Guardian

“Dadi, tell us more!”

“Ah! I am tired now. I need rest. That’s enough for today. I’ll tell you more stories on some other day”, said Grandma.

It was one of those sessions in which Grandma narrated stories. My Grandma came to India from Pakistan in 1947 during the partition. She was a teenager at that time. One of the best memories of my childhood is to listen to her stories in which she narrated the whole journey from Pakistan to India.

After dinner, I and my siblings went to Grandma’s room. She was waiting for us.

“Let’s start with today’s story”, said Dadi.

Dadi began with the story saying, “It was a moonlit night. My father just returned home from work. My mother was preparing dinner. We all sat down to eat. Suddenly, there was a knock at our door. My father opened the door. It was our neighbor Shoaib Uncle. He was extremely terrified.”

He said, “Sharmaji, you need to go from here as soon as possible. You are no longer safe here. Leave this place and go to India or else you and your family will be killed.”

Grandma continued, “Our world stopped! We couldn’t register in our brains what we just heard. My father came to consciousness quickly. He told my mother to pack some important stuff. My mother did as told. In ten minutes, we were standing at our door, looking at our home, not knowing whether we would see this place again or not. The last vision I have of that place is a burnt roti on the fireplace.

We went to our Uncle’s home. They were also petrified. My grandfather was crying saying he can’t leave this place at any cost. We calmed him down and somehow made him ready to come with us.

We started moving towards the border. There were many families along with us. We reached the border in around two days. We stayed in a camp for two days. Then, we were told to go to the Indian Territory by helicopter. Then…”, Dadi suddenly stopped.

“What happened, Dadi?”, I asked.

Further, she continued, “We suddenly realized my grandfather was not along. That was a moment when the whole family shattered. It felt like we lost all that we had. There was no time to go back and look for him. We continued the journey without him.”, said Grandma.

“He might have returned as you said he didn’t want to come”, said my younger brother.

“Don’t you know what happened to him?”, I asked.

“We got to know about him two days later. One of our neighbors in Pakistan who was also heading towards India told us that when we left our home, my grandfather came back after few hours. He remained inside for a while and later committed suicide by burning in kerosene oil”, sighed Grandma.

It was with a great sense of grief that my Grandma told this story.

Grandma continued further, “We reached Jammu. We did as we were told by the government. We stayed in camps for about a month. One day, my younger sister didn’t return to the camp after playing with her friends. We waited the whole day but she didn’t return. There was no stone left unturned by my family in finding her. Two days passed and we couldn’t find her. We were consoled by our relatives and friends. Everyone suggested us to move on. My mother couldn’t take this and suffered many panic attacks. The whole family was ruined and no one had the will to live.

Ten days passed and we couldn’t find her. We were scheduled to leave the camp and move further on the following day. We all had somewhere accepted that she had gone and that she will never come back. We were packing for the next day’s journey when someone appeared at the door.

To everyone’s surprise, it was my younger sister! She was happy and seemed perfectly fine. We couldn’t believe our eyes. We ran towards her and embraced her. We wanted to know what had happened. We asked her where she was but suddenly she went right next to the door and said, “Come in, why don’t you come in? Everyone is waiting, come inside.”

To our greatest shock, we realized there was no one standing out and she was talking with the air! We asked her what was wrong to which she replied, “He took care of me for ten days, protected me from men with swords, and gave me food and candies, and now he is not coming inside.”

We all lost our senses upon hearing this because there was literally no one next to her.

 My mother went to her and asked her politely, “Whom are you talking to?” She got frustrated and replied, “Can’t you see? Grandpa is standing right here. I am talking to him.”

That was the moment we realized what just happened! My Grandpa died and since then he was guarding us in all possible ways”, sighed my Grandma.