by INTIZAR HUSSAIN
Pakistani writer Intizar Hussain (1923-2016) PHOTO/Urdu Adab
I have no definite answer to questions about why I migrated from India to Pakistan after the partition in 1947. I look back and see a crowded train rushing past lively and desolate towns and villages, under a bright sun, and in the dark of night. The train is running through the most frightening night and the passengers are quiet like statues. I strain to hear them breathe. Where will the train stop? And will it move again, if it stops?
Half a century later, it seems to have been the moment when two eras met and parted. History has its own dawns and dusks. We were in between the dusk and dawn of history. That is what made the journey from Meerut to Lahore the longest journey. We weren’t on a train; we were on the ship of history. We had left home at dawn and it was noon. The train had already crossed Saharanpur. We were past the borders of our province, Uttar Pradesh, into that enormous wilderness that had seen carnage a few days earlier. Now there was silence. Those destined to survive and leave, had left. Those destined to fall, had fallen. Their homes were still smoldering.
The train chugged on, indifferent to the ruined towns. Before we had crossed Saharanpur, the train stopped at the routine stops. The stationmaster would blow the whistle, the guard would wave the green flag, the train would slowly begin to move, and the passengers on the platform would take a few steps back. Then, something changed. The train would not make any more stops; it sped past every station on the way.
A little later, it suddenly stopped. Armed guards patrolled the platform, forbidding the people walking on the platform from coming near the train. Sikhs with scimitars hanging by their sides stared at us from a distance and kept on walking. Refugees from the other side of the border hung about the platform in groups. Their tired eyes would meet ours and then turn away. A train full of refugees from Pakistan stopped on a parallel track. My heart seemed to stop beating. My eyes met many terrorized, angry eyes. The train felt claustrophobic. Many others were sitting on the roof. How did they hold on to the speeding train? Maybe desperate flights for life teach you how. Our train does not move. I want to get away from the angry, burning eyes staring at me. The train does not move.
Somehow night fell—a very dark night. The lights on the train engine were switched off. It was running like a blind man, past the stations dotting our path. The passengers in my coach seemed to have turned into ghosts. Heartbeats competed with the sound of the train and anxiety invaded the mind. Then the train stopped again. Nobody spoke. There was darkness inside, and darkness outside—then a few flashes of the guards’ searchlights. We had stopped in a forest. Some armed soldiers walked around. The searchlights only heightened the dread, the sense of danger.
Somebody shuffled a bit beside me. I heard the faint friction of a match being struck. A yellow flame burst into the dark coach, startling everyone. “Who is it?” “Stub it out!” “Stub out the damn cigarette!” The man with the burning cigarette was my friend, Saleem Ahmad. What a moment Saleem had chosen to have a smoke! He stubbed it out. The train did not move.
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