They had returned to Amritsar from Lahore after seven-and-a-half years. The hockey match was only an excuse; they were more keen to see the houses and the bazaars, which they had known seven-and-a-half years ago and which now belonged to the strangers. Groups of Muslims could be seen strolling down every street of the city. Everything in it caught their attention. For them Amritsar was not just an ordinary city, it was a place of wonder and surprise.

As they walked through its narrow bazaars, they reminded each other of the past, “Look Fatehdina, how very few misri shops are left in Misri Bazaar! A panwallah now sits at the corner where Sukhi used to light her bhati. Ah, Khan Sahib, this is Namak Mandi! The girls of this lane were really so namkin that…!”

It was after a long time that these bazaars had seen red turkish caps and turbans with well-starched tassels. In the group that had come from Lahore, there were quite a few Muslims who had been forced to leave Amritsar during the Partition. Some of them were surprised at the changes that had taken place there during the last seven-and-a-half years, while others were saddened. “Allah! How did Jayamal Singh acquire so much land? Were the houses on this side burnt down? Wasn’t this Hakim Asim Ali’s shop? Has it now been taken over by a cobbler?”

Some of them could be heard exclaiming. “Wali, that masjid is still standing! These people didn’t convert it into a gurudwara!”

The people of the city watched these groups of Pakistanis walking through the city with eagerness and curiosity. There were, of course, some who were still so suspicious of the Muslims that they turned away when they saw them on the road, but there were many others who walked up to them and embraced them. Most people who met the visitors assailed them with a variety of questions – “What is Lahore like these days? Is Anarkali still as bright and gay as it used to be? We hear that the bazaar of Shah Alami Gate has been completely rebuilt. Krishna Nagar couldn’t have changed much, could it? Was Rishwatpura really built from money taken in bribes? They say that the burqa has disappeared from Pakistan, is that really true?” These questions were asked with such sincerity and concern that it seemed as if Lahore wasn’t merely a city, but a person who was related to thousands of people who were anxious about its wellbeing. The visitors from Lahore were treated as the guests of the whole city and most people were delighted to talk to them.

Bansan Bazaar is a poor and run down locality of Amritsar where lower-class Muslims used to live before the Partition. Most of the shops there used to sell bamboo and wood. They had all been burnt down. The fire in Bansan Bazaar had been the worst of the fires in Amritsar and for sometime it had threatened to send the entire city up in flames. Indeed, the fire had burnt down many of the areas in the neighborhood of Bansan Bazaar. Somehow it had been brought under control, but for every Muslim house burnt, four or five Hindu homes had also been reduced to ashes. Now, seven-and-a-half years later a few structures had been rebuilt, but there were still piles of rubble strewn everywhere. These new buildings, standing in the midst of ruins, presented a strange sight.

As usual, there wasn’t much activity in Bansan Bazaar that day, because most of the people who had once lived there had perished along with their homes, and those who had fled, didn’t have the courage to return. That day, however, one old and frail Muslim did venture into the deserted bazaar, but when he saw the new buildings standing next to ruins, he felt as if he was lost in a labyrinth. He reached the lane which turned to the left, but instead of entering it, he stood outside it, perplexed. He couldn’t believe that it was the lane he wanted to take. On one side of the lane a few children were playing hopscotch, and a little further up two women were screaming and cursing each other.

“Everything has changed except the curses!” the old Muslim mumbled to himself as he stood there resting on his cane. His legs were bent and his pyjamas were a little torn. His sherwani, which didn’t reach up to his knees, was patched in several places.

A child came running out of the lane crying. The old man called out to him in a kind voice, “Come here, son! Come, I’ll give you something nice, come.” He put his hand in his pocket and began searching for something to give to the child. The child stopped crying for a moment, but then pouted and began to weep again. A young girl of about sixteen or seventeen years came running after him, caught him by his arm and started dragging him back into the lane. The girl picked him up, put her arms around him, kissed him and said, “Stop crying, you little devil! If you don’t, that Muslim will catch you and take you away! So stop crying!”

