Along the western border of Punjab where India ends and Pakistan begins (or the other way, depending upon which side you’re looking from), there lies a stretch of no man’s land, marked off by rusty barbed wire fencing. It hides the scar where a country was once cut into two. Overlooked by the bunkers of young rifle-yielding soldiers in Army fatigues, here you find a small temple and a masjid facing each other like reluctant adversaries from opposite sides of the road. Beyond spread out emerald green wheat fields that look uncannily similar on both sides. So do the people who gather here to watch the retreat ceremony held every evening by India’s Border Security Force and Pakistani Rangers. If it weren’t for the occasional black burqa or a man in Pathani salwar you wouldn’t really be able to tell one side from the other. Women in bright flowery salwar kameez, middle aged men with salt and pepper beards, little girls with ribbon flowers knotted in their pigtails and boys with sparkling eyes are all over the place. Stripped of accents, religious ideologies and colours of skin, aren’t people the same everywhere? It’s sad then that they won’t smile at each other.
At Hussainiwalla, 11 km from Ferozepur (where I live), a flag lowering ceremony takes place every evening. The friendly crowd banter stops the moment the soldiers march in and an uneasy stillness creeps in broken only by self conscious throat clearing or a nervous giggle that escapes someone or the other. As the soldiers take aggressive stances, lift their legs high in the air, stomp their boots hard into the ground, twist their moustaches up and glare at each other; someone in the crowd invariably starts a chant of “Pakistan zindabaad” or “Bharat mata ki jai” and these are flung around like insults in a rising crescendo of mutual scorn.
The two national flags are brought down to the buglers’ call and the crowd’s jeering that travels all the way to the shelled ruins of India’s last railway station where visitors, who have escaped the evil spell of the ugly scar, smile and get their pictures taken. Further away there is an abruptly aborted railway line with a painted sign that says: “Northern Railway ends here.” Once the track went all the way to Lahore, about 60 km away. Now, it doesn’t go anywhere. If you are the sensitive, writer type, you stand there and imagine how trains must have once rushed past, clattering on the metal tracks, groaning with their happy loads of families and friends and cattle, smoke coiling into the air. All you hear now is the rustle of the wind in the ripe yellow mustard fields, the banter of children playing on the deserted track and the splash of buffaloes taking a dip in a stagnant pool of water.
If you’ve never heard of Ferozepur, I wouldn’t hold it against you. It is one of those places that fell off the map in 1947 and lies forgotten since, buried under a pile of history and the memories of old sardars in granny glasses who squat on roadsides at dusk sipping hot cups of milky tea. The oldest British district of Punjab, established in 1833 (long before the NRI hubs of Ludhiana and Amritsar became districts) Ferozepur was the place from where the British established control over much of North-West India as well as what is now Pakistan. Now it is the headquarters of a division of the Indian Army which is why it sometimes surfaces in Army people’s conversation, particularly when someone who has not been keeping MS Branch happy has just received posting orders and is scratching his head to “where the @#$% could it be?”.
Beleaguered officers and armchair travellers who like to check out places no one else goes to, might want to know that Ferozepur is a typical old Punjab town on the banks of the Sutlej. It was founded by Sultan Firoze Shah Tughlaq, a Muslim ruler who reigned over Delhi from 1351 to 1388. To get here you will have to drive down from Ludhiana. Yes, the same that is known for woollen hosiery and a large Yo Yo Honey Singh fan base. From here a wide tarred road takes you westwards, initially dotted with roadside eateries and colleges and then vast farms where ethereally beautiful wheat fields in dazzling shades of green surround solitary farm houses. The per hectare wheat yields here are comparable to the best in the world and they have matched wheat yields of even Ontario in Canada which makes us do a bit of balle balle here. And now, I hope, we shall not have anybody sneering at sleepy, small town nobody’s-ever-heard-of Ferozepur.
If you drive our way late afternoon, a beautiful glowing orange sun is going to be right in your eye all through. Because, you’re travelling west my friend. So have those Ray Bans handy. If you are poetically inclined the vision of the setting sun turning the sky a myriad shades with bright pink bougainvillea blooming by the roadside might make you want to erupt into deep poetry so have ear plugs for fellow passengers handy too. Ferozepur has the magical quality that proves a Stephen Hawking’s hypothesis right – time does slow down here. A long time back, the town was surrounded by a wall, which had 10 gates providing protection to people living inside, now five remain (in various states of ruin) but we don’t mind because nobody needs protection anyway. Old timers brag that once upon a time Moti Bazar and Hira Mandi were big markets selling pearls and diamonds with singing girls as an added attraction. Now, you’re more likely to step on a stray dog. And if your life feels incomplete without singing girls, the only option you have is to switch on the car stereo.
At Hussainiwalla, the Sutlej flows quiet and deep, watched over by discerning migratory birds drying their wings on the bridge. This is where they say the British dumped the ashes of revolutionaries Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru after executing them in a Lahore prison a day before their scheduled hanging, fearing public back lash. In Toori Bazaar there is a building where it is said they manufactured bombs, while on the ground floor, Gaya Pershad, an associate, practiced medicine. A memorial to the three martyrs stands in the middle of a small garden where people remove their shoes and bow their heads as a mark of respect. Girls with covered heads giggle as young boys with shiny gold rimmed aviator glasses and a few shirt buttons open get pictures taken. Bored soldiers look on from a nearby Army post, unimpressed. A fallen bridge stretches across the water and water hyacinth now blooms where once a bloody war was fought. Stray fishermen dip their oars in the water and a golden Labrador retriever, trained by the Army’s dog squad to detect bombs, wags its tail and sniffs inside the boots of visiting cars.
There are other things I could tell you but I’m a bit reluctant to. For instance, I could tell you more about the Barki memorial set up in the memory of 7 Infantry Division soldiers who laid down their lives in 1965; about the Saragarhi Gurdwara, built in the memory of 21 Sikh soldiers who died defending the Fort of Saragarhi in a suicidal battle when they were surrounded by 10,000 Pathans. Or even the brutality of the 71 war; about Major SPS Waraich who they say was taken prisoner; about Major Ashok Suri who once wrote a letter to his father saying he was in a Pakistani prison but could never be traced; about 52 soldiers who have been reported missing and will never come back. I could tell you painful stories about destroyed railways stations and blown up bridges and families emotionally damaged for life but bad memories are best forgotten.
The quiet of Ferozepur belies its violent history. While memorials to dead heroes fall by the wayside, outside these smile young guava sellers with carts piled up with juicy fruit. Kakke da dhabas dish out Punjab’s legendary butter chicken and at the locally famous Lotan ki machli, tipplers stand around having a drink, balancing Old Monk bottles on car bonnets, since a firm notice says:Yahan baith ke daru peena mana hai.
Spring is returning to Ferozepur even as I write. In my small garden the first red poppy blooms. Out in the villages, mustard fields stretch across for miles, nodding their heads happily in the breeze. Sometimes I wonder if on the other side too there is a person watching the pigeons fly overhead, if he too feels the breeze on his face, if the faint strains of the azaan from a distant mosque escaping the restrictions borders place on lesser beings, fall on his ears too. And if he too hopes that the ugly scar we’re both trying to hide shall finally heal one day and we wont be scared to touch it anymore. Or if people who look like us will be able to smile at each other from across the border at Hussainiwala. Goodbye Ferozepur, thanks for sharing your winter and your spring, I understand your pain and hope that one day things will get better for you.
Rachna Bisht-Rawat is a journalist and writer. She is also mom to a nine-year-old and gypsy wife to an Army officer whose work takes the Rawats to some of the most remote corners of India. You can read her blog at rachnabisht.com