United by Hearts and Souls
Author: Dr. K. S. Kang
When Lord Radcliffe drew lines on the map to divide India into two independent nations- India and Pakistan in 1947, Ramya and Rahimya also exchanged their countries along with their parents, relatives and friends. Leaving behind the soil and land of their ancestors, Ramya came to Hindu dominated India while Rahima went into muslim dominated Pakistan. Both of them were of same age when this tragedy struck the Indian subcontinent. They came across each other in a refugee camp near the international boarder. The thing that bound them together was the game of Hockey. Rahimya on his side of camp was playing hockey with a hooked branch of a tree and a ball made of rags put into a sock. Ramya was drawn towards him when he saw him playing Hockey and both of them exchanged preliminary information, including the name and location of the villages that they had left behind, about each other. That day both them decided to select a day in an year to come at the international boarder to exchange the events, developments taking place in their respective ancestral villages and the day that they selected was the birth anniversary of a popular revolutionary leader who had worked tirelessly throughout his life for the independence of the country. They considered it as apt people’s response to evil design to divide the hearts and souls of people who were living together peacefully for centuries.
It was a coincidence that Ramya’s parents settled down in Rahimya’s village in India and Rahimya settled down with his family in Rama’s village in Pakistan. Both the villages were not far away from the international boarder and they found convenient to settle in these two villages as they found that the culture, language, food habits and attire of these villages was almost the same like the villages they have left behind. On the appointed day Ramya and Rahima met each other at international boarder almost regularly every year, except the troubled years of 1965 and 1971 when due to conflict the boarder was closed. While watching and enjoying retreat ceremony by BSF and Pakistan Ranger soldiers at the international frontier they met each other and discussed the developments and exchanged the news and well being of their neighbours that they have left behind. They had to discuss these things within five minutes the Guards at the frontier allowed them to interact and then they had to go back with heavy hearts and tears in their eyes with a resolve to meet at the same place, same day next year. So like it they were constantly in touch with each other as well as with their ancestral villages from which they were uprooted.
Earlier Ramya and Rahimya used to come alone, then later on they started coming on with their wives and children,as a result of which their families were also introduced to each other and this tradition continued regularly as with time Ramya and Rahimya continued to meet regularly every year at the international boarder- sometimes they were in company of their wives, sometimes in the company of their children and now even their grand children brought them to mark this personal event in the life of Ramya and Rahimya and so they were in constant touch with their people despite the political decision of the leaders to partition the country on the basis of religion because both, Ramya and Rahimya,were united in hearts and souls as far as their commitment to their ancestral villages was concerned. Even the political decision to partition the land could not affect their commitment as they were attached to their lands.
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