Long years ago, a retired Air Force Officer had reached out for some personal work. It seems, his younger brother had duped him of some immovable property and he wanted to explore his legal options. In the course of making a comprehensive recordal of the facts, I enquired about the
location of the property. He said Jallandhar. I asked if his family had roots in Jallandhar. He said ‘No’. And then, on his own, he blurted out that the one thing that Partition took away from ‘us’ was our ‘Pind’. He was someone who had lived to witness the Partition of the country in 1947, and his
family hailed from what has now come to be known as West Panjab and is a part of Pakistan. The Panjab that is a part of India is referred to as East Panjab.
It is common for the refugees from West Panjab to even today lament and remember their village. It is equally common for the children of the refugees to ask “pichu kithe de ho”, asking as to where did the family hail from before they became refugees.
Partition, amongst other things, took away the Pind from the refugees. Once the refugees got over the loss of their homes, traditions and language, they started to rebuild their lives. Many cultures and dialects from West Panjab intermingled with the age-old cultures and dialects in East Punjab,
and Panjab became a melting pot. New towns were established. In the older towns new development mushroomed. Most of the towns established a new residential colony by the name of ‘model town’. These towns that the refugees started settling in, they started calling them as their ‘hometown’.
One such model town was established in Yamunanagar. At that time Yamunanagar was a small tehsil of Ambala district. It is said that the earlier name of Yamunanagar was Abdullahpur. Presumably, Abdullahpur would have been a Muslim dominated area and during the bloodbath following the partition of the country, it’s original inhabitants had left. Slowly in the 1950s the refugees from West Panjab started trickling in to Abdullahpur, now known as Yamunanagar, to claim it as their hometown.
My paternal grandfather, Maj Balwant Singh and my maternal grandfather, Maj Raja Singh also settled down in Yamunanagar after their retirement from the Indian Army. So, Yamuna Nagar became my hometown twice over.
My grandfather was 60 years older than me and by the time I was born the whole town referred to him as Pitaji. My grandmother, Harnam Kaur was ‘Jhaiji’. And ‘Jhaiji’, like ‘Pitaji’ was every one’s Jhaiji.
Pitaji had been allotted agricultural land near Yamunanagar in lieu of the land he had to leave behind in Village Farooka, District Sargodha. Pitaji, while still serving in the Army, had constructed a small house in Model Town, Yamuna Nagar, in the 1950s. It was a house which was made the old way with thick walls and the brick roof supported by wooden beams. The wiring was entirely external and the switches were like miniature cylinders, black head with an off-white base and large enough to fit a fist. They stuck out from the wall, vertical. The only latrine was outside the main living area. It remained like that until the sons of the family got married and a toilet with a WC was constructed inside the house. One room opened into another – the other room. The concept of ‘privacy’ was different and may be not something even important. Perhaps, one reason why family members were more open and closer to each other. Unlike today, when each family member lives in the same house behind closed doors and closed minds.
‘Rooms’ were literally added as the need arose. For the last many generations, we have had the privilege of the presence of the Guru’s Swaroop, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji has been in the house. Pitaji constructed a large room in the back yard of the house where Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji was
virajman. We called it babaji’s room.
The roof of the house was high enough to have ‘roshandans’. The roshandans still had scrapes of newspapers stuck to them in the 1980s. We were told that during the 1971 war, all the residents had been told to cover the glass of the windows with paper so that at night, the light from the houses is not visible in the event of an air attack. The paper from the windows was removed after the war got over but I guess it was just too much trouble to reach the roshandans to remove the paper.
Pitaji would often look at the wooden beams and tell as to how cement was really in short supply when he made the house in the 1950s. He would then in an absent-minded manner remark that maybe he should now put the lanter on the roof. That never happened. The house remained with
the wooden beams for the half a century or so that Pitaji and Jhaiji lived in it.
In 1982 our father, serving as an officer in the Indian Army, was posted to ‘field area’, in Sikkim. As was the practice then, the family would pack up the household stuff and move to the hometown. This was also considered as time for the children to get to know their grandparents and hopefully
learn their culture and traditions. It was also an opportunity for the Army Officer to save a bit with the family living with the parents and the officer entitled to field area pay.
We therefore packed up our house and moved to Yamunanagar in mid-1982. To settle us in, our father took two months annual leave during the summer months in 1982.
