Hope - The Flight

This is not my story. I have heard it many times from my mother, who heard it over and over again, from her elder siblings. For she was all of seven when it happened. 

My dadu (grandad) had gone to Prome, modern Pyay, in Myanmar, sometime in the late 1920s. During this time a lot of Indians had migrated to British Burma. Mostly from the south and the east of the country. Forming the backbone of the British government’s administrative system, they were not very popular with the local populace. After 1937, once Burma separated constitutionally from India, the feeling of nationalism became stronger among the locals. 

Dadu was a lawyer, loved and respected, and had settled well in Prome. When Indians started moving back to India, in the late 1930s, dadu’s clients assured him that unpleasant incidents would be kept at bay and he should not feel unsafe. Dadu, who really did not want to leave the city that had given him name and fame, felt safe. Life went on. 

However, when the news of the Japanese attacks reached Prome in the early months of 1942, his friends and neighbors were no longer sure. The Japanese army had set sail from Singapore and attacked Rangoon in February 1942. Dadu, who had great faith in the British army, took a while to make his decision. By end of March, it became inevitable that he had to leave. 

Things were chaotic by then. The British government had sent shiploads of Indians back to Madras and Calcutta in the first two months. But as things got worse and the Japanese attack intensified, the British got busy transporting their families and other preferred communities such as the Anglo Indians to safety. The Indian population blessed neither with connection or color was majorly left to fend for themselves. 

Once dadu decided that they were going back to India, things had to move very fast. My eldest uncle, who had just finished graduating from Rangoon University, was summoned back to Prome. My grandmother and the retinue of servants got ready for the journey. Huge oil containers were washed and disinfected and filled with water. Essential food, rice, dahl, jaggery, muri and chire, few changes of clothes, matches, oil for cooking and lighting the stove, etc, was packed into drums and trunks. Dadu arranged with the chettiars to transfer his savings to Calcutta. For the journey, he kept a small amount. My mother, while recounting this journey, has time and again mourned the porcelain dolls that she had to leave behind. To a seven-year-old, it was the end to her riches. 

They left on a March morning. Dida must have been an extremely efficient woman to pack for an unknown number of days. She had no idea of the terrain they would travel, the different modes of transport they would take, and most importantly what if at all, will be available as provision, on their way. Of the five children, my mom and aunt were seven and nine respectively. The three-year-old twins were at the greatest risk. My uncle who was then 18, was dadu’s confidante and second-in-command.

The paddle-steamer bobbed on the Irrawady, waiting for them; dida went in with the little ones, followed by the older girls. Dadu, my uncle, and the manservants lugged the water, food, and trunks over the gangway. Luckily for them, the trawler-keeper was someone they knew and he waited till everything was safely onboard. My dida would lament later that they did not even say goodbye to their neighbors or had the time or luxury to bid farewell to their life in Prome. The future loomed uncertainly. 

The steamer plied to the other side, where the cargo was emptied. Dadu thanked and paid. He had taken help from his clients to arrange for three bullock carts. Again the men loaded the carts and the women settled themselves and the children. The water, food, and the three elder children with two servants went in one cart. Dadu, dida, and the twins with most of the bedding and trunks were in the middle cart. In the last piled in the servants with their smaller trunks. Then they started across the jungle hills of the Arakan mountains. 

History has it that nearly half a million Indians walked across some of the harshest tropics of Asia in order to escape the Japanese Army. Most people were not as lucky as my dadu. On their way, as my mother recounts, they saw families traveling on foot; children carried on shoulders, and possessions piled on hand carts and pulled along the winding roads. Dida would purposely boil more rice than needed so that they could give the extra to whoever happened to pass by. Small children got cholera and diarrhea. At night, carts fell off the mountain road at sharp turns, as the animals lost balance from fatigue. 

It took seven days to cross the Arakan mountains. They reached the fishing village of Taungup, from where they took country boats to Akyab Port. Ships from here set sail for Chittagong, in modern Bangladesh. Almost after three weeks, they reached Calcutta, in late March. On that train, from Chittagong to Calcutta, dadu had finally relaxed, as the end seemed clearer and nearer. 

If you asked them, later, what was that they remembered of their flight, each had their own tale. My mother leaving behind the dolls, my elder aunt about not getting to eat mohinga any more, my uncle his helplessness, when he missed the ship at Akyab (Apparently he had been so busy loading the luggage that he had not heard the horn nor saw the ship sliding away from the gangway, till too late). However, the incident that was common in each of their stories was that of the twins uttering their first words on that journey. They had said, ‘hati,’ spying elephants crossing at a distance.

Not ma, not baba, but hati! Dida, however, was just glad that they spoke. The family had been harboring the worst possibilities, till then. 

The ‘flight across the mountains,’ is the favourite family lore, even today; and remembered, no sir, not for the near-death moments but because ‘the twins could speak!’