The old Muslim put the coin he had taken out to give to the child, back into his pocket. He took off his cap, scratched his head, and then put the cap under his arm. His throat was dry and his legs were shaking. He supported himself against the porch of a closed shop in the street and then put his cap on again. There was now a three-storey house in the open yard across from the entrance to the lane, where there used to be a shed for logs of wood in the past. Two well-fed kites were sitting absolutely still on the electric wires running past the house. There was a patch of sunlight near the lamppost. The old Muslim stood quietly for a while in the sunlight and watched the dust being raised by the wind. Then, almost involuntarily, he sighed, “Ya Mallik!”

A young man came towards the lane swinging a bunch of keys on a chain. Seeing the old man standing there, he asked, “Miyan, why are you standing here?”

The old man felt his heart beat a little faster and a slight tremor of excitement ran through his body. He moistened his lips, looked at the young man curiously and asked, “Son, aren’t you Manori?”

The young man stopped swinging the key chain around, clutched it in his hand and asked with surprise, “How do you know my name?”

“Seven-and-a-half years ago you were only this tall,” the old man said, as he tried to smile.

“Did you come from Pakistan today?”

“Yes! We used to live in this lane once,” the old man said. “My son, Chiragdin, was your tailor. Six months before Partition, we had built a new house for ourselves here.”

“Oh, Gani Miyan!” Manori said, as he recognized him.

“Yes, son, I am Gani Miyan! I know that I shall never meet Chirag, his wife and his children in this life again. But I thought that I should at least see our house once again.” The old man took his cap off, scratched his head, and wiped his tears as they flowed down his face.

“You had left this place long before Partition, hadn’t you?” Manori asked with sympathy in his voice.

“Yes, son, it was my misfortune that I escaped alone before Partition. If I had stayed here, then along with them. I too would have…” As he said that, he felt that he ought to be more discreet. He stopped himself in mid-sentence, but he let the tears flow from his eyes.

“Forget the past, Gani Miyan, what’s the use of thinking about it now?” Manori reached out and held Gani Miyan’s arm. “Come, I’ll show you to your house.”

In the meanwhile, a rumor had spread through the lane that a Muslim standing at the entrance of the lane had tried to kidnap Ramdasi’s son. His sister had rescued him in time, otherwise the Muslim would surely have carried him away! As soon as they heard this news, the women, who were sitting on low stools in the lane outside, picked up their stools and shut themselves in their houses. They also called indoors all the children who were playing in the lane. By the time Manori and Gani walked into the lane, there was hardly anyone to be seen there, except for a single street-hawker, and Rakkha Pahlwan, who was sleeping comfortably under a peepul tree near the well. Of course, there were lots of curious faces peeping out into the lane from behind the windows and the doors of the houses. When they saw Gani walking with Manori, they began to whisper together. Despite the fact that his hair was now completely white, they had no difficulty in recognizing Abdul Gani, the father of Chiragdin.

“Your house was there,” Manori pointed to a heap of rubble in the distance. Gani stared in astonishment in that direction. He had reconciled himself to the death of Chirag, his wife and children a long time ago. But he wasn’t prepared for the shock he received, when he saw the ruins of his house. His mouth became parched, his knees became weak.

“That heap of stone and ash?” he asked in disbelief.

Manori noticed that the color had drained from the old man’s face. He held him a little more firmly and told him as if he was narrating a distant event, “Your house was burned down during the riots.”

Supporting himself on his cane, Gani somehow walked up to the spot where his house had once stood. All that remained there now was a heap of dust and ash with a few broken and burnt pieces of brick. Things made of iron and wood had been picked out of the rubble a long time ago. By some strange chance, the charred frame of a door still stood in the middle of the rubble. Beyond it were two almirahs which had been blackened by smoke. After gazing at the heap of rubble for sometime, Gani whispered to himself, “Is this all… is this all that is left?” He staggered a little, and had to hold onto the charred door frame for support. A moment later, he sat down and rested his head against the door frame. Then he began to moan quietly, “Oh, my Chiragdin!”

