Happy Indian Independence day.
A few years back, I was chatting with a distant relative. To my surprise, his father was the last train station master of Lahore in pre-independence undivided India. He had a very interesting personal partition story.
Lahore is an ancient city founded by Lava, the son of Rama, originally called LavaPuri. A neighboring city, Kasur (originally called Kushavati?), is an ancient city founded by Lava's brother, Kusha. In Lahore, in the Shah Qila, is a temple to Lava. In undivided pre-independent India, Lahore was a thriving city with lots of immigrants with multiple cultures.
When partition was announced, the last train station master of Lahore, anticipating trouble, sent his family to India. He stayed on performing his duties. Then, partition actually happened. There were rumors circulating that Hindus & Sikhs would be killed in Lahore. He was worried. He went home.
To his utter surprise, he found that a Mohammedan family had moved into his home. He was told by them that his house was no longer his but theirs. There was no more room for Hindus in Lahore. He should leave for his own safety. He then purchased an air ticket to India. But there was one more night to stay. And no house to stay. Hotels were not safe. What to do?
He consulted with a Mohammedan family, who were well known to him & were friends. (Interestingly, this aged gentleman who was the station master's son, who told me the details, would use the word Mohammedan rather than Muslim. I'll use the same terms in this post as he did.) They advised him to stay in a barn in their house. (I wonder why they didn't ask him to stay in their house itself. Were they simply not hospitable enough? Or were they worried that they would be targeted if they housed a Hindu?)
The next day morning, he thought that maybe he should dress up as a Mohammedan. The family who sheltered him advised against it. It would be fairly easy for any local to identify him as a Hindu, who was disguising himself. And he could become a specific target. He decided against disguising himself.
He booked a Tonga (horse drawn carriage) to the airport. It was just him riding. But a Mohammedan stopped the Tonga. He got on. He simply started taking personal things of the station master. Took his coat. Took his bag. Took his wallet. Took out the cash, pocketed it. Took out the air ticket. Tore it. Threw it in the gutter. Threw his wallet into the gutter. Then, stopped and left.
He stopped the Tonga. Picked up his wallet from the gutter. And his torn air ticket. Reached the airport. Fortunately, he was allowed to fly. And reached safe to his family in India.
History records that unfortunately, others weren't so lucky. Lahore was to erupt in brutal religious violence. Minorities attempting to flee Jinnah's Pakistan's Lahore via a train were brutally assaulted & murdered. A train packed full of bodies reached Amritsar, Punjab, India. This was to result in brutal religious reprisal violence. And resulted in the largest forced human migration and one of the largest body counts in recorded history.
We are now running out of folks who can talk about personal stories of partition. If anyone knows any forgotten undocumented voice of this event, please do record them for posterity.
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