Against All Odds

It was a calm day in November, bright and sunny, and my mother had persuaded my father to take me with him. He was going to our village, which was just a few miles away from the city of Mardan (presently in Pakistan) where we lived. I was barely three years old and was excited at the mere thought of an outing. My father had a bicycle. I was to sit on the front bar behind the handle. My mother tied a soft towel on the bar to make it comfortable for me. And this is one of my earliest memories. Sitting on the handlebar of the bicycle, clasping my father’s hand, my mind was oblivious to the worries of the world. The picture is so vividly embedded in my mind that I could travel back to that day at any time and become that little kid all over again.

My father’s family came from a village called Mayaran, near Mardan in NWFP (North-West Frontier Province). They owned pieces of land, an old house, and some cattle. Since my father had moved to the city, the assets were looked after by my father’s uncle and cousins. He used tenants to till the land and shared the produce with them. I was six months old when my parents and my two older siblings moved to Mardan. This change of location was an outcome of circumstantial stipulation. The situation was so grave that the thought of it still sends shivers down my spine.

My grandfather Amir Singh was a landlord and a money-lender. Once, he loaned a large amount of money to a Pathan who defaulted on repayment. My grandfather sought justice at the local civil court, which decided the case in my grandfather’s favor. Since the Pathan could not pay, he was sent to jail. When his jail term ended, the Pathan came out filled with fury and rage. While serving the jail term, he had hatched a plan to get revenge.

One day when my grandfather was on a round of his lands on his horse, the Pathan pulled him down and mercilessly murdered him. The horse ran back to the house with the empty saddle, and that was enough for people to figure out what had happened. After this ghastly incident, all our relatives advised my father to leave the village. My mother’s family was from the city, and my parents thought we would be safer in Mardan. However, my father continued to visit the village to meet his uncles and cousins who still lived there and managed the joint family lands. Since the lands belonged jointly to the family, he would occasionally go to claim his share of the crops, etc. It was on one such occasion that I accompanied my father on his bicycle - the ride I remember so vividly.