Time Travels: Karachi Diary

Witness to Life and Freedom, Roli Books, Delhi

Short story based on the following prompt:

Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air. - H. G. Wells, The Time Machine

Like an impatient fool, I lugged over the lever, and incontinently the thing went reeling over, and I was flung headlong through the air. I had stumbled through a trapdoor in spacetime. The date on the machine read 6 —, 1947. The place—Clifton Beach, Karachi, Undivided India. A crowd of bearded men in long shirts and baggy pants swarmed over me like bees on a hive. The look on their faces told me they were out for blood.

“Hindu hai ya Muslim?” (Are you a Hindu or a Muslim?). My life was on a razor’s edge.

“Muslim!”—I blurted, thanking my stars that I hadn’t charged my razor in more than a month. Laziness can sometimes save your life.

“Your clothes look bizarre. You aren’t an English spy, are you?”. I had forgotten to change into period attire.

“I took these from an Englishman killed by a mob.”

“Why are your pants ripped at the knees?”
“He must have fallen down while running from the mob.”

“You have a funny accent.”
“I am a refugee from Hyderabad.”

“I knew you were not from here. You know what they’re doing to our brothers over there. We are not cowards. Come, let’s go and show them we can also fight.”

“I can’t come. I promised to meet a friend here.”

“Offo-you pampered chicken hearts! Why do you come here and pollute our country? Wear bangles and sit at home.”

I braced for more insults, but to my surprise, the mob moved on. They had other targets.

It was risky to stay there for long. I approached an elder for the way to a locality named Ramasami Ghadi Gatha. He looked me up and down and directed me to a road. Not a soul could be seen walking on it. It looked like a fire had ravaged the area. Many homes had been reduced to ashes. Smoke was still rising from within their precincts. Vandals had left nothing of value behind.

A boy, barely eight, emerged out of the smoke and haze in front of me. His arms were like pencils. He was covered in dust from head to toe. Some of his shirt buttons were broken, and his shorts were torn. He was clutching a wooden horse with a broken foot that had seen better days. It, too, seemed to be in a daze like him.

Where did he live? “At the end of the street. They burnt down my house.” Who were they? “I don’t know. They were shouting, ‘Kill them all!’ My mother threw me out of the window before they set the house on fire. I hid behind a bush and went in after they left. I couldn’t find my mother and father. I found ghoda in the yard. They broke his leg too.” A crumb of comfort for the boy in the midst of a sea of tragedy.

Had he heard of this South Indian family? Four boys and a girl. They attended St Patrick’s School. “I knew them. They lived in the apartment block next to ours. I used to play with the boys in the evening. They hid in a neighbor’s house yesterday. Left this morning before the mob returned. Going to Bombay today by ship.”

Was anything left of the family’s house? “No, they burnt it down too.” I didn’t feel like taking a look. It would be a difficult memory to erase. Some things were best left unexplored. I wanted to head back towards the dock with the boy. Perhaps I could find the family before the ship sailed. I borrowed a long shirt and loose pant from a corpse in the street, doing my best to not faint.

The dock was like a zoo where the animals had escaped. The police were herding refugees like cattle. Why, I wondered, weren’t they out controlling the mobs in the city? Maybe they, too, were scared of them. A loudspeaker implored people to form queues; the ship to Bombay would leave as soon as it was full. People with suitcases and cloth bundles were swarming all over the gangway trying to get onto the ship like ants. They had taken only the things that they could carry. Even if they managed to get onboard and survive the journey, an uncertain future loomed ahead.

I had to get the boy aboard the ship. His best chance lay in getting out of this hellhole. I hoisted him onto my shoulders and barged through the crowd, ignoring the vitriol thrown at us. There was a thin line between bravery and foolishness, but I managed to stay on it. A crowd parting trick from the railway stations of Bombay came in handy—shouting “Fish water!”. It never failed to work.

The gangway was now within reach. After some more shoving and pushing, we were ascending it. We had the advantage of not having any baggage. I got onto the ship’s deck and found an official looking person with a register. I entrusted the boy to him and absentmindedly gave my contact address.

That done, I began hunting for the family I had come for. I scanned the teeming mass of humanity on the decks and those peering from the state rooms, looking for familiar faces. Old photographs and tales were my only reference.

Minutes later, after being on the verge of giving up, I sighted them on the lower deck. Packed tighter than a Virar fast train. I didn’t recognize the children at first. The father and mother, though, stood out—Stoic figures. They looked like they had just walked out of the faded photograph my father had shown me. Except they were in color. They must have been stressed, but I didn’t see it in their faces. Their composure would have comforted the children no end in the midst of an ordeal.

I turned my attention to the children. In my mind, I tried to turn the clock back and imagine what my father and uncles would have looked like as children. This I superimposed upon the reality unfolding in front of my eyes. A blurred image came into focus. I recognized them as in a vivid dream. I shouted their names over the cacophony of the crowd. But they didn’t hear me. I had to get closer.

To my dismay, my time was up. The timer had run out, and I was back in Simi Valley. The fragrance of coffee filled the air and the toast had just popped. I wanted to call my father and talk to him, but it was past his bedtime. The thought of squeezing in another trip flashed through my mind.

p.s. Some of the characters, locations and events in this story are based on the experiences of my father and his family during the partition of India in 1947. They traveled by ship from Karachi to Mumbai in 1947 as refugees of the partition following communal riots in Karachi.