Three Pinnis

Biji always tells the most amazing stories. Mostly they are reminiscences from the past and sometimes they are discursive anecdotes that ramble on a bit, and I have to control myself from rolling my eyes or using hand gestures to make her get to the point. But always delivered with a twinkle in her crinkled eyes, and end with her outstretched hug-demanding arms. And then you get enveloped in THAT hug. Her face buried in my chest and her arms surprisingly strong for her age, as she squeezes me around my waist or shoulders depending on how low I bend at the end of the story.

Biji is a small loud smiley woman, always dressed in bright multi coloured Salwar Kameezes, gaudy pinks, yellows and ferozi colours with strange self-design patterns that I spend hours lying with my head in her lap and tracing with my fingers, when she sits in the courtyard of our bungalow in Amritsar Punjab. Her head is always covered with a bright dupatta, which somehow never slides down no matter what happens. She has a manly voice which so belies the fact that she’s small, graceful and beautiful - still. We don’t quite know her age for sure. She was 15, she says, around 1947. Which makes her about 89 years old. But if you’ve heard enough of her stories, then you know age is the interchangeable factor, based on the moral or the point of the story which she is currently telling.

Biji means your Dad’s mother and Darji means your Dad's father in Punjabi language. Ji is the term we use to address elders in the house, especially if someone other than family is around. Alone I call her 'B' sometimes, and I think she disapproved for a bit, till she felt that it made her cooler, and closer to me somehow, so it became ok.

I still can’t call Darji 'D', he won’t stand for it at all.

I tried once.

He was going for his morning walk at 7 am in December, the temperature outside being around 3 degrees,

and I said, “Aini thand vich D?” Which means, “Going out when it’s freezing D?”

He had put on his Big Grey Sneakers and was almost out the door. He froze. He turned slowly, a quizzical expression on his face, “Ki keha?” Which means, “What did you say?” I knew I had said something terribly wrong. He had already heard me call Biji B a couple of times and I think he was waiting for me to try the same stunt on him. “You will call me Darji, and while we’re at it, you will say Sat Sri Akaal when you greet me in the morning instead of that good morning of yours.” He said these words softly and slowly, which of course makes it scarier. And then he went out in the morning fog.

Biji chuckled. “Darr gaya mera sher?” which means I was chicken shit actually.

When it comes to Darji. I AM scared of him, and so are Dad and Mom. It’s unspoken, everyone is intimidated by him. The help around the house, my friends who come and hang out in my room, his two other daughters and one son who have married sons and college going daughters of their own, my huge coterie of cousins who all live in the same city and visit at least once a month, yes, all of them HAVE to visit once a month. They are all respectful and internally terrified of him.

Darji is a handsome Sikh man. He’s 5 feet 11 inches tall, despite his age, has a white beard and a moustache, neither one of which have ever been trimmed or touched by a scissor. (It’s forbidden in the Sikh religion), but both the beard and moustache are always groomed and shaped. He wears either a blue turban or an orange one, which he’s diligent about tying, early in the morning and takes it off only at night before he goes to bed.

He’s about 2 years older to Biji, but we’re not sure. Apparently, they didn’t have birth certificates in those days and people didn’t remember birthdates of children as such. They’ve been together since she was 15 and he was 17. They’ve had 4 children and an army of grandchildren and the legend is that they’ve never been apart, even for a single day.

She remembers exactly how they met and how they got together. And She told me the story when I was low and had just broken up with my girlfriend. I was 17 and completely heartbroken. My ex-girlfriend (who is so unimportant that I won’t even name her) got mad because she found me ‘undemonstrative’ to which I said, “It’s a family tradition.” She hung up and never called me back. I didn’t call her back either.

I hadn’t told anybody, but Biji knew somehow and one afternoon as she sat on her chair in the courtyard, me on my knees, head on her lap, her hand on my head, and my fingers tracing the pattern on her pink salwar kameez, she told me about her and Darji.

It’s my favourite Biji story.

It was November-December 1946. Biji lived in the old walled city at that time.

