but given the choice they prefer to live in London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver. ``

I didnot say they CAN live anywhere in India, I said they DO live all over India. If there is in future a Punjabi nation, they will have to leave.

btw the Punjabis in Okara donot want to live in Toronto - they only want to live in Okara - but the better sort of Punjabis in your Army donot want them to - (the same ones whom did you say died on your borders 30 years ago ?)

Anyway who cares about the Okara sort of Punjabis. Only the goras at Amnesty International prob. The issue of Punjabis in India seems to be a lot more hot topic among Pakistanis than their own people.

sadna:
If I had any authority over the affairs in Pakistan, I would have welcomed not just Gujral and Nayar but all those who wish to visit their ancestoral homes or visit as tourists. Sure, Panjais can live anywhere in India but given the choice they prefer to live in London, New York, Toronto and Vancouver.

By the way, were there too many Panjabi sentences in this article that kept you away from commenting about the article?

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12-head #24
``I am most dissappointed in a peacenik who justifies settlement by threat of ANGER ``

Allah has ordained that only Muslims have the right to be angry and justify settlement by threat of anger, of course. What a set of hypocrites.

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sameerJB #21
Please take IK Gujral with my best wishes. Also take Kuldip Nayar and the rest of the homesick Punjabi Hindu/Sikh crowd - soldiers included. I am sure you will keep them safe from the evil Indians. And at least then Kashmiri Hindus or Tamilian Muslims willnot be expected to foot the bill for this friendship.

But please, if you decide to have a Punjabi nation of your own, donot try to have it both ways again - take EVERY SINGLE Punjabi living in EVERY SINGLE corner of India into your nation, donot leave even one cousin by marriage behind.

I seriously doubt that another half and half deal with Punjabis this time(we are a separate nation and noone else can live in it but we can live anywhere in India) like happened with Muslims and Kashmiris- will be allowed by Indians to happen again.

Very well written and touching story of the rolleaN era.

The trend is decidedly changed now. More and more people write about pre-rolleaN era - about friendships, frankness, romance, yearning etc. It is like holocaust stories. First about sufferings, brutalities, victims and victimisers, then ``sound of music`` and Schindler`s list and then movies like ``fiddler on the roof``. Now more and more stories are about friendships, growing up, inter-religious romance between Anwer, Mohan and Jaswant or Zainab, Aasha and Jagmohan Kaur.

Soon after partition and lasting for about 40 years, nationalists (not the progressive and leftist writers) on both side wrote stories, poems, made movies, and media propagated them to strengthen the irreversibility of the time gone by. But it does not make much appeal now because 1) most of the people are post-partition generation due to population boom, 2) most people did not participate in it, 3) the Mustafas and Ruxanas outnumbered rioters and criminals and 4) the rolleaN era can not whitewash all history of people living together mostly peacefully but occasionally unhappily. They stood shoulder to shoulder just 20-30 tears before rolleaN in Ghadar movement and Kirti Kisan movement. They died together at JulliaNwala Bagh. The migrants to India produced hardliners like L. K. Advani but also much more respectful across the borders, I. K. Gujral. Similarly on Pakistan side for every Zia ul Haq and Musharraf, many migrant people do not look across the border with hate.

Humans have the capacity to forgive and forget a short era of 6-12 months, despite extensive sufferings of people. One can be constantly reminded of the negatives as well as trying to ease the pains by remembering the good times together. ``Gone with the wind`` is not the most popular book or movie in the south despite brutal civil war in America. German cities were carpet bombed by allies just two years before the rolleaN but Germans and Japanese (despite atomic bombs dropped) are no longer hating Americans.

People belonging to same culture find ways and put extra effort to mend fences. British and American did it 30-40 years after American Independence war. Germans and Austrians did it soon after second world war and West and East Germans did it 10 years ago. It has been 55 years for Panjabis. The future of Panjabis is in the hand of Panjabis. They can continue to deal rolleaN as the most defining moment in their 2-3 thousand years existance or try to get over it. Panjabis are still dying fighting each other in the name of mother countries. How many dead bodies from Kashmir go to Maharashtra, Bengal or Balochistan as compared to coming to both Panjabs? How is this dying different from a dying person in rolleaN? They all want Panjabis to fight to the last drop for India and Pakistan. When was the last time any non-Panjabis fought for Panjabis? They were fooled over and over and finally three British trained lawyers successfully fooled them again - into diving them and butchering each other with no effort, none whatsoever, to stop the bloodbath. Even a fool could see it comng but they had selfish political goals to focus upon than human tragedies. How many times did Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah visit Panjab during the peak of rioting, January 1947 - August 1947?

The sad part is that people did not learn from such a havoc in their history. Pakistan repeated it in Bangladesh and Balochistan and India did it to naxalite, Sikhs and Sikh again following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Can a Sikh victim of rolleaN and then of military action in Panjab accept the later one and deject the first one? That is why I do not accept the Jewish logic of aggressive holocaust marketing as a mean to deter it from happening again. The way to stop the rolleaN happening again is by going the opposite direction - of friendship, love, understanding and respect.

Jagmohan, it is not about you at all or your story. Your article does have sound of music type background and does not make political statement.

