He sat at the paan shop watching the crowds moving towards the west. It was the autumn of 1947 and people from both sides were immigrating. This was the largest immigration the world had seen. The movement was slow but it had its movements. There was group which largely consisted of women and children and were massacred by the people of their side. Every weapon was used from swords to pick axes to stones. Nobody was spared. There were a few men to protect the group, most of them old and they submitted to their fate.
Why did nobody attack him as he sat in full view of all this melodrama? The answer to this question a long and complicated one. He was a messenger to a higher power and sat there taking reports of the happenings. He was a retired old thing who had done this job for centuries. He was living a retired life when he was summoned by the highest authorities. It had been some decades since he had retired and all of a sudden a summon. He was intrigued.
The elders told him that a huge shift is going to take place in the subcontinent and he was given the task of handling all the juniors under him. He was selected since none had the experience for such an event. Most of the messengers who had that kind of experience had retired after 1945. They had worked 6 years straight. So Gabriel took to his duty after seven decades of sitting idle.
‘What are you thinking about’ Gabriel was awakened by one of his juniors who was monitoring the situation with him. ’Nothing’. It had been 3 weeks since he had come down to earth and he had had no time to contemplate over the situation. Through a cursory glance it all seemed like two guys fighting for a piece of land or two.
This was new to him. He had served the elders for many centuries and given up the thought that humans could surprise him. But here it was.
He had been assigned to the subcontinent before. Nine decades earlier few people rose up against the people who controlled. Though it was all because of some cow, the whole nation rose to mutiny. That time he was posted in the capital of the Northern Provinces and sat on a very high wall which separated the brown people carrying any kind of weapon they could find and the white people who hid behind the wall. He could sense the fear in the white people and the anger in the brown people though it was not collective. Different people were angry about different things.
Here he was now watching these same brown people move from one piece of land to some other piece of land just because the white people decided that they should. He thought about all the people who could not make it to the other side. He thought about the people who were brave enough to live on this side. He thought about the enduring spirit of the people. He thought about the rumour he had heard. The rumour said that this immigration was due to religion and faith. He could not believe in such irrationality and disregarded the rumour but a doubt still remained.
He took to this station as his recording point since it was a place of frequent activity. This place had seen almost a million people walking towards west, same walking towards east. He could sense the feelings of the people that were moving in front of him. Most of them were scared others were scared and hungry some were scared and angry but everyone was scared. Every now and then a group was slaughtered by men from either side. Anger was spreading and revenge followed just behind it.
As he sat there monitoring recording two groups from each side had made camps there to spend the night. There were some fires and even less food but no one was talking. The place was very silent. Mothers were trying to feed their wailing kids and fathers were trying to rest while keeping a watchful eye on the other group and their families. Fear and hunger were in the air.
In the midst of all this just when everyone was drifting to sleep, something peculiar happened. A woman was feeding her five year old kid while the father was lying beside them. On the other side a kid was sitting alone and crying. There was no one looking after him. The mother was either dead or had abandoned him. His father was missing. The kid was hungry. The boy on this side was watching this when suddenly he snatched a roti from his mother and before she could say anything to him or her husband he was off to the other kid’s side like a bullet.
Time froze for the parents. They were running after their kid and the people of the other side who had woken up were watching this and could not understand what was going on. They were ready with whatever they could grab. The boy with the food ran to the other kid, sat beside him and gave him the food. People on both sides were looking and trying to understand the actions of the kid. The parents of the kid approached him picked him up and ran back to their side as soon as they could. The whole event had taken place in not more than a minute or so. Gabriel was glad that he saw this and recorded this as an important event. The kid had done something that had changed the nature of the equation. He watched closely and sensed pity, empathy, fear, anger and something that was very new to him. It was the feeling of hope
