TRAUMA AND PAIN OF PARTITION IN MEERA SYAL'S ANITA AND ME

TRAUMA AND PAIN OF PARTITION IN MEERA SYAL’S ANITA AND ME *Arti Nirmal Junior Research Fellow Department of English Banaras Hindu University Vranasi-5, U.P. [email protected] India, after suffering the pangs of humiliation and indignation of British imperialism, experienced the bliss of Independence on 15th August 1947, but the freedom struggle in colonial India, at the same time, resulted in the creation of two-nations—Pakistan and India. The tragedy of partition of Indian subcontinent not only diluted the pleasure of liberation but also entailed a massive and violent evacuation of Sikhs and Hindus from newly born Pakistan and similarly Muslims from Hindu dominated India. Some families moved voluntarily seeking congenial space for themselves but there were many who suffered forced migration followed by the heart-throbbing heinous acts of incessant murder, loot and rape. Millions of displaced people thus became refugees overnight abandoning their entire establishments including home, properties, families and culture, as borders were drawn over older ethnic and linguistic identities. This traumatic event quavered many sensitive people leading to “ the wound of the mind- the breach in the minds experience of time, self and the world” (Caruth 3-4)and this wound was so deep that time and again the pain has been relevantly articulated in a large body of literature such as Qurrtulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Daria(1998 trans.), Khuswant Singh’s Train to Pakistan(1956), Balchandra Rajan’s The Dark Dancer (1959), Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column(1961),Manohar Malgonkar’s A Bend In the Ganges(1964), Chaman Nahal’s Azadi(1975), Krishna Sobti’s Zindaginama(1979), Anita Desai’s Clear Light of the Day(1980), Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children (1980) Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India(1988), Manju Kapur’s Difficult Daughters(1999), Altaf Fatimah’s Dastak Na Doo(1993 trans.) and diasporic writer Meera Syal’s Anita and Me(1996) where these perspectives emerge significantly. The traumatic event of partition and the construction of geographical borders which “cracked” British India into two unforgiving enemies- modern India and Pakistan, in the opinion of Butalia, reflect on borders as sites of post colonial national formation (Butalia 63-66). With an aim to transform the cultural and personal trauma into collective historical memory, their works provide “a means for the narrative integration of traumatic memory, thereby opening up possibilities for mourning and reconciliation”(Kabir 178). Hence, much Indian and Pakistani fiction after 1947 venture to explore the personal trauma elaborating the post-Independence scenario. According to M. K. Naik: The post –Independence Indian scene with its curious criss- cross of rapid socio-political changes in a country where tradition still remains spectacle, which has naturally evoked a variety of reactions from its readers, including nostalgic idealization of immediate past of the days of the freedom struggle, a strong desire to re-discover one’s root in the ancient Indian ethos as also to examine this ethos afresh in the light of westernization, and satirical comment both on the darker side of the freedom movement and its aftermath and the decline of values in all spheres of life in the present.(192) The partition of India not only “tore the social fabric that had woven regional communities and groups together and demanded new ways of thinking about the self in relation to society”(Kabir180) but also forced people of different community, religion and ethnicity to comprehend and interpret this dismantling incident in their own manner. The state of Punjab, due to its geographical location became the chief victim of this political upheaval and many of the witnesses of this massacre rejected to settle in any of these two nations and migrated to several European countries like the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and so on. Expecting a good fortune, though they moved there, but unfortunately they could not ward off their pleasant as well as painful past. In spite of their continuous effort to mix and assimilate themselves into the hue and ambience of the new land, their past memories kept haunting irresistibly. And this loss and trauma, persist because there is no substitution for it. There is no immediate cure of the condition because the loss remains abstract and stirs pleasant or traumatic memories of past. The flashback technique in the narrative helps to create the appropriate mood of nostalgia and long-forgotten impressions hidden somewhere in our subconscious or unconscious mind. The effect of partition that spread across the length and width of the sub-continent affected not only those who lived during that period, in fact it has continued to influence the subsequent generations also like some genetic disease. That is why we find appealing outpour also in the writings of immigrant writers such as Meera Syal, who was born in London to an Indian(Punjabi) parents migrated after partition to England. The consequences of Partition have been aptly explored in her semi- autobiographical novel Anita and Me(1996) where she highlights the collective experiences of the bifurcation of British India through the lens of immigrants staying far from their motherland. It stresses the complex interdependence between ‘events’ and ‘interpretations’, and the ensuing meaning of partition for individuals and communities in South Asia, especially, Indian sub-continent. It highlights along with diasporic considerations the partition, uproar and the migration as well that the survivors of 1947 political thunder talk about. Influenced by the personal experiences of the novelist’s parents, the narrative mainly deals with the second generation