Faridi, dullabhatti, septran, yossarian, friend, soysause, maulabux, Ras,

Thank you all for your words of appreciation. I value them highly.

M_souza,

Indeed, that event was one of the most traumatic in the modern history of the subcontinent. In fact no writing can justifiably portray the horror, that mankind inflicted on itself. Some of the worst atrocities have never been, or will never be told, because the victims did not survive to tell the tale. The story that I have told, unbelievably tragic that it is, is a still a feeble attempt to honor the sufferers of that holocaust.

Veeresh.

There have been a few very good writings about the partition, but I agree with you there has never been a comprehensive documentation of the event, by the people who suffered through it. The simple explanation is that, they were too busy putting their lives together and had no time for writing about it. However they did relate what they went through to their children and I am sure every family has such stories. It is up to us the next generation to explore the past and put it on paper (or computer).

Studebaker, Raza_2809.

As dost-miter and others have pointed out, this story in no way denies the fact that some of the people who were forced to move to Pakistan suffered heavily. Once the news of the train full of slaughtered people reached across India, the retaliation was swift and merciless. East Punjab with the exception of the state of Malerkotla was as ethnically cleansed as the West Punjab was. (The Muslims of Malerkotla were spared because the Nawab of Malerkotla was the only Muslim voice that protested the brutal killing of the two younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh by burying them alive in a brick wall, by the government of Aurangzeb).

Nazarhayatkhan,

You are too kind. I have appreciated your praise for the last two stories and was anticipating your comments for this one.

Dost-miterji,

Thanks for the words of encouragement and advice. I don’t know where I will go from here. One reason for these prolific writings was that my wife went for a long visit to India and I had too much time on my hand. She is coming back soon and I will be too busy to give enough time to writing.

Roshan ,

You are a very angry person. Read my reply to Studebaker. These events are way in the past and it is no use getting you blood pressure high on them. I did not figure out your reference to ’ugly kashmiris’.

Jagmohanji:
A very poignant tale. My eyes welled up while reading it. We all had stories like that. Maybe I will share mine one day...
BTW have you thought of joining a creative writers` workshops? Such workshops are offered by community colleges and are very helpful in learning techniques, etc.

studebaker:
Is it necessary to talk about moral equivalence everytime someone mentions what happened in Pakistan during the partition? Because there was/is none! Despite the fact that hindus/sikhs did not want Pakistan, I do not know anyone, NONE, who wanted to leave the new country after it was formed. And yet, ALL of them were faced with the choice of leave, convert or get killed.
Now I am the first to admit that India has nothing to be proud of when it comes to treating its muslim minority. And you would be every bit justified in complaining about India`s less than sterling record in this respect. But there is no moral equivalence [nor should there be any between a country achieved in the name of religious identity and another with avowedly secular mandate].
Despite insecurities and discrimination, muslim Indians continue to live in India and inrease their numerical strength in both absolute and relative terms. Even the children of mixed marriages are generally raised as muslims. Millions of bangladeshi muslims who have illegally entered India refuse to go back. Hundreds of thousands of visitors from Pakistan have not gone back and not all of them are hindus. Contrast this with the situation in Pakistan. Have you heard of a SINGLE hindu who has gone back to Pakistan after coming to India? The sikhs who were forced out of Kabul and Kandhar during the taleban rule came to India and never thought of moving to the nearby Peshawar (where they could share the same culture, language and cuisine) despite the crocodile tears that Pakistan and Pakistanis shed for sikhs. Why? Even Hindus who stayed back in Sindh are trickling out of Pakistan and being forced to convert or use non-hindu sounding names.
So, complain all you want about the mistreatments of muslims in India and I will be with you all the way. But do not talk about equivalence because it is only going to get Hindians angry.

#17 by Roshan on May 15, 2003 11:30pm PT

First of all, you guys asked the Englishmen who were already dividing and ruling and dividing...so they were more than happy to give it..

Now even when you got it..you guys were(are) not happy(at least not as much you thought you would be) for such a long time. And look at the trouble created for so many millions of our area..
So that was a mistake in history...the very division and renaming of ancient land that was India. India`s heart still bleeds. Can it take further wounds?? And if you force it to..by way of kashmir..then the whole subcontinent would be doomed...

``And i wonder just why Kashmiris when they ask for never seem to get it !! ``
Why such a `himaayat` for kashmiris...why not give Baluchis and Sindhis and others thier right for a seperate land first..
Punjab is already divided ..now let it form a seperate country..you can have a small country called Punjab..towards the east side of smaller Pakistan. Manzoor hai?? If Kashmiris are hurt that their land is divided between two countries..then what about Punjabis...their `land of five rivers`..Let Pakistani punjab join Indian Punjab..
And a country Sindh towards the south..
Does pakistan really want a seperate land for kashmiris? Or does it slowly want to gulp it and engulf it..

+Must be they(kashmiris) are Ugly ! +

You guys are obsessed with your looks. Ugly..beautiful..handsome..fair...etc etc...don`t you have other criteria to judge people??
Indians are all of such diverse appearance and languages and culture that noone can think of dividing our country further on any of these issues.

Waise..ye baatein apki samjah mein aayeingee nahin

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