Remembering your home

Remembering your Home

The world is full of people who because of certain reasons had to leave their homes/homeland. These people are called immigrants. When searched on Google, it will tell us “Immigrants are people who come to live permanently in a foreign country,” but the question is don’t they miss their homes? (In fact in large nations like India even inter-state movements are classified as migration) The answer is YES, there will always be certain things that remind a person of his home, a place where he was born, had spent his childhood, had spent some good times, whatever the reason maybe that caused him to leave his home, good or bad.

Talking about remembrance of homes, what makes a person remember or miss his home? A very simple thing called memories, memories that are stuck in a person’s mind, be it good memories or bad memories, memories that make them reminisce or memories that might haunt them, but they are memories none the less that remind the person of his/her home.

Home is now understood as a multi-dimensional concept and is acknowledged by many researchers as multi-disciplinary field of research with many contradictory meanings of the term.

Doreen Massey gets us a new approach about the discussion of place, home and memory with the paper written by Massey in 1992 and 1994. Massey writes that there is no single simple “authenticity”- a unique eternal truth of an (remembered) place or home that could be used as a reference in the present or past (1994:119) Place is constitutes by the particular social relations that occur in a specific location, the social effects that arise in this interaction and its ‘positive interrelations with elsewhere’ or outside (1992:13). In my grandfather’s case the remembered truth by him to remind him of his home are the things he suffered during the partitions. The social relations and interaction he had with the family that he lost and his neighbours that helped him escape from that Pakistan(specific location) are the might be authentic or not memories that remind him of his home.

With my grandfather’s history, it can easily be seen how shared histories of places and spaces could make an important resource to any caring relationship, with the practical thought of his home in Pakistan and other homes he had when came to India. It’s in how he related them with his remaining family and with family friends that helped him around that time to be the man who he is today. After settling in Dehradun, after some time he did try and find about his family home and its status now. He even says that he plans to visit Pakistan and go to visit his old home for the nostalgia.

This is very much to Sikseck’s case in ‘An Apartment to Remember’, by Barbara E. Mann.  The same way I am talking about my grandfather’s case of losing his home in Pakistan, the same way his mother talks about her old her house which she had to leave because of the Israeli-Palestinians scenario. He tells how she goes to her old home location and by pointing at a wide, naked patch of earth (pg. 93.); she is remembering her old home over there in a subtle and depressing way. When it comes to my grandfather’s case, he too has memories that make him feel sad and emotional missing his original home. He too remembers the quarters he lived in at the young age of six, which was inside a British company called Imperial chemical Industries, where his father, my great grandfather worked as a Head Cashier.

My grandfather’s name is Satya Pal Mehta, who was quite young during the partition, therefore the elements of his cases will be regarding his youth and how he saw the time in a child’s own perception. He remembers how his father was one of the few Punjabi graduates to work at the company, also remembering his relationship with him. He told me how his father was a very serious man and how my grandfather was very scared of him, so scared that he didn’t even dare to enter his father’s room. He has the memories of the beatings and rebuking he got at home, since he was not a studious child. One point that interested me quite a bit was how he in the discussion I had with my grandfather, he clearly tells me and points it out that he was not fair-complexioned as his brothers, which could have been one of the reasons for him not being the favourite child at home. The question is why could fair-complexion be a factor of favouritism for his parents? Thinking of it, I could believe that one of the reasons could actually been this working in a British Company, which could have if not direct, indirect way influenced his father’s mind on complexion of his child, with regards to his father working with the Englishmen.

Satya Pal Mehta as a child was one of the kids who did not take studies seriously, but well when I think of it even me as a child in his early childhood did not take my studies seriously, BUT, that was a different time. As we already know, he was beaten at that age too for not being good in studies; my dadu told me how he was being made a murga (chicken) at school was a regular punishment for him because he was usually late to school (the school was a mile away from his home). He said, and I quote, “Since I had no interest in school or studies I would loiter about, spend time on way to school and reach late. Even after ‘chhuttee’ (end of school) I would not go home straight and get late in reaching home and was admonished almost daily.”