Amritsar, the old walled city is about 9 Miles away from where we live now. The legend is that Sikh Warriors began to build a wall around the city in the year 1821 to protect the golden temple, the holy temple of the Sikh religion, and the homes surrounding it from Mughal invaders. The homes inside ‘The Walled City’ were clustered together like people in a crowded bus or train, like they were shrugging their shoulders and pulling themselves up to occupy less space and somehow include more similar shrugging-shoulder homes. All these homes were 3 or 4 stories high and had adjoining walls. If you wanted, you could jump from terrace to terrace and probably get from one of the city walls to the other end of the wall, provided you didn’t topple into those tiny jam-packed lanes crisscrossing between those homes.

Now the Wall has crumbled in most places and the main city has grown miles and miles around it. The lanes are gone and many thousands of homes demolished to build roads that can allow cacophonous traffic to reach the holy temple.

Biji says she was on the terrace when she first noticed Daljinderji, on the adjoining terrace. Yes, we use the word ‘ji’ even in our stories. She knew of Daljinderji and his younger brother Mohinderji of course. They were neighbours, but she hadn’t really noticed Daljinderji before. Both of them were young strong Sikh teenage boys, tall for their age, and the 'mohalla' (community) thought they were very nice good kids, just the right amount of irresponsible.

Her mother had made Mango pickles in ceramic jars that are called “byams” in Punjabi. Massive and heavy, they have to be kept on the terrace throughout the winter for about 4 months soaking in the heat of the sun before they can be eaten. Biji was carrying a byam up the staircase and as she reached the terrace, she began to lose her grip. Noone was around but she still yelled, “Oye Oye” and Daljinderji jumped across from his terrace and grabbed the byam just in time.

Their fingers touched.

They both laughed at the fact that he had made it across just in time. Biji’s mother yelled from downstairs, fully expecting Biji to have dropped the Byam, but Daljinderji yelled back saying that he had managed to save it. Then Mohinderji also jumped across the terrace and all three of them went down for ‘chah’ - tea.

Biji said Daljinderji was shy at first. They used to sit on the terrace during the evenings and have chah and they never talked anything serious at all. They just gossiped about the people walking down the lanes below their houses. Mohinderji joined them upstairs and sometimes Biji’s mom joined them too. It was all very innocent and very open.

Daljinderji’s Dad owned a cycle repair shop close to The Golden Temple which was a 15-minute walk through the labyrinth of lanes in the old city. Both Daljinderji and Mohinderji would help their Dad at the shop after school, and they both would smile at Biji and say Sat Sri Akaal when Biji walked by on the way back from her school.

A few weeks later Daljinderji absconded from the cycle shop and caught up with Biji around the corner. Normally they would have been chatting up, but Biji says her heart was beating so fast, that she didn’t say a word the entire walk home and neither did he. That silence was more special than a thousand words. They just silently walked together dodging cyclists and walkers and stray dogs and food stalls till they reached home and Daljinderji turned around and went back to the shop. Biji says she danced back to her room and got yelled at her mother.

The next time they talked.

And the next time they had ‘pinni’ from a food stall. Pinnis are a traditional sweet from Punjab. They are balls made of wheat and ghee and jaggery and they are absolutely delicious.

The third time Mohinderji came along too and he had pinni too.

In March 1947. The Violence in Amritsar began.

Biji said she had heard her father talk about the upcoming partition of India, and the making of another country for the muslims. Nobody knew what the name of the new country was going to be. But everyone could sense trouble, fear and unease in the atmosphere. Everyone had already heard about the riots and looting in Calcutta and Lahore, so fear began to permeate everywhere. Amritsar became hushed.

That Evening.

Daljinderji was at the terrace when his father came home from the cycle shop. He yelled that he had forgotten his money bag at the shop and wanted Daljinderji to go right now to get it from the shop. Take his cycle if he wanted to. Daljinderji grinned at Biji and asked her if she wanted pinni, and then he left.

Biji waited at the terrace.

She felt uneasy and heavy. Mohinderji joined her on the terrace and they didn’t say a word. Mohinderji didn’t talk much to her anyways. An hour later Daljinderji wasn’t back, and it was getting dark.

