Undivided Past
Sobia is my first cousin. My father's sister's daughter. Her mother was married to her own first cousin in 1962. My grandmother's sister's son. So I have an important filial relation with her. A strong bond. We are sisters in blood. It is expected for first cousins to grow up together in a joint family. If not then to meet in family functions or every winter and summer vacations when the brothers and sisters - their moms and dads, assemble at their homes, the grandparents abode.
Although I grew up in a joint family, I never had all this with Sobia, We met three and a half decades ago in my Grand father's house where i had the good fortune of being born and brought up, We met again only on Facebook. No, there is no family feud, no property dispute between parents or no estranged relationships between sisters in law. This is because of a feud of different kind. A much larger one in magnitude and impact.
We were both born in 1974. She in Karachi to her migrant father and mother and I in Gorakhpur to my non-political father and educated nationalist mother. When my father's sister who is Sobia's mother grew up to be on the wrong side of 20 my grandmother who had now been a single parent for 14 years became more than desperate to see her daughter settled in matrimony. Her efforts to find a suitable match for Sobia's mother were marred by the down-slide in the family's financial status which had tumbled on multiple accounts a la losing my grandfather in 1948 who left her a widow with 10 offspring in age group 35 to 4 of which eight were her own and two were from his three previous marriages (his wives had not survived each other and were taken one after another), losing rural property due to abolition of the zamindari and losing urban property to the custodian as some of her step sons had migrated to east or west Pakistan.
Those days news traveled slow. A long exchange of letters amongst various family members on both sides of the border resulted in my grand mother's nephew in Karachi offering to marry his aunt's daughter. The proposal was so tempting that no body dared to say the word Pakistan and war and Visas and borders. Though they all knew that this newly wedded bride will not have as many chances to visit her parents as any other normal bride would.
So what happened next in the fifty year marriage of this aunt of mine was that she was hardly there at our Gorakhpur home for any festivals or weddings, none of her five children were born under her mother's care - which is the usual custom specially for the first born - (I was born at my nani's house and my children were born at theirs), and neither could any one from her paternal and maternal family be by her side to console her when her husband died young nor could she come to see her mother or elder sister one last time at their death beds.
The dread with the words of Pakistan, war, visa and border intensified.
We made all attempts to keep in touch. By exchange of handwritten snail mail letters, gifts whenever possible and sending wedding invitation cards and wedding albums. The invitations were sent without any expectations of being honored. They were more of a piece of information than a wedding invitation and some times reached the recipient much after even the honeymoon was over.
Nevertheless, the most awaited parcel was that of photo albums. They came mostly with some traveling family member or friend whose baggage of travails was also to be discerned with. Each picture on a 3X5 photographic plate neatly arranged on a modest picture album or stacked in a sturdy envelope. They were held by everyone in turns. first seen from the front, then from the back for the who's who hand scribbled in Urdu. Usually the reference point was an uncle or an aunt who was popular enough to be recognized by all or who was grown up enough at the time of migration. Every ardent observer followed the same steps. First giving the cursory looks to the faces on the front, then reading the info on the back and again turning to the front for a closer observation. Matching the colors of dresses and height and gender and the left or right position. In these pictures backgrounds and places were never important. The faces were. Because they were one of our own. Because we shared the same blood. Because we wanted our spatial segregation not to matter.
One can guess, that this must be happening with the albums we sent to the other side of the border. Pictures of family events had to be in sets of two. The other one on the Pakistan shelf of my father's closely guarded steel closet from Godrej. One leisurely holiday afternoon the family got together to mark the who's who on the back side of the picture plates. Someone with a good Urdu handwriting was preferred to do the job but care had to taken in phrasing and rephrasing the info so as to avoid confusions for the onlookers. They were in a distant land, a foreign country moreover a nation with acrimonious status but they were our own people. They had a right to be affected and draw a conclusion if for instance the lady in a brown sari at my engagement was my husband's mother or his aunt. And they had a right to know. We were obliged to share because we wanted time and distances not to bury our blood relation.