It was really nice to get to know the child side of my grandfather, to get to know that what I did at that age was not totally wrong as per a child’s perception. The way he gave very intricate details of his way towards his school and memories on the way is something I can very much relate, because even I as a child would always look for fun on the way. He described this very intricately,” I have a very clear memory of my school. It was about one mile from my house. I used cross the playground, the there was a big gate ; then there was  pacca(fine) road, there was railway track on the way, then there was small market, then i turn right and reach school facing small hills where there were mines. There was a pond also near my school where i used to float stones making waves on the water surface. “It was really fun to listen to my grandfather as he told me about his stone skipping expertise as a child. That pond he was talking about was near his school, so it was almost a daily thing. He told me how he could sometimes make the stone skip at least ten times. Overall it was a fun to see how my grandfather was getting nostalgic about his fun times as a child with a free spirit. This free spirit came back in his mind as he started to remember his times at Khewra, this free spirit as I saw was linked quite to his homeland. It could be linked his way to school, looking for fun things on the way, the pond, the ‘pacca’ road, and in a certain way to his punishments too, the punishments he got from his father and from his teachers. The thought of punishments could also remind my grandfather of his homeland, be it a physical or a psychological thing. If a person could relate to a thing at a place he misses, it could remind him of that place. So in my grandfather’s case, if he every sees someone be a murga as a punishment, it could remind him of his home, his father or even his school, all factors together in a certain social way being his homeland.

Before continuing with my Dadu’s(Grandfather's) story, I want to point out how many researchers have differentiated between house and home. As Madigan et al. (1990) says home is a source of personal identity and status.  As my grandfather felt as the ‘spoilt kid’ of the family, I could say that was his personal identity at his home in Khewra. The same way Dupuis and Thorn  say that home is a source of personal and familial security(1996). Familial security could be his Tayaji’s help at the time it was getting unsafe for them to stay at his old home. In Shelley Mallett’s paper ‘Understanding home’ (2004) she writes how homes could also provide a sense of place and belonging in an increasingly alienating world. Overall the way I’ve heard my grandfather talk about his old home there, I could feel a hint of belongingness he felt inside his heart, not just for his home, but for his town Khewra too. The whole town together brought inside his heart a sense of belongingness. When his younger brother asked him to visit USA(where he has been since 1971), he told him that he whenever he will think about visiting a foreign country, he will always give preference to visit his old home. He told me how he even remembers an old friend and how in the past few years he has slowly starting finding out about Khewra. As time went by and he got successful in his life, he told me,” When we started doing well in life thoughts of our native place started coming to our mind and for last several years it has been my heartfelt desire to visit Khewra and to see my house, the company where we stayed, the road going to school via the Railway station, the small markets, the bungalows of English employees. I know the company is still there as seen on Google maps presently owned by some Muslim. Whenever relations between India and Pakistan are little comfortable I think of going there to check whether my memories are correct, after I get down at the Railway Station can I take right way to my school and the company.”

Witold Rybczynski explains the meaning of home in his book ’Home; A Short History of an Idea’ by stating that ideas about privacy, intimacy, domesticity and comfort are prominent and recurring themes in contemporary analyses of the meaning of home.

Then came the time of tension, my grandfather told me how it was his summer vacations going on and how is parents and the elders in the house were all very feeling very scared and had a lot of tension for their family’s safety. By that time, they had all shifted to a place at their relative’s, who was a quarry owner and transporter, so they shifted inside in his company campus because of better security over there. This relative was my grandfather’s was his Tayaji(which means father’s elder brother), who sadly lost his life after a few days of them shifting to the new location. His Tayaji was apparently killed by some Muslims in Rawalpindi and this news was aired on All India Radio.

With lots of massacring happening, my great-grandfather’s British employers got his family picked up from their residence and got them dropped off at the railway station from where they had to pick up a train for Amritsar, India. This is where the train attacks and major rioting started with lots of rioting and losses from both Pakistan and India. My grandfather stated how the train was massacred at a station by the name of ‘Kamoki Railway Station’, where he sadly lost both his parents, his eldest and his youngest brothers, and his mamaji(Uncle). He even told us a story of how one of his brothers put blood on himself from a dead body, to pass by as a fake dead person(who survived), and how almost all the surviving members of the family together met up at different relief camps. By the time they reached India, there was only one adult male survivor of the family who was with them. He sadly stated,” Thus partition of the country happened and story of our miseries started”.

Dadu and his surviving family were trying not to think of their old home in Pakistan, and he told me how did not have much fond memories of his house, only how they were brought up in a very disciplined and cultured environment, which ‘he is still trying to pass onto the next generations.’

So as stated earlier, there are two types of memories, good memories and bad memories, whichever memory reminds Satya Pal Mehta of his home, they are memories none the less. It can be the stone skipping or the playgrounds that remind him of his home, or it can be the loss of his family, or his beatings that remind him of his home, those are memories none the less. In cases of migrations due to critical reasons where the trauma of migration is more, negative memories might be more dominant; however the god memories continue to remember his homeland. Some things are good to move on from, of course. To move forward we cannot stay stuck in the past.

This thought to search for one’s roots probably brought my Dadu to draw out our family tree, maybe to link up his roots which have spread all over India. My grandfather has covered seven generations in this family tree.