immigrant girl Meena, who is trying to cope up with her traditional Punjabi background and her white friends. It basically discusses the various experiences and problems of diaspora but it is a searing narrative of the shame and agony of the Partition also with the defeat of humanity and social concern at the hours of long cherished freedom. Through the narrative of a nine year old girl Meera Syal aims to focus on the fact that the scars are too intense to heal even after so many years of living in diaspora and therefore, these immigrants live and relive their past through obvious nostalgic recreations. Meera Syal, the British author of India represents that specific group of Punjabi immigrants “who carried with them their own native cultural memories along with Punjabi pride in native history, language, tradition, folk and the great Guru’s teachings in holy scriptures”(Singh 99). Anita and Me is a narrative of a small Punjabi girl growing up in an English mining village wherein Syal narrates partition and its aftermath from the memories of elder characters within the memories of Meena. “There are representative instances of pride, nostalgia and protest in recollecting the glorious past of India and Punjab, while the writer laments the loss and destruction of values at the hands of those in power or in religious majority”(Singh 110). It is an intensely human novel, weaved around the partition of India in the first part of the book, showing how the innate human relationships which admit of no hatred or enmity in normal times are transformed to the point of a bloody holocaust under the propped- up instincts of communal and political frenzy. The protagonist, like any other second generation immigrant offspring is highly allured by the glamour and glitters of the West and aims to imitate the local people. Meena dislikes her parents love for Punjabi cultural tradition, Punjabi language, food, dressing style and everything in favor of English style of living represented by local brat Anita. Describing her parent’s photograph displayed on walls she puts: “Papa wears a turban with strings of pearls attached to the front which obscure his face, except for one guarded eye. Mama is in the foreground; her delicate neck seemingly bent under the weight of a heavily encrusted dupatta”(33).She says that people look down upon her when she is out with her mother in Indian salwar kameez: These other Indian women [Meena and her mother Daljit] would inevitably be dressed in embroidered Salwar Kameez suits screaming with green, pinks and yellows, with bright make-up and showy gold-plated jewelry which made them ambulating Christmas trees (Syal, p. 26) Contrary to Meena, her parents have great pride in their past that bear pleasant memories of pre-partitioned India in their minds where they had a beautiful and peaceful village life. Meena complains of her parent’s uninterrupted nostalgia for the life lived in pre-partition Punjabi village: My mother grew up in a small Punjabi village not far from Chandigarh. As she chopped onions for the evening meal…she would begin mantras about her ancestral home. She would talk of running with her tin mug to the she- goat tethered to the tree and holding the mug under its nipples, pulling down a foaming jet of milk straight into her father’s morning tea. She spoke…of her Muslim neighbor whom they always made a point of visiting on festivals, bringing sweetmeats to emphasize how the land they shared was more important than the religious differences that would soon tear the Punjab into two (34-35). They regret that how the initial issue between Indian national and British colonialism soon became the cause of hostility between Hindu and Muslim who had lived as brothers till now. Even more painful was the ultimate outcome-the division of the country accompanied with ‘“the shame and agony and the defeat of the hour of freedom: the “tryst with destiny”…the horror and the humiliation, the terror and the pity of it”’(Iyenger :431-32). Meena , having an obvious taste of child is often bored by her parent’s obsession with their past which did not include her: “But gradually I got bored and jealous of this past that excluded me; she had milked goats, stroked peacocks, pulled sugar cane from the earth amid-morning snack. She had even seen someone stabbed to death, much later on when the family had moved to Delhi and partition riots stalked the streets like a ravenous animals”(36). The psychic repercussions of partition were in this way, registered on the cultural as well as personal page: to be more specific, they were registered at the interface where the personal meets the cultural. Within Syal’s narration, however, the post memory of partition belongs neither to the public nor the personal space instead it rests somewhere in between: “a reconstituted Punjabiness that exists behind closed suburban doors” (Kabir 181). Meena, who has never been to India, fails to understand her parent’s sentiments about their motherland and finds their manners as quite strange and unconvincing: “ Scolding each other’s kids was expected, a sign of affection almost, that you cared enough about them… But to be told off by a white person, especially a neighbor, that was not just misbehavior, than was letting down the whole of Indian nation” (45). Meena rejects Indian (Punjabi) food in favor of English chips and fish fingers, bur for Mr. and Mrs. Kumar (Meena’s parents) Punjabi “food was not just something to fill a hole, it was soul food, it was the food their far-away mothers made and came seasoned with memory and longing, this was the nearest they would get for many years, to home” (61). Mr. and Mrs. Kumar are representatives of that group of Indians who carry their motherland in the heart and can create India wherever they live. The novel, though, speaks mainly about the immigrant experiences of Indian Diaspora in London, yet it is