Chiyo :-
Many others. Turning your back to me. Walking away from a new nation that had turned its back on you.
You didn’t look back. Till you reached the very edge of the drop from where you could never climb back. Not in near future.
I hoped you will stay safe. When you walked through the rubble and dodged the murderous mobs baying for blood. When you squeezed into the train. Till you reached, Osaka
I know it will be a hard life for you. You will have to find a new place to call your home. New job to sustain your family. And a new heart to start making threads. Tying you to new soil, people and life.
I wish you find someone to give the moon to. If not on a terrace, maybe by the campfire; to laugh with and share your stories before partition. And never stumble at my name when doing so.
I thought I would never go back to the terrace. But you see, that is the thing about the people who get left behind. They have to revisit the terraces, houses, and streets that led to their hearts shattering into a million shards. And smile, even as the shards pierce their soul.
Time will flow. Upstream. For me. But it will flow nevertheless.
A young woman cannot live alone. Not in this town. There will be talks of my nikah. It will be to a good man. There is no escaping it. I hope I would have grown a new heart by then. One that wouldn’t beat the syllables of your name- ha-ruto For his sake.
Seasons will change and I will be a mother to the children of a not-so-new nation. They will be taught about how gruesome the partition was and how the other community turned into traitors and had to be driven away. They will grow with venom in their hearts for the footprints you left behind.
If I grow a voice back, I will tell them- no home is more wrecked than the one where brothers turn into enemies.
I will still have hope in my heart. No, not about ever meeting you again. But the line that ripped us apart will become blurred and the angry little men will be lulled in the vortex of time. Maybe not in our lifetime, but someday.
Till then know this. I never believed the moon could be mine, but I never doubted you wanting to pluck it for me. Some things are beyond the reach of lines drawn by the man- moonlight and madness.
