'Get out! Get out of our country! Get out! Get out of our country, Traitors!' With every new killing, the chorus of hatred climbed up.

'Thum thum thumthum thumthumthumthum thumthumthumthumthumthum," my heart beat louder till Papa grabbed my hand and threw me inside the bathroom. I fell on Ammi. She winced.

'This boy. What do I do with him?' Papa hissed, bolting the door with an iron rod.

Ammi kept a finger on her mouth.

The tiny bathroom with five adults huddling close together gave me a false sense of security. I blurted out - 'There is a lock on our door! Nobody will come inside. We are s -'

Shehzadi pressed her hand on my mouth. I nodded hysterically.

The shrieks and the slogans got louder. My sisters and I were huddled by a wall, and Papa and Ammi by the door. I could see the arrangement. If we were to die, Papa and Ammi would die first. I stared at the floor with horror. Again, the bloody images started to swim in my mind. The men dragged Papa towards the wall and pushed Ammi, Shehzadi and Sultana into the bedroom. Their manic screams burnt my shivering body, puncturing permanent marks into my skin. I clasped my sisters and stared at Papa. He accepted my promise of protection with a determined stare.

For hours, we waited, preparing ourselves for the slaughter. I stared at the iron rod, trying to defeat the fear of killing or getting killed. If times went bad, I might need to kill my sisters to save them from the enemy. To kill them, I would need to kill my soul first.

It was growing dark. The mob must have left. A brooding silence hung in the air. The smell of burning, the crackling of fire stung us. I got up.

'Sit down!' Papa whispered, gesticulating frantically. Then into my ear he said, 'One or two might be hiding or spying. Not until tomorrow.'

I nodded and took my post. Ammi slumped. The worst was over.

'I am not going,' I declared to my family the next morning and swung my door shut.

It burst open. Papa stepped in, his face burning red.

'Do we have a choice? Do you think I am enjoying leaving my home, my country, my job, my people, to go to an unknown land! If it wasn't for your mother and sisters, I would have fought a bloody battle with them. Tell me! Where do I leave these three? They are safe only as long as you and I are alive. Salman! Do you understand? Now go and pack whatever you want to keep. No clothes or love letters. Get it checked by me. Get up!'

'What if they attack us on the way?'

Papa went silent. He thought for a moment, then said solemnly, 'They don't want us here so maybe they will let us leave.'

'Maybe they will kill us. We are safe here, at our home. We have locked the door from the outside so nobody will know we are here. We should quietly wait it out. After a few days, everything will be fine. It will be as before.'

.........

It will be as before. How innocent I was back then. I thought that somehow I would escape the division of the country, that I will tear my destiny apart from the destiny of my country. The two gentlemen, who had torn it apart and kept the pieces for themselves, had also torn apart millions of lives. We are mere ants crushed under their colossal ambitions.'

'Salman sahab, they will jail you if you speak against them,' Imran said passionately.

'I jailed myself thirty five years ago.'

'Old age has gone into your head.'

'My ambitions were never so strong.'

'I don't know what you are talking about. Continue with the story. What happened to your family?'

'Ah! Story. If that is what you call it . . . Listen.'

................

My innocence could have killed us all. Or Papa's shrewdness. Our home had deserted us. Both staying back or leaving was dangerous. In the end, I had to bow down to Papa's authority and the nation's demand. I hid Anjali's photograph between the money I had saved and thrust it deep inside my pocket. I was ready to go.

'What is in your pocket?' Papa whispered angrily.

'Just some money,' I said, sealing the pocket with my hand.

'Give it to me! Keep all the money in the suitcase. People can kill you for it. Throw the suitcase away and run if anybody threatens to kill you for money. If there is life, there is everything.'

Under Papa's gaze, I put the money inside the suitcase. My heart broke and dropped into it. I picked up the suitcase and pressed it to my chest.

Papa started the jeep. He told Ammi to sit beside him. Shehzadi and Sultana huddled at the back. I posted myself behind them. That was the arrangement. Papa would protect Ammi and I would protect my sisters. I stared at my twin sisters. They looked like one being. Same features, same roundness, same hair. Only when you looked deep enough, you would see two, two radically different personalities. I recovered from the delusion and stared at Hakim Gali and our retreating house.

We stuck to narrow, lonely lanes and avoided main roads. I was thankful that Papa knew all the ways. After an hour's journey, our jeep started roaring like a struggling animal. I panicked. We would never make it on foot. I looked around. All the doors of the houses were ajar. The ugly stillness left a sudden bitterness in my mouth. The air hung heavily with the scent of fear. I sniffed. It was the smell of burning human flesh. My sisters, my Ammi, my Papa. My mind raced. Every night, they died horribly in my mind while I shrieked like a madman. I felt like killing myself, but the time didn't need madness of giving up everything, it needed the madness of taking up, Everything.

'Papa! I smell trouble ahead. Take another route,' I said, squeezing my fingers around the iron rod.

'There is no other route. If we get past Punjab . . .' He was as uncertain about the future as I was. Our future was the future of an unborn child whose mother was being abused. We suffered her pangs as passively as she did and came out handicapped.

'I see fire. People! Stop the jeep! Stop the jeep!' I screamed.

The jeep stopped and started going back.

'Yes. Right, right, left, left, yes yes yes, straight straight.'

The screams were coming near us.

'Press the accelerator, Papa!'

The jeep roared as if it were dying. My sisters' muffled sobs reached my pounding ears.