sufficiently remarkable account of the aftermath of Indian partition. Kumar family which has reached the U.K. in search of promising future happens to encounter serious problem of settlement and adjustment in the host country. When they try to change themselves as per the need of the new culture, they are threatened with the possibility of diminishing their own Punjabi(Indian) culture. “The territorial dislocation was full of memories and associations, break-up of families and relationships, homesickness, shared cultural myths, legends and history and all these gave rise to questions of identity” (Jain 85). Therefore, in order to maintain their past culture and conserve, preserve and perpetuate their ethnic values in the antagonistic atmosphere Mr. and Mrs. Kumar make their own circle of Indian friends and keep throwing parties time to time as “every weekend was taken up with visiting Indian families…”. For Meena : “although none of them …were actually related to me [Meena] by blood, Auntie and Uncle were the natural respectful terms given to them” (29). Kumars and their friends try to fill the vacuum between past and present by taking resort to “legendry Mehfils of Urdu ghazals and Punjabi folk songs”. Reflecting upon the need of maintaining ethnic values in a new and dominant culture, Ernst Van Alphen remarks: “Cultural formalities, including symbols, folk models, and rituals are mobilized to inscribe, resist and heal trauma”(37). But Meena avoids attending “ these mournful gazals”, she says: “there were no point in my being their; when I looked at my elders, in these moments, they were all far, far away”(72). In this regard, Satendra Nandan also elaborates the impact of such events on the concept of home and existence: “The partition of India shattered both the idea of India for millions and the concept of home. Home became not only a place , but a space to be lived in the imagination”(305). One day when all the Indian guests were enjoying together at Mr. Kumar’s home, little Meena gets startled by listening to her father saying, “ I was only nine when the war started. Besides, it was not really our war. We were fighting different battles…Well there was one occasion…when we lived in Lahore, just before partition…” (70), she comes to comprehend the cause of her parent’s pain, longing and nostalgia. She is almost surprised to hear that her parents too had ever undergone any such experience: “ I knew something about Partition, about the English dividing up India into India and Pakistan, and some of people not knowing until the day the borders were announced, whether they would have to move hundreds of miles away, leaving everything behind them” (71). This emotional expression soon evokes a series of introspection, memory and mourning followed by a train of violent and emotional discussion. Uncle Bhatnagar began: “But it was a damn massacre! Family…money…death…They talk about their world wars…We lost a million people! And who thought up Partition? These “Gores”, that’s who!”(73).With a choking voice he further tells about the violence erupted in villages, towns and cities across northern part of India: My mother and I, the Hindus marched us through the streets…our heads uncovered…They wanted to do something to us…but we had left the house for them and everything in it, and my father…he was a judge, he had been so good to them…All the time we were walking, mama and I, papa was lying dead, his head cut from his body. They found it later lying in the fallen jasmine blooms…(73). The survivors of partition rarely separate the politics and violence of 1947 form each other because it was a political phenomenon followed by mass-killing and violent acts. Since then, the national and ethnic communities of South Asia have continued to construct, commemorate and consolidate themselves through a constant retelling of tales of sacrifice and war (Pandey:176). Thus, the accounts of divison of nations via narratives are a pivotal and crucial mechanism for articulating political ideologies and communal identities as well. Syal impresses upon the readers that this suffering and predicament was a common fate of all those who became the innocent victims of Indian partition imposed by the British. It shows how “British colonialism marked a rupture in South Asian history, marking a moment when long-established traditions of tolerance and co-existence were eroded by an alien state whose Orientalist sociology quickly carved Indian society into mutually exclusive and antagonistic communal blocks”(Ballantyne:201). This semi-autobiographical novel reflects upon the personal as well as collective experiences of the “widespread bloodshed, raping, looting and arson amongst Muslims, Sikhs, and Hindus, the displacement of over 10 million people, and the massacre of at least one million crossing in both directions over new national borders”(Wolpert :346-347). We may clearly notice the difference between Hindu-Muslim relationship in pre and post partitioned India in the following emotional outpour of Uncle Bhatnagar addressing one of his Muslim friends Mumtaz: We all have these stories, bhainji. What was happening to you was also happening to us. None of us could stop mad people everywhere. We were on the wrong side of the borders also when the news came, none of us knew until that moment if we would be going or staying. My whole family we walked from Syalcote across the border…We may be passed your family going to the other way. The bodies, piled high…the trains pulling into stations full of dead families…Hai Ram .What we have seen…?