Re-United

“Do you have a sister called Gurmehar?” Harleen had encountered this question often.

“Yes, of course.” was her reply, the first time she had faced that query from a friend.” Why?”

“Oh, she sings so beautifully”!

“No, not at all! She is not even a bathroom singer. When did you hear her sing?” Asked Harleen, puzzled.

“Gurmehar Kaur Dillon- the upcoming singing sensation. She often comes on air in the programme for budding artists on the radio, from 8.30 to 9 am every morning. Yesterday I even saw her on television for the first time. Is she not your sister?”

“No, our surname is Anand. So my sister is Gurmehar Anand, not Dillon. This must be some other Gurmehar.”

“Oh really? That’s strange, ‘cause, this Dillon girl looks so much like you! You could easily pass off as sisters!”

This dialogue had come her way many times lately; enough to kindle Harleen’s curiosity. She wanted to see who her sister’s namesake was, who looked like her! She started switching on the radio every day waiting for the name ‘Gurmehar Dillon’ to be announced. Then one day it was. And it left Harleen mesmerized. The singer’s voice had a quality that gave her a feeling of utmost peace and serenity- a strangely familiar feeling. The songs just washed all over her and had a magical, soothing quality to them. She couldn’t place her finger on it but it made her nostalgic for her mother.

She found herself switching on the radio every single day after that and waiting for this singer, like a thirsty soul waiting for that melody to quench her thirst.

Then one day, the singer appeared on a television programme, which featured people who had suffered the consequences of the partition of India and Pakistan. Gurmehar was one of them. Even before she was introduced, Harleen knew she was the face behind the voice on the radio. She had an uncanny resemblance to her. Harleen waited eagerly for Gurmehar’s turn to speak. When the singer began her narration, Harleen was puzzled. 

Gurmehar was an orphan, having been separated from her mother in less than a couple of years after her birth. Her foster parents had found her mother, in the last stages of her pregnancy on the roadside, outside their village, during the volatile days of the partition of the two countries. Her mother, a young girl of hardly sixteen years of age, had been married just about a year ago and was with child almost immediately after. As her husband and she were attempting to flee with most of the other villagers, their caravan had been attacked by a frenzied mob. Separated from her husband in the milieu, and because of her condition, she had been unable to carry on further with the rest of the caravan, or whatever was left of it after the blood bath.

An old couple, who had chosen not to flee, preferring to die, if that was what was to be, in their motherland than in any other, had found her and had taken her under their wing. She had soon given birth to a baby girl, who was now this young lady with the golden voice.

They had later learnt that the husband had been killed in cold blood by the mob.

“You are too young to lead a life alone without a man,” they told my mother. Gurmehar was narrating her story. “They convinced her to leave me in their care and found a man for her to marry. They forbade her from revealing to him that I was her child, lest he decided against marrying her. Losing a husband during partition, which was the fate of many a young woman in those troubled times, seemed to be an ignorable taint, but not that of motherhood! So my mother was sworn into secrecy to hide her motherhood.

My mother went away, never to return. I must have missed her. I don’t remember if I did or did not. I was but a child and a child’s memory is short. I remember growing up with my rather old, foster parents with only a younger aunt- Aunt Sukhvinder Kaur, to help them. Sukhvinder Kaur was my foster father’s youngest sister who was unwed and lived with them. They were childless and so I was the centre of attention of the household. I grew up lacking nothing. When I entered my teens, I lost both my foster parents in quick succession. It was then, while helping Aunt Sukhvinder go through their sparse belongings, that I chanced upon an old photograph of them along with Aunt Sukhvinder and my mother with me in her arms.

Not being able to avoid answering my queries regarding the ‘unknown lady’ who was carrying me in the picture, Aunt Sukhvinder decided to reveal to me that the old people that we had just lost were not my biological parents. Then, only after first swearing me into secrecy, she proceeded to reveal that the lady who was carrying me in her arms was my real mother, Simran. She told me the whole story but refused to divulge any knowledge of my mother’s present whereabouts. She said she had been sworn into secrecy regarding this. I respected her wish to keep the word given by her to her brother, and so probed no further.