'Let the bastards come!' I screamed.

Ammi put a knife in Shehzadi's trembling hands. My face twisted with hatred and I turned into a hungry assassin, lusting to kill.

'Come!' I screamed like a madman.

They came upon us. Our jeep swerved and hit the footpath. I waved the iron rod wildly, scaring them away.

'Not now Shehzadi! Not now!' I shouted, fearing she would kill Sultana and herself. Papa was screaming at them too. I had no time to turn around and see otherwise I would have known that they had Ammi. Shehzadi and Sultana were shrieking, sobbing, pleading. The madness blinded me. I leapt out of the jeep and landed the iron rod on a man's head, then on another's, then I swept it all around. My arm was bleeding. I had heard a tearing, but I didn't feel the pain. I broke skulls, legs, necks, hands. There was silence now. Nobody was sobbing or screaming. They were still standing and they had Ammi. The sound of a hundred running feet swept the air. I was laughing like a madman. They looked at the approaching mob. The fire in their eyes changed to fear. I ran and grabbed Ammi. She dropped into my arms lifelessly. They ran. The mob ran after them. Papa started the jeep. I lay Ammi at the back and checked her pulse. She was alive.

............

'So nobody died?' Imran asks dejectedly.

'Ah! I am old, I forget. I should have spiced it up.'

'No other near-death experience after that?'

'Not for us. There were others who were dying, stabbing, burning, raping. Not us. We crossed the border safely.'

'So, that's the end of the story. Happy-ever-after.'

"If you say so. For thirty five years, I have been planning to visit my home in Punjab.'

'For what?' Imran looks surprised. 'You have been living here ever since. This is your home now, this is your country.'

'You don't understand Imran. I am like a plant that has been rooted out and thrown away " '

'That is what I meant. You talk in a language nobody understands. Nobody likes to hear sad tales. You shouldn't speak of such things. People will stop listening to you.'

'I understand.'

'If you do, then don't go back.'

................

I have packed my bags. Hakim Gali, Ashiana Park, Savitri Amma, my room, our kitchen, our verandah, that scented chameli. I am as ecstatic as an old man can be. I can almost feel my hand on those walls. Maybe I will meet Anjali if she didn't marry like me and still lives in Mainka Apartments. Shyam, Raju, Monu, Rehman, Birju. I wouldn't even recognize them. But Anjali. I have seen her grow up in my mind.

The bus starts. My heart jumps a beat. I remind myself; the journey is long. There is still time to dream, to feel the ache for the motherland, to see my childhood in flashes, to hear Shehzadi and Sultana gossiping under the banyan tree. A piece of my partitioned life is lying across the border. After thirty-five years of dreaming, I need to recover it before my unquenched soul liberates from this tired body. That is my Mecca, this my Hajj.

I reach Punjab in the evening. My heart starts going thum thum thumthumthumthum thumthumthumthumthum. I am very near to my dream.

I get down at the bus stop at Jalandhar, and stop a man to ask for the way.

'Bhai, where is Hakim Gali?'

'Tourist?' he inquires.

'No.'

He looks at me inquisitively.

'I lived there a long time back,' I explain.

He frowns. 'There is no Hakim Gali here.'

I smile and say, 'I lived there for twenty-one years. It was called Hakim Gali then. Maybe they have changed the name.'

'You ask that old man at the tea stall.'

The old man of the tea stall looks like a smudged portrait. His features are hardly distinguishable. The loose brown kurta hangs from his bony shoulders, giving him some thickness. I am standing in front of his stall, staring at him, but not once does he look up at me. I speak out.

'Do you know where Hakim Gali is?'

He jumps up as if he has seen a ghost.

'HAKIM GALI,' I repeat aloud.

'There is no peace here. Even early morning, people have time to come to my stall only to ask for the way. Nobody buys. Just talk, joke, smoke and leave,' the smudged portrait mumbles, cleaning the glass jar.

'Okay. Give me tea and biscuits, and show me the way to Hakim Gali.'

'Thank you Saab. You are very generous. Tourist?'

I nod doubtfully.

'People come here and talk to me for hours, but they don't buy anything. My tea stall has become a confession box. You know in Christian temples. People come, confess and leave,' he leans closer to me and whispers, 'I can hear everything they say, but I pretend that I can't. Answering them means encouraging them.'

'Why don't you tell them to shut up?'

His eyes opened wide and his mouth formed an O.

'Are you crazy? Do you want to shut down my stall? Who will come to an old man who scolds!'

Humbly, I say, 'My tea and biscuits, and way to Hakim Gali.'

'Here,' he stamps the tiny glass and a packet of biscuits on the counter. 'There is no Hakim Gali here.'

'What do you mean? There was a Hakim Gali thirty-five years ago. I lived there!'

The old man laughs manically.

I am starting to get upset. 'I lived there! Ashiana Park? Mainka Apartments? Savitri Am -'

'Ho ho ho, from which world have you come? Can't you see?'

I stare at him like a schoolboy, sensing the punishment.

'Everything has changed. Hakim Gali is Sitaram Marg. Ashiana Park is Gokul Towers. Mainka Apartments is MCD office. Savitri? Who was she? After two years, you won't find me or this stall here, and you are talking of thirty-five years? Ho ho ho.'

I look around. Strange men and women, a smudged old man at a tea stall, a few towering buildings and the road. This is all there is. There is no home, no Anjali, no Hakim Gali, no friends or foes. It took me thirty-five years to understand that they had all died when I had left.