Sreelatha Menon: Partition revisited

Sixty years ago around this time, Hanif Mohammad was just a five-year-old living in a village in Punjab, when his father decided to abandon him. He was sent to an aunt's place at Attalan village in Ludhiana. The reason was that India had won freedom and Muslims were being hunted down.

His father told a neighbour while handing over the child, that the boy was not strong enough to run with the rest to Pakistan and so had to be left behind. Attalan was under siege and groups of rioters had been at its gates to finish off the Muslims. Little Hanif was in the house of a Sikh landlord staying next to his aunt's house. He stood there, watching the Sikh landlady in labour while his two cousins hid in the cow shed.

Rioters came and pulled out his cousins and speared them right before his shocked gaze. And then they asked him if there were any more Muslims. "Haven't you killed them all?, the child asked tearlessly.

Hanif's memories along with those of three other men who lived through the trauma of Partition come back alive in a documentary 'Rabba Hun Kee Kariye' made by Ajay Bharadwaj.

Memories, even the unpleasant ones, are worth recalling for they have the charm of being memories, something that is gone and no longer there. It is the same charm that literature or cinema give the viewer and creator, the unique privilege of being a witness rather than a participant.

Bharadwaj captures the gory Partition days as seen through the eyes of four old men in Punjab. There are two Muslims and two Sikhs whose stories become the narrative of the documentary.

There is Jasvind Singh Dhaliwal of Ahmedgarh, then a 10-year-old in a village near Malerkotla, where hordes of Muslims were finding refuge from rioters. A woman in one of the caravans is pursued by a local ruffian and she runs for her life towards Malerkotla. She first throws away her metal trunk and then her baby before crossing over to safety. Later, Thakra, the ruffian, flings the baby girl to a tree where she dies instantly as little Dhaliwal watches with horror. He also recalls that later in life Thakra had worms crawling in his head and he went insane.

There is Prof Karam Singh Chaudhury who recalls how as a teacher in Mansa High School in Bhatinda, he watched dozens of Muslims herded together to be killed and buried in the village. He makes a prayer to Allah for their souls every time he passes by that spot.

Two months ago, Chaudhury died in his sleep. He was in his eighties. But Bharadwaj is grateful that he was able to get Chaudhury's stories on film before he passed away.

"These are all old people and their memories are going to leave us. I was desperate to capture them," says the filmmaker whose earlier film 'Kitte Milve Mahi' was about Dalits nurturing the Sufi tradition in Punjab.

Bharadwaj says that the film is special because many of the narrators are from the side of perpetrators. And it is also special because the two Muslims in it have no bitter feelings, he says.