The door frame, which had stood like a proud relic for seven-and-a-half years in the middle of the heap of rubbish, was so badly seared that it had begun to crumble. The moment Gani leaned his head against it, small bits of it disintegrated and scattered on the ground around him. A few pieces of wood and ash fell on his cap and on his white hair. Along with the cinders, a long worm also fell out of the wooden door near his feet. It raised its head a few times, slithered here and there looking for some hole to hide in, and then wriggled desperately towards a brick lined drain that ran past the spot.

By now many more people were staring out of their windows. They were sure that something dramatic was about to happen. “Chiragdin’s father, Gani, is here,” they whispered. “He will find out what happened seven-and-a-half years ago.” They felt that the rubble-heap would reveal the whole story. That evening, Chiragdin was eating his dinner upstairs, when Rakkha Pahlwan shouted for him from the street and asked him to come down for a minute. In those days, Rakkha was the uncrowned King of the lane. Even the Hindus were afraid of him; Chirag was a Muslim. Chirag got up without finishing his food and went downstairs to meet him. His wife, Zubaida, and his two daughters, Kishwar and Sultana, watched from the windows upstairs. The moment Chirag stepped out of the door, Rakkha grabbed him by his shirt collar, threw him down in the street and sat on his chest. Chirag caught Rakkha’s hand in which he held a knife and screamed, “Rakkha Pahlwan, don’t kill me! O God, help… save me!” Zubaida, Kishwar and Sultana screamed helplessly and ran downstairs wailing. One of Rakkha’s disciples pushed Chirag’s arm aside, while Rakkha pressed his knee down on his thighs and shouted, “Don’t scream, you sister-fucker. You want Pakistan, don’t you! I only want to send you there! Now go!” By the time Zubaida, Kishwar and Sultana reached the door downstairs, Chirag had already been dispatched to Pakistan.

By then, all the windows in the neighborhood had been shut. Those who had witnessed the murder had shut their doors and had refused to get involved. Even behind shut doors, they could hear the screams of Zubaida, Kishwar and Sultana for a very long time. Rakkha and his companions had arranged to have them sent to Pakistan too that very night, but by a different and longer route. Their bodies were later discovered, not in Chirag’s house, but in the canal nearby.

For two days, the house was raided and completely ransacked. After everything had been looted, someone set the house on fire. Rakkha Pahlwan swore that if he ever caught the person who had lit the fire, he would bury him alive in the earth. He had killed Chirag because he wanted to grab that house. He had even bought all that was necessary to perform the purification rituals. But he was never able to discover who had burnt the house down.

Over the last seven-and-a-half years, everyone had accepted the fact that Rakkha was the owner of the rubble that had been left behind. He would neither allow anyone to tie a cow or a buffalo there, nor let anyone put up a temporary shed. No one ever dared to take even a small piece of brick from the rubble-heap without his permission.

People looking out of their windows were sure that Gani would discover the entire story, that he would be able to read the history of his family’s fate in the pile of rubbish. They watched as Gani sat in the middle of the rubble, scratched ash from the rubble with his nails and scattered it over his head. Then he put his arms around the door frame and wailed, “Speak to me, Chirag! Say something! Tell me where you are? O Kishwar! O Sultana! My children! O God, why is Gani still alive!”

The fragile door frame crumbled a little more and pieces of charred wood fell to the ground and scattered.

Rakkha Pahlwan, who had been sleeping under the peepul tree, woke up or was woken up by someone. When he learnt that Abdul Gani had returned from Pakistan and was sitting on the debris of his house, his mouth went dry. He cleared his throat and spat on the ground near the well. When he looked towards the rubble-heap, his heart beat faster and his lower lip became a little more pendulous.

