Into the New Year
Ramanjit Singh
I often ask myself this question, can time help us to heal? As we grow old and years pass by, is there such a thing that the passage of time can heal old wounds? Reluctantly, sometimes sadly, sometimes tearfully, I think I already know the answer to this question.
We grow old carrying those old wounds, old memories, sometimes we try our hardest to forget them, but time and time again they rear themselves back into our minds. They come back and haunt us especially when there's an anniversary reminding us of that dreadful year, that dreadful time or that dreadful event. Yes, most of the people around us have passed away, both the perpetrators and the victims, but their memories keep coming back. We try to avoid reading about those tragic events in the news, we hesitate to click on those news links, hesitate to see those photographs which will open the floodgates of emotions yet again which we are not prepared to handle anymore. Time has passed but our emotions have not. They are still raw, those wounds have not healed.
As we look forward to the new year, I am reminded of the 40th anniversary of the 1984 anti-Sikh carnage which I experienced first hand as a young boy. Maybe my desire to understand the Partition of India stems from the fact that I too experienced a similar communal carnage, I too have seen what a genocide looks like with my own eyes. My experience of 1984 gives me a better grasp in understanding 1947. I am not sure but somehow I can relate both these events. Afterall isn't it all about seeing your loved ones die in front of you. No words or books can describe what that pain looks like, no words can describe a mother's cry seeing her children being slaughtered, no words can describe when a father or a husband or a brother is mercileessly killed in front of you. This is what the Sikhs experienced in 1984, and this is what Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs experienced in 1947. We have all suffered, because the hate gets the better of us, always.
In the 1984 Sikh genocide in Delhi, young children were killed, some of whom were my age. I've seen their photos, and I can't endure the pain that their elderly mothers still experience, even after all these years. They sit with their photographs in hand, seeking justice 40 years after the massacre. Our society has moved on, years have passed, and the perpetrators have died, yet they continue to demand justice. In 1987, we marked the 40th anniversary of the partition riots; perhaps then, too, there were mothers still searching for their loved ones lost during that time. Time moves on, generations age and disappear, but the faces of those children who were brutally killed never fade. They will remain young forever. Perhaps time offers eternal justice to their souls; the dead never age, but we do.
As time goes on, we anticipate the arrival of the new year, curious about what it might bring. Perhaps we should view each year as one we must endure and survive, moving on to the next, and then the next. Unfortunately, this isn't true for everyone. I recall how, after the 1984 riots, festivals and daily life changed. People have an incredible ability to sense when they are not wanted, and we felt that too. At social gatherings, people looked at us with surprise, questioning how we managed to survive the violence and why we were spared.
Those angry looks, as if you are being stabbed with thousand knives at the same time. We left those events quickly because we felt uncomfortable. Feeling of being unwelcome was strong, and I believe the minority communities understand this better than anyone else. Sense of being unwanted is the most distressing feeling one can feel when you are alone and outnumbered. Our festivals are no longer yours, our civil society has no place for you, our administration doesn't care about you. Nothing is for you, everything is against you. This is how we felt, my parents felt, the entire Sikh community felt and still feels to this day. As a parent, as a father, how would you feel about your children growing up in such an environment. You would cry for the safety of your children, you would dread for their lives every time they step out of the house. We started to withdraw inwards, isolating from others, because we were afraid what tomorrow would bring. This is what became of us in those years.
Years passed by and the memories of 1984 were relegated somewhere back of my sub-conscious. But then my mind meanders back into the past, thinks about that year. Sometimes just seeing the photograph of a young Sikh child from that era suddenly opens up the wounds again, sometimes it's a news article reminding me of those dreadful days. I don't think humans have the capacity to handle sorrow. We think we can but sometimes the rush of emotions races through you as if you are reliving those moments again. That blue November sky, the smoke, the mob, the smell of the burnt tires, the smell of burning kerosene, the screams, the cries, the taunts, all of it comes racing back and hits me again, and again, and again and there's nothing I can do to stop that. The wounds never healed.
So I ask the question again, does time heal anything? I think I have given my answer.
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