Part 3: My Grandfather was from Lahore

Continuing on from my last post I thought I should mention and discuss that my grandfather was from Lahore. The most beautiful city of South Asia, or so I have heard as I have sadly never visited (though I have a Muslim friend who has told me one day we will go together and visit some of the shrines there, and in turn I will join him when he visits India).

What I wish to discuss is that my grandfather never had a problem with Muslims or Hindus when he resided in Lahore. Everyone lived peacefully, there were no issues. They understood that they all shared the same culture, ate the same food, enjoyed the same music, adored the same poets, and cheered on the same heroes. This is the ideal which I look upon when I think of Punjab. Not its existence as it is today, nor of any existence which fails to capture this image. It is unfortunate that some ‘leaders’ felt they needed to take advantage of our religious differences in order to pursue their own individual agendas. At the cost of the greatest legacy they tried to build their own. If you look upon the history of Punjab there is no real evidence of racial tensions, why is that? Because there was only one race in Punjab, that of the Punjabis. Religion does not play a role in the racial definition of Punjab, it is something that plays a part in private lives, but in society at large there was a connection that went beyond what we believed happens after we die. Claiming then that the different religions deserve their different parts of Punjab was foolish.

I sometimes wonder what it is my grandfather lost after partition. Did he every wonder why was it necessary to divide Punjab? Before we are to be Pakistani or Indian, are not we Punjabi? Why was it that we have to split from our brothers for the sake of countries we share no relations with? When my grandfather finally settled in India, I wonder if he ever looked across the border and wondered that he actually shares more in common with the ‘enemy’ than he does with ‘friends’.

He lost everything when that unfortunate event occurred, but the greater loss was not the loss of personal wealth but of the nation. The nation lost it self in that period, my grandfather being forced across was a symbol of that. How did it become that where my ancestors resided for years no longer would welcome their children there? When did this ‘truth’ arise and why didn’t anyone find it before?

I was deeply saddened when I learned that our village home actually belonged to a Muslim family forced across as well. I never looked at that house again. It wasn’t ours, it never could be. The old owners never consented to leave it, to pass it on to new owners. No, they were forced out, in fear of their lives maybe, or because they felt no longer welcomed there, or maybe there were told to stay by their neighbours but they knew they couldn’t. I also always wondered what it is that they felt. They must have had the same questions my grandfather did, why was this happening now? There was never a problem before. Getting rid of the British was supposed to give us independence, but the people became even more subjugated than ever before.

I was told that one day that Muslim family returned some years later. They were met very warmly; an excitement was there in both families. It was almost as if the injustice to that house was redeemed. The family that came took some pictures, talked some and then went on their way again, and finally that home consented to my family being there. But it saddened me still, why can’t that family take back their home, live here once again happily? Why can’t they have their children run in those same streets their grandfathers did and get lost in those narrow winding roads lined with old homes built with nanak-shahi bricks?

If I was to go back to Lahore one day and visit, would they greet me as a brother who had left home long ago in anger? Would they embrace me still and say it is okay? Or will they spit at me as I walk down my grandfather’s old street telling me to go back, as this side of Punjab is not mine to enjoy?

I imagine I would be embraced. I wait for that day when I can go and visit my Punjab freely, and not have to show a visa to go from one side to the other.