So this sister of my father, after her wedding in 1962, was taking her own sweet time settling in her new life and could not lift her head to think of coming to her mother's house when the 1965 war broke. She was held up and meanwhile had a couple of children all of whom no body back home could see. However, longing for the whiff of home air and giving a feel of the same to her children she tried hard and came for the first time seven years after her marriage. I remember seeing her first in 1979 with her five children. She had tried hard after the Visa sanctions during the 1971 Bangladesh War and secured passage. In this war we had lost many relatives in the transfer from east to west Pakistan. That is another story, to be told later.
Sobia and I were both four years old and found a playmate in each other as soon as we met bleary eyed in the wee hours of the morning that they arrived. The whole compound of houses which belonged to relatives only, had stayed up the night waiting for them to reach. The train they took from Delhi to Gorakhpur was late as usual and the menfolk had stood at the railway platform waiting patiently. I had been hearing so much of Sobia from everyone that I was almost waiting only for her as if she was coming alone. Probably the elders had expected that due to same age-group we will gel together.
They were right. We clicked immediately. Our initial inhibition was shed as soon as the crying stopped. Yes crying. My grandmother had long since taken to the habit of crying at the very mention of this daughter of hers who was married in Pakistan for the sheer pain of separation. It was written in her face that she longed to see her much more often. So instead of the anticipated cheer and mirth at meeting loved ones, when our elders met after this long in such a situation, they held each other tight, locked up in close embraces, buried their heads in each others shoulders and cried. The cliche 'tears of happiness' does not imply here. These were tears of another kind. They signified pent up tensions, fears, agony, longing and relief. But also an impending parting very soon as this meeting of a month or two depended on the visa duration.
Days flew by. Sobia and I ran on the plains, rolled in the mud and giggled endlessly. Together we ate and drank and slept and played pranks. We did all those things otherwise forbidden, had Sobia not been such a precious guests. She was told all the stories anyone knew in the family, the family folklore was transferred to her and the basic Mohammedan-oriental values of our clan were imparted to her. She was shown the old black and white albums with my grand father's pictures. Attempts were made to let all this sound sacred to her. She could recognise many faces in these old albums of pre partition era. These were our relatives, who were now living as muhajirs in Pakistan.
Like us she was also climbing trees to grab the freshest fruit possible. We taught her to vie for the guava half eaten by the parakeets as they knew better which ones are sweeter. Like us she was also dead scared of entering the cellar in the back yard where dry fuel wood was stored as we believed in rumours of the djinns making them their abode. Like us she was also spending all her time in the large courtyard occupying the central place in the main house of my father where there were a world of activities to perform in all seasons and at all times.
My grandmother tried to treat Sobia and her siblings with all the delicacies in her repertoire. We were invited to numerous Dawats (banquets) in the city and we too hosted quite a few. Gifts big and small were laden over my aunt. She was also approached with requests for carrying parcels to Karachi from people whose relatives lived there. Some parents and children and some siblings had been parted from each other in the after math of partition and wanted to keep the connections alive with these small exchanges of gifts. They were being in educated about the family tree. They were being introduced to all the relatives. 'Look beta, this baji is your mother's such and such' or this bhaijan is your mother's such and such'. She abided by every 'Inhe Salam kariye beta'. How much she could absorb of the complex relationships was no body's guess as she had just opened her eyes to the world of her maternal family.
Lo and behold. Before she could process what she was being told and before she could crystallize the knowledge imparted, that day arrived for which there were hushed talks. It was a fine morning and usual too except that my father was taking the six of them - his Pakistani guests to the local police station. Just as they had reported their arrival in Gorakhpur, they had to report their departure too. From the Indian Embassy in Pakistan they had come on a Visa of one city only. All relatives in cities in the vicinity had come to see them. My aunt and her children had remained in the city like captives. Now that she was leaving with her five minor children, she had to give an undertaking at the Police station that she will leave the city today, go no where else except the port of dis-embarkment that is Delhi and that she will leave the country as soon as she reaches there.
The crying was replaced by wailing. As she left with another five pair of glistening eyes, no one knew when will we see these people again.
