As the train left the platform, something shifted in Toshi’s world.

Until the day Toshi’s grandmother died, she never again uttered a word about the land she grew up in; the home of her childhood; the mulberry trees she climbed with her sisters; the tube well she splashed around in with her cousins; the mohalla she played in with her friends; the temple she visited every full moon with her family; the home she got married into; the sharing of food, gossip and laughter with her neighbours; the births and deaths, thread ceremonies and marriages that were witnessed by the tulsi in her courtyard. It was as if in one swift blow, a million memories had been erased. Perhaps it was the only way she knew to deal with the numbing pain of her crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.

As if nothing had happened.

Until the day he died, Toshi’s grandfather would visit the railway platform every evening and sit silently on a bench.

‘Who are you waiting for?’ the station master would ask him.

‘My family is yet to join me,’ he would reply matter-of-factly. Some days he would call out ‘Baldev! Nalini! Tarlok!’ repeatedly, as if hoping to see them emerge from the other side of the railway tracks. Over time, the station master learnt to ignore the old man and go about his duties.

It was as if in one swift blow, time had stopped for Lekhraj. Yet, he went through the motions, unable to accept reality and hoping, deliriously, against hope that everything would return to how it was, once the dust had settled. Perhaps it was the only way he knew to deal with the numbing pain of his crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.

As if nothing had happened.

As for Toshi, she learnt to navigate life without her parents. She learnt not to broach what had happened in the past with her grandparents. However, what she could not learn was to ever forgive herself for leaving Tarlok alone that day in the gully outside their home in Rawalpindi. So, she decided to bury her sadness deep, deep inside her little heart. Perhaps it was the only way she knew to deal with the numbing pain of her crushing loss. And the only way to somehow still keep carrying on.

As if nothing had happened.

No Man’s Land

19 August 1947

Foot caravans, each several miles long, crossed each other in funereal silence as they trudged past the barbed wire fences into no man’s land—the barren stretch of land that separated the newly carved Pakistan from India.

One, a caravan of Muslim men, women and children, headed to the newly formed Pakistan, carrying remnants of the life they had left behind in India in small cloth bundles. The other, of Hindus rendered homeless, headed the opposite way. Both fleeing the ferocity of the genocide that had followed the announcement of the new borders.