(73). The child heart of Meena starts throbbing on these terrible talks that was being shared by her elders gathered at her house to attend a party. It seemed as if their long suppressed emotions were getting outlet with exploding sentiments and refreshed wounds. Meena “ felt a hundred other memories were being briefly relived and battened down again”(74). The partition narratives , thus, in general, suggest that the division of the nations were no longer a mechanism through which decolonization was applied and implemented, but rather it recast a complex of inter-connected processes through which the boundaries of religious and national communities were demarcated, enacted and administered. It also demonstrates how a small community copes with the legacies of extreme conflict, murder and mass-violence. In the massacre of Indian partition, innumerable women were victimized and made to suffer for no cause. Even the ladies of highly respectable families were ruthlessly “raped, abducted or mutilated in the ensuing partition violence”(Hai 383) because their female bodies provided “a space over which the competitive games of men were played out”(Das 69). Women suffer the most from political whirls for victory is celebrated and vengeance is taken on a woman’s body in the major part of the world. Recognizing women’s victimization by male rivalries and bids for political power(Suleri) auntie Shaila releases following sobbing words: “Sister…meri bhain…Sumi…We were walking, along the river, trying to find the road to Delhi…We could see the Muslims on the other side …Don’t look , mamaji said, don’t look…Sumi looked and they were crossing the river on horses…mad men, mad eyes, sticks with red tips…They took her. Where is she? Hai Mera Dil…Where is she now?”(74). Opining on the same issue, Sobti speaks in one of her interviews: “ The fate of woman during the partition was a great burden on the Hindu mind. Well, not just on the Hindu mind, but on the minds of all those who migrated” (Sobti:74). Meena’s experiences find an oblique analogy to the experiences of famous Parsi writer Bapsi Sidhwa who reveals that, “there are certain images from my past which have always haunted me. Partition was a very violent experience for everybody in the Punjab. Although I was very young then, I saw chance killings, fires, dead bodies. There are images which have stayed with me. These were also the stories I grew up with”(My Place in the World). Meena, though, lacks any first hand experience like Sidhwa yet she also grows up with such stories. Meena records her father’s own experiences after Auntie Shaila who used to live at Lahore which became “Pakistan within a split second of the announcement”(74). His parents then had the job of smuggling eight children across the border and the circumstances forced them to decide to head for Delhi”. Mr. Kumar recollects: “We just left our house where it was, we took nothing. We split up, all of us. Some in carts with Muslim friends, some of us by train. It stopped suddenly, a tree on the track…”(75).He describes how the whole carriage began panicking but no one could know whether they were Hindus or Muslims. Again, he recalls: There was a Muslim in our carriage. He began praying. He offered to shave the Musselman’s moustache but he refused. “ Allah will save me,” he said. The Hindu goondas entered the carriage…They looked at us, my father quoted the Gita at them, the only time I have ever heard him quote any religious script. They tore the trousers off the Musselman, saw he was circumcised, and cut off his head…(75). Listening to such terrifying but truly indispensable stories from her parents that consisted of crazy and violent mobs, loot, rape and merciless chopping of heads, Meena realizes: I realized that the past was not a mere sentimental journey for my parents…It was a murky bottomless pool full of monsters and the odd shinning coin, with a deceptively still surface and a deadly undercurrent. And me, how could I jump in before I had learned to swim? (75). She finally admits the fault of ignoring her parent’s sentiments and explains that is was simply because she had never encountered with any such incident in her own life. Since she was completely detached from her parent’s life in India how could she feel the partition-ache suffered by her elders hailing from bifurcated India. It’s a kind of shift from past-memory to ‘post-memory’-a concept elaborated by Marriane Hirsh who says that it is experienced by those “who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose own belated stories are displaced by the stories of the previous generation, shaped by traumatic events that they can neither understand nor create…”( Hirsh:8). Thus, new maps of the mind and memories have been recreated and re-structured from the shoots of history and desires of people by various authors of the time to relive their past. The long cherished aspirations of millions of people to breathe the air of freedom, resulted in such a gloomy and murky event that it shattered the concept of home altogether. The heart-throbbing experiences of geographical division that led to the emotional dislocation affected men and women equally. The violence of partition that included both physical as well as psychological wounds find unhindered expression through the characters of Syal’s present novel. People like uncle Bhatnagar, Kumar Saab, Auntie Mumtaz, Auntie Daljit, Auntie Shaila are not mere caricatures; instead they are the true sufferers and survivors of the partition upheaval. They are such immigrant figures who in spite of their great success and achievements in the U.S, the U.K., Canada, Australia have not been able to forget the violent recollections of their past. Indiscriminate refuge and unprecedented bloodshed was the only reward that turned up in lieu of the numerous sacrifices at the altar of freedom struggle. Syal, here tries to put forth the immigrant perspective on this unwelcome historical event of Indian subcontinent. Here the novelist attempts to re-create and re-weave, through the narrative, a ‘life anterior to trauma whose loss formed the very fabric and texture of post-Partition life’. 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