I never met Sobia again. An occasional picture of hers told something about her. She had to wear salwar kameez and a neatly folded and pinned dupatta for her school dress in grade IX. While I continued with my skirt and blouse in the all girls convent my parents sent me to. I could see she grew up to be shorter stubbier and stout which made her look older in her plain Jane haircut. I could wear my hair short and feathery despite some conservative family members' objections but I did not care. Then we saw each other's wedding photographs. Her groom wore a salwar and peshawari with his sherwani. Mine was in a simpler Aligarhi Pajama and Jaipur Nagra with an M. Hasan Sherwani. He makeup was more garish, jewelry heavier and Gharara more stylish. I hated heavy make up, hid my jewelry and was casual about my Gharara.
We were growing up and growing apart.
Though my aunt did make a few visits after that 1978 visit, but none with her five children. The first visit was after a gap of 22 years. A lot had changed in these two decades. She came alone and to avoid the fanfare, did not inform many people. I had relocated to Aligarh by that time and specially went to Gorakhpur to see her. It had been over a decade since my grand mother's death but she slept in her bed, in her verandah and often we heard soft sobs. She was braver this time and came to Lucknow with me. On her return when she came to Delhi, I went to receive her there and put up with her at my uncle's place. This time we took her around. She was enthralled to see the Raisina Hill, India Gate and Rashtrapati Bhavan. Tried to compare with Islamabad but could not. We helped her board the Samjhauta Express at Purani Dehli Railway station. I did not ask much for Sobia. We were off each other's radars by now.
My aunt's third visit in my living memory was a few years ago. She came to see her home, her birth place and her folks once before she thought her end comes. This time I could not see her as I was abroad but took her details from everyone back home. She was old, frail and kind of demented. She had come bequeath her portion in my grand father's property to my father. According to Indian Law she had lost her claim to her inheritance at the choice of being a Pakistani. But according to Islamic Law, nationality did not matter. Her right to her dukhtari was protected. My father offered the more practical way of paying for her portion. She accepted.
Her end was not as close as she deemed it to be. She is living an octagenarian with her children in Karachi. Although more demented, she calls my father and mother in those short spans that she is in control of her memory. I don't have her number and she never calls me but I keep hearing of her from my parents. She seems too tired of her struggles alone. In foreign land she has brought up five children without her husband and could never ask for help from her family. No one says that, but everyone knows that we will never again be able to see her. She has almost lost the desire to take up arduous travels and we are too engrossed with our lives to go to the godforsaken country to see an ailing old aunt who takes pride in her collection of saris in Pakistan.
So this summer vacation of 2016 when I went to Gorakhpur on a routine exercise of taking my children to my parents house, I posted a picture of my house because my father had the names of my sister and me too engraved on the granite name plate outside our gate, with the caption that 'as many as we can build, there can be many houses at addresses round the world, but only one house where you can come back to your roots', I was surprised when one Sobia Ayaz commented that she remembers the amrood, djinn wali kothri and angan of this house. Who on Facebook could know the innards of my house inside out without my ever posting them? I took no time in checking and it took no time in revealing that this was Sobia, the sister I never had. Our common friends were our relatives and the next moment we were Facebook friends too.
I expressed my happiness at reconnecting through the house where we had lived like sisters some 35 years ago. She was awestruck by my memory. I referred to the Urdu couplet:
Yaad e maze aaab hai ya rap
Koi chheen le mugh se hafzah mera
(The memories of the past are torturing me My Lord
Could some one take away my power of retention)
I said to her that 'these memories of the past are a torture now, still I do not ask God to take away my power of retention'. (yeh yaad e maazi hi to azaab hai, magar main hafzah chain jane ki due bhi nahi karti. She said she remembers very and I stimulated her with hailing the am rood ka bagh, lakri wali kothri and angan which are all still the same. She will find them where she had left in the same coordinates and more or less the same condition. Only thing that has changed is our people. The elderly have died, our elders have become elderly and we are grown ups. Now our children are doing all those things we did. (Sirf kuchh buzurg nahin rahe, kuchh bare buzurg ho gaye our hum bare ho gaye. Ab who saw kuchh jo hum karate the, hammer bache kart hain).
Both of us are of the opinion that she should come to Gorakhpur with her children to trace her origins, her roots and build a sense of belonging lest the bloodline diminishes. But we both know that will probably never be.