“Gani is sitting in the middle of the ruins of his house,” Laccha Pahlwan, one of his disciples, informed Rakkha as he came and sat down next to him.

“The ruins of his house? That rubble is mine!” Rakkha said in a hoarse voice.

“But he is sitting there,” Laccha said and looked at him meaningfully.

“Let him sit there. Go and get my chillum!” Rakkha said, as he stretched out his legs and massaged his naked thighs.

“Suppose Manori tells him?” Laccha asked, as he got up to fill the chillum.

“Does Manori want to get into trouble?”

Laccha left to get the chillum.

Dry leaves from the peepul tree had scattered around the well. Rakkha picked them up one by one and crushed them with the palms of his hands. After Laccha had wrapped a cloth filter around the chillum and had handed it to Rakkha, he took a long puff and asked, “Has Gani talked to anyone else?”

“No.”

“Here, take it,” Rakkha said as he coughed and passed the chillum to Laccha.

Manori helped Gani off the pile of rubble and supported him as he walked towards the well. Laccha crouched on the ground and puffed hard on the chillum. He watched Rakkha’s face and also kept his eye on Gani.

Manori walked a little ahead of Gani, as if he wanted to make sure that Gani walked past the well without noticing Rakkha. But Gani had already seen Rakkha and had recognized him from the way in which he was sitting with his legs stretched out on the ground. As soon as Gani came near the well, he stretched his arms out and said, “Rakkha Pahlwan!”

Rakkha looked up, squinted a little and stared at Gani. Then he grunted, but didn’t utter a word.

“Don’t you recognize me?” Gani asked, as he dropped his arms. “I am Gani, Abdul Gani, Chiragdin’s father!”

The people at the windows continued to gossip – “Now that they have come face to face, they are bound to talk about what happened. Maybe they’ll abuse each other… Now Rakkha can’t touch Gani. Times have changed… He thought that he was the owner of that rubble…! That heap of rubbish belongs to neither of them. The government owns the ruin…! That bastard doesn’t even let anyone tie his cow there…! Manori is a coward. Why didn’t he tell Gani that it was Rakkha who had killed Chirag, his wife and his children…? Rakkha is not a human being, he is a wild bull. He roams the streets all day long like a bull…! Look how thin poor Gani is! His beard is completely white…”

Gani sat down by the side of the well and said, “Look at my fate Rakkha! When I went away, I had a fine and happy household, and now there is nothing left but that heap of dust! The only sign of a house which was once inhabited! To tell you the truth, I don’t want to leave that pile of rubble behind.” His eyes filled with tears.

Rakkha pulled his legs in and sat cross-legged. Then he picked up his towel which was lying on the parapet of the well and wrapped it around his shoulders. Laccha pushed the chillum towards him and he started puffing on it.

“Tell me, Rakkha, how did it happen?” Gani asked as he wiped his eyes. “You were friends. You loved each other like brothers. Couldn’t he have hidden in your house? He was bright enough to have thought of that.”

“I don’t know,” Rakkha replied, but he sounded strangely unconvincing.  His mouth was dry. There were drops of sweat on his moustache, and they trickled down to his lips. His forehead felt heavy, and his back ached for support.

“What is it like in Pakistan?” Rakkha asked. His voice was tense and the veins on his neck were throbbing. He used his towel to wipe the sweat under his armpits and then he cleared his throat and spat into the lane.

“What can I tell you, Rakkha?” Gani said as he leaned with both his hands on his cane. “Only God knows how I live. If Chirag had been with me, the story would have been different. I tried to persuade him to go with me. But he was determined not to leave his newly-built house. ‘This is our lane,’ he said obstinately, ‘there is no danger here.’ Like an innocent dove, he didn’t consider the threat from outside. All four of them gave up their lives trying to protect that house! Rakkha, he depended on you. He used to say that, as long as Rakkha was around, nobody would dare to hurt him. But when death finally came, even Rakkha couldn’t help.”