I didn’t feel anything except for a deep sense of sadness for the mother who had had to, due to the force of circumstances, leave her child behind to be able to move on. I felt no rancour at all at being left behind. I wonder if I was expected to. Rather, I only hoped she had found happiness and peace in her new life. I hoped that her sacrifice of leaving her child behind had been completely worth it for her.

Aunt Sukhvinder told me that my mother was beautiful, extremely gentle and sang like a nightingale! That, maybe, explains my talent for singing.”

“That sure is an interesting story, Ms.Gurmehar! But tell us, don’t you feel like looking for your mother? Don’t you nurture a hope of finding her someday?” asked the person interviewing her.

“Much though I would love to find my birth mother, embrace her and hear her heartbeat again,” answered Gurmehar, “I do not wish to intrude into her new life where there might not be any place for me.”

“In any case” she continued,” I am grateful for the life I’ve led, for the parents who not only brought me up better than their own, but also ensured that my mother could move on and build a new life for herself. And above all, I am grateful for this gift of melody, which surely, I’ve got from my mother. I feel the winds carry my songs to her wherever she is – in this world if she is still alive or to the next if she’s not. I can almost feel my primal bond with her when I sing.”

“Your thoughts are beautiful, Ms.Gurmehar”, gushed the interviewer. “Now we can’t possibly let you go without rendering a song for us.”

“Sure” she replied. “I would like to present a number which is my personal favourite. It is a song in praise of the Lord above. I’m sure you would have heard it before because it is quite a popular number. I hope you will like my rendering of it.”

As she cleared her throat and started to sing, Harleen could feel goose pimples on her flesh. She was singing a song which had been her mother’s favourite too!

Without waiting for the programme to conclude, Harleen ran to her cupboard and fished out a photograph which had a picture of her mother carrying a baby, an old couple, beside another lady who seemed to have been of almost the same age as her mother. It had slipped out of her mother’s prayer book one day in Harleen’s presence. On asking who the other people in the picture were, her mother had told her that the old couple were her grandparents, who were no more, and that the baby in her arms was that of the aunt who was standing next to her. She said that she had lost touch with that lady as well as the child. Her mother had taken the picture back and had given it to her only when on her deathbed. The look in her eyes when she handed the picture to her was something Harleen had not understood nor been able to forget. It seemed to be imploring her for something. She seemed to want to convey something with her eyes which she didn’t seem to be able to bring to her lips.

Harleen stared at the fading photograph for a long time. It was an old black and white one with the black fading into dark brown and the white turning light beige. She put it carefully into an envelope as if to prevent her mother’s memories from fading away with the images. Those were not the days of the internet and so there was no way to look for or get in touch with somebody unless you had their landline number or postal address. So she decided to go to the broadcasting station from where the programme had been aired. Before leaving, she stared long and hard at the picture of her mother hanging on the wall with a sandalwood garland around it. She thought she saw the same look in her mother’s eyes today- the imploring look which was there when she had handed over the picture to her, moments before leaving for her heavenly abode.

At her destination, Harleen asked to be furnished with the contact number of Gurmehar Dhillon. Since the person of her interest was one among the many lesser-known artists, the staff at the broadcasting office, at first, drew a blank. However, when she described her as the singer who was interviewed in the TV programme, they were able to locate her in their registers. If she had been a famous high-profile artist, it was doubtful that they would have divulged her contact details to a ‘pesky fan’ like Harleen. But since she was still an upcoming artist, she would be only too glad to connect with her fans, they guessed and hence shared her telephone number with Harleen without much resistance. It was a landline number. Those were not the days of mobile telephones. 

Harleen went back home armed with her find and headed straight for the landline telephone in the house. The call went through but there was no response. Her repeated attempts met with the same fate. Finally one day, she did get a response, but the lady at the other end sounded old and was clearly hard of hearing. She failed to make much headway with her. Finally, one day, after many frustrating attempts, Gurmehar came on the line. Harleen could not contain her excitement. She pleaded to see her but couldn’t explain as to what purpose. The urgency and keenness in her voice were certainly more than just a fan’s. This seemed to carry across to Gurmehar at the other end of the line; for she agreed to meet her the next day. She asked Harleen to come over to her residence and gave her her address.