July also happens to be the month of my birth. In 1982, I turned eleven.
By the 1970s, the country had recovered sufficiently from the aftermath of the partition. The growing Indian middle class had become quite anglicised. Celebration of children’s birthdays by the parents had not only become common but had started to become elaborate affairs. In our parents’ generation it was common for a household to have four or more children. In my generation two or less children became the norm. Having lesser children definitely helped the parents, financially and logistically, to organise grander birthday parties.
The birthday started with the birthday child carrying toffees or sweets to school and distributing them to his classmates. Thereafter, in the evening, an elaborate party would be organised by the parents of the birthday child. Invitees would not just be the friends of the child but also the friends
of the parents. Somewhere, it seemed that just being ‘born’ was perhaps enough. The foundation for feeling ‘privileged and entitled’ only by virtue of birth was steadily and sturdily being laid. Every child believed that it was his or her birth right to have the birthday celebrated in a grand manner.
We had just shifted to Yamuna Nagar. I was as yet to make new friends. To add, in 1982, my birthday coincided with a Sunday. There was no going to school and distributing sweets. There was obviously no question of having a party. I’m sure I must have been disappointed and would have been throwing tantrums. It was at times like this that my mother would scold me and tell me to stop being cranky. But since it was my birthday everyone was tolerating my misbehaviour. I am sure the whole household, including Pitaji and Jhaiji must have been aware of the tantrums I was throwing.
It was mid-morning and by now I was quite troubled with the situation. I was standing with my father in the back veranda of the house just outside Baba Ji’s room. Pitaji had stepped out after saying his Prayers. He would recite the Granth as often as he felt like. On some days, many times.
In an attempt to make me feel better my father thought it would be nice if Pitaji wished me and maybe made a fuss over me. As Pitaji came out of Baba Ji’s room my father said, “ਪਿਤਾਜੀ ਅੱਜ ਦਿਵਜੋਤਦਾ ਜਨਮਦਿਨ ਹੈ”(Pitaji, today is Divjyot’s birthday).
Pitaji, very matter-of-factly remarked,“ਤਾਂ ਕੀ ਹੋਇਆ?ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਦੇਵ ਜੀ ਦਾ ਜਨਮਦਿਨ ਤੇ ਨਹੀਂ ਹੈ!” (So what? It is not Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s Birthday!).
I remember, at first feeling very surprised and then very angry. How could he be so insensitive!
That birthday was celebrated in a low-key manner. But in later years I celebrated my birthdays with much pomp and show. It was only after my 40 th birthday party that what Pitaji had said in 1982 came back to me. It was an off-the-cuff remark by Pitaji, however the meaning of it came through much later. I started thinking: Why is it that birthdays have to be celebrated? Is it an achievement for a person to have been simply born, especially when it is the mother who bears the pain of childbirth? Or is it an achievement to have lived a few decades on mother earth? Since when has mankind been celebrating birthdays? Or is it a recent phenomenon?
It came through that we celebrate birthday’s because maybe we have nothing more significant to celebrate. What Pitaji meant by that remark was to do something significant so that your life would be worth celebrating. Otherwise, there was no need to make a fuss about simply having been born.
I then remembered another thing that Pitaji had told me once when I was visiting him from college in the early 1990s. Pitaji’s birthday was known to me as June 1, 1911. He told me that his birthday was actually June 30, 1911. At the time of his school admission, the relative who had taken him to be admitted, did not know Pitaji’s birthday. So, for the records, he put it down as June 1, 1911. No one ever clarified the same to Pitaji as birthdays did not have any relevance in the village. Pitaji went through school, college and his adult life believing that he was born on June 1, 1911. Pitaji lost his father Bhai Sahib Bhai Hira Singh Ji, in 1926, at the age of fifteen. It was only many years later in the 1930s, when Pitaji went through his father’s diaries did he come across a noting in the diary, on June 30, 1911 which said, “ਅੱਜ ਕਾਕਾ ਜਾਮੀਆ ਸੀ.” (Today a son was born).
That is all that a birth is about. An opportunity to work our Karmas in gratitude. Remain in gratitude for this opportunity.
Pitaji lived to be 93. Many people knew him. The one word all use to describe him is that he was a “Karmyogi”.