Rakkha tried to stretch his back because it had begun to ache badly. His sides too had begun to pain severely. He couldn’t breathe with ease. He felt as if he had stomach cramps. He was perspiring badly and his feet seemed to be full of thorns. He saw flashes of bright light burst like fireworks before his eyes. He could neither open his mouth nor utter a word. He wiped his face with one end of his towel. And then, quite involuntarily, he whispered to himself, “Oh dear God, have mercy on me, have mercy on me!” Gani noticed that Rakkha’s lips had become dry and there were deep and dark circles under his eyes. He placed his hand on Rakkha’s shoulder and said, “What happened was fated, Rakkhiya. There is no use moaning about the past! May God bless the virtuous, and may He forgive those who have sinned! Now that I have met all of you, I feel as if I have seen Chirag again. May Allah keep you in good health.” And then, with the help of his cane, he stood up. As he started to leave, he said, “Allow me to take my leave, Rakkha Pahlwan.”

Rakkha tried to say something. He folded both his hands. Gani looked around at the neighborhood once more with regret and longing, and then walked slowly out of the lane.

The people at the windows started whispering once again, “Once outside the lane, Manori will tell Gani the entire story… Rakkha didn’t dare to say anything to Gani… Now he won’t dare to stop us from tying our cows in that area… Poor Zubaida! She was such a fine woman! Rakkha neither has a home nor a family, how can he respect the wives and sisters of others…?”

After some time, the women came out of their houses into the lane. The children began to play gilli-danda. Two teenage girls began to argue with each other about something and then came to blows.

Rakkha continued to sit by the well till late into the evening, smoking his chillum and coughing. People who passed by that place, asked him, “Rakkhey Shah, I hear that Gani came from Pakistan today.”

“Yes, he came,” Rakkha would answer every time.

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. He went away.”

When night fell, Rakkha went to the shop on the left side of the lane as usual, and sat on the porch. Every day, he used to greet his acquaintances as they passed by, and tell them about the secrets of the lottery or give them remedies for good health. But that day, he told Laccha about the pilgrimage he had made fifteen years ago to Vaishno Devi. When he went back into the lane after sending Laccha home, he saw that Loku Pundit had tied his buffalo near the ruins of Gani’s house. Instinctively, he picked up his stick and drove it away,

“Tat, tat, tat… tat, tat…!”

Then he sat down to rest for a while near the charred remains of the door frame in the middle of the rubble. Since there was no streetlight nearby, it was dark there. He could hear the soft sound of water running through the drain nearby. The silence of the night was pierced by all sorts of sounds rising from the mound of dust and ash… chick, chick, chick… kirrr-rrrr-ki-ki-ki… Suddenly a crow, who had lost his bearings, fluttered around and then came and sat on the door frame. The wooden frame crumbled a little more, and pieces of burnt wood fell here and there. As soon as the crow settled down on the door frame, a dog, who had been sleeping in one corner of the rubble, got up and started barking at it loudly – Bow-wow-wow-wow… bow-wow-wow-wow. At first the crow stayed where it was, but then it flapped its wings rapidly and flew up to the peepul tree near the well. After chasing away the crow, the dog turned towards Rakkha Pahlwan and began to growl at him. In order to chase away the dog, Rakkha shouted at him, “Go away, shoo, shoo…”

But the dog became more aggressive and began to bark at Rakkha more loudly – Bow-wow-wow-wow…

“Hat-hat… durr-durr-durr…!”

“Bow-wow-wow-wow… bow-wow-wow-wow…!”

Rakkha picked up a stone and threw it at the dog. The dog moved away a little, but didn’t stop barking. Rakkha called it a son of a bitch, got up slowly walked up to the well and lay down on the platform. As soon as he left, the dog followed him and continued to bark after him. After sometime, when the dog saw no one moving about in the lane, it twitched its ears and went back to the rubble. It then sat down in a corner and continued to growl.

(Translated by Alok Bhalla)