Harleen thanked her profusely and could hardly wait till the next day. When she did arrive at her door at the appointed time she was delirious with excitement, curiosity and an unexplained expectation of a holistic experience in store for her. Her fingers were shaking as she rang the bell. When Gurmehar herself opened the door to let her in, Harleen felt her mother’s eyes looking down at her! She felt she had known this stranger all her life. After introducing herself as one of her fans- because, as of now, she was just that - she fished the envelope out of her bag. Pulling out the photograph from it she handed it over to Gurmehar saying, “What can you make of this?”

Gurmehar looked at the old, almost parched photograph and stared at it in disbelief. It was a copy of the one she herself had! Turning to Harleen, she asked, “Where on earth did you manage to get this from?”

“My mother gave it to me when she was dying. That’s her.” Said Harleen, pointing to her mother in the photograph.

“Your mother? But that’s my mother! That baby in her arms is me!” exclaimed Gurmehar. As the enormity of it all struck her, she sank onto the sofa as if in a trance. Just then, Aunt Sukhvinder emerged from her bedroom. Being hard of hearing, she had neither heard the doorbell nor the two young women talking in the drawing room. She stopped at the doorway and when she saw Harleen, feeling weak in the knees, she gripped the table next to her. She had at once known who the visitor was! Even before Gurmehar could introduce her guest, she said, ‘ Simran Kaur’s daughter? Am I right?” As she nodded in the affirmative, Harleen also recognized her as a much older version of the other lady in the photograph.

It was now Aunt Sukhvinder’s turn to tell them their story. She revealed to the two amazed girls that she had kept in touch with their mother all along. Simran in fact, had been the one to get in touch the first time. “Though we never met” she related, “we spoke to each other over the telephone once in a while. Most of the time we got news of each other through visitors going to and fro our villages. I learned that she had two more daughters. On the other hand, she knew that you were okay and under my care.” Turning to Gurmehar, she continued, “Simran never really managed to let go of you completely, even giving the same name to one of the two daughters she had later!”

“Both of us worried about what would happen to you after me. That is why I kept pressing you to let me find a match for you. But you girls, these days are so sure you can live your life alone without a man unless you happen to find one yourself” she sighed. Continuing her narrative, she said, “Both Simran and I were bound by our promise to my brother- your foster father - to take our secret to our graves. Simran did. She died with her secret intact. But praise be to God, who has chosen to reveal it to you girls, in such a beautiful way, without I having to break my promise. Must have been part of His grand plan all along! That’s what we all tend to forget when we worry about our futures. He always has a plan for all of us. We only need to have faith in Him.”

 By now Gurmehar had brought out her copy of the same photograph. Harleen, however, was still puzzled. Pointing to the baby in her mother’s arms in the photograph, she remarked,’ But, Aunty, isn’t this baby in Mummy’s arms -Gurmehar, your baby? That’s what Mum had told me.”

“In a way, she was right.” Aunt Sukhvinder replied.” Gurmehar has been my baby since she was less than two years old. But your mother was indeed only her birth mother, making you both real sisters!”

The two sisters were already in an emotional embrace. Though strangers till now, both felt like they had known each other always.

Gurmehar soon met her other sister, her namesake. Their father was a good man. He accepted her readily; his only regret being that he had not been trusted to agree to take their mother as his bride along with her baby, all those years ago. Aunt Sukhvinder apologized on behalf of Gulmehar’s foster parents and was duly forgiven.

He welcomed Gurmehar home with a big bouquet of roses with a tag which read,” A heartfelt welcome to my first and most precious child, who, I might have well died without even meeting!” As he kissed her gently on her forehead, Gurmehar felt that she had not only found her mother but her father as well. For her, at a sub-conscious level, various gaps were being filled - the missing data in her life being found; giving her a sense of the invisible hand at work, shaping her life.

As for Aunt Sukhvinder, who had experienced the joy of motherhood through her, she had the same feelings as a mother does when a daughter gets married- a sweet mixture of both joy and sorrow at seeing her leave. But she knew she could die in peace now, having done her duty to her dead brother, who had taken care of her all his life.