She slipped on her mothers’ shawl, crept downstairs and silently went out into the lane towards the cycle shop. Mohinderji watched from the terrace.

Something was wrong. The streets were empty. People were shutting shops early and hurrying. Strangely, nobody was talking or shouting. She tried to look at their faces, but for some reason everyone kept their faces down as if meeting someone’s eyes would reveal the terror they felt inside or reveal their darkest fears in the face of the person they stared at.

She passed the pinni shop. It was shut.

She neared the cycle shop and heard the screaming.

Something was burning. A turban lay on the street. A few dupattas and lots of chappals and shoes. A few carts were overturned. Some shop’s shutters were broken. She turned the corner.

And then she saw him.

There was something awkward about the way he was lying on the ground. One leg twisted over the cycle and the other straight underneath it. His body on the cycle. He was on his back, his arms open wide. There was a huge gash on his chest. She noticed his eyes were open and he wasn’t blinking.

She didn’t run up to him. She just stood there at that corner about 15 meters away and kept repeating to herself – blink, please blink, please blink.

She says, “Os wele meri jind nikal gayi sigi.” Which means at that moment I felt my life leave me.

Then she heard the roars.

From across the other side of the lanes, behind the cycle shop, she heard the noises. Things being broken. Loud and violent. Then she heard the people. The shouts - angry, loud and then the wails, the screams and the howls.

She couldn’t move. They were coming.

Any minute now and they would turn the corner and see her. And she was all alone. She says I was so scared that the thought of running and hiding didn’t even occur to me. I just stood there staring at Daljinderji.

Then. Suddenly Mohinderji’s face appeared in front of her and she screamed. He looked terrified. He grabbed her hand pulled her away from the cycle shop and began to run. Biji stumbling behind him.

She says that she didn’t look back at Daljinderji.

They ran through two lanes and then Mohinderji stopped. The crowd was coming from ahead now. And they could hear the wails from behind the lane as well. They were trapped.

On the left a shop. The shutter was broken, the shop was empty. Mohinderji dragged her in, stumbling. It was a Wheat and Rice store. Sacks of wheat and rice piled up at the back into neat rows. They ran behind the big stacks and tumbled to the floor.

A couple of moments later, they heard the mob outside.

Biji doesn’t talk about what the mob did. She can’t.

All she talks about is that they were in that shop the whole night and at one point she became so terrified that someone would come in and find them, that she couldn’t breathe and Mohinderji put his arms around her and they both calmed down.

When the mob left, they wept because they had both lost their favorite person on earth.

She says she fell asleep while crying.

It was still dark when Mohinderji got up. She began to get up too and he told her to stay. I’m going to check outside.

No no please stay here.

2 minutes he said.

He was gone for 10.

Biji says I didn’t get up, I didn’t follow him, I didn’t do anything. When he didn’t return in a couple of minutes, I became numb. I just lay there in between those dirty jute sacks feeling and thinking nothing.

When he came back, he was clutching something. Three Pinnis.

“Eat”, he said.

She said she couldn’t possibly, but finished them all. Mohinderji didn't eat at all. She slept again. Mohinderji was awake the whole night.

They hadn’t heard a sound in hours, when he got up and helped her up. They could see daylight on the street. When she got to the shutter of the shop, she stopped. Mohinderji took her hands in his and said,” Fikar na kar, main naal haan, tainu chaddunga nai” Don’t be scared, I’m with you, I won’t leave you.” And then Mohinderji walked her home.

Biji lifted my chin and looked me in the eyes and said, “He never left me after that.”

“If this girl's gone, let her go. True love will find you.”

“Mohinderji never spoke much anyways, and maybe after Daljinderji, even less so. When he held me that night, he was just as terrified as I was, but I knew then, that he would put his love first. His love didn’t need words.”

Then Biji gave me THAT Hug

Darji walked in the courtyard, back from his evening walk, totally unconcerned with our hug and conversation and handed her a paper bag. As he walked to his room, Biji and I ruffled through the paperbag.

Three pinnis.