awww sorry to disappoint you kids but i donno any raja-rani or pariyooN wali stories
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Here is the story i promised…Khol Do by S’aadat Hasan Manto.
A special train starting from amritsar at two in the afternoon reached Mughalpura after a nightmarish journey lasting eight hours, marked by shrieks, bloodshed, loot and assault. On the way hundereds of the passengers were butchered, thousands wounded and many more cast adrift from the main herd, in an attempt to save their lives and were heard of no more. The lucky ones who reached safety through this holocaust thanked God for his benevolence and scattered away, finding shelter whenever they could.
In the morning when Sirajuddin opened his eyes as he lay on the cold ground of the refugee camp and looked around, he found himself surrounded by a surging sea of men, women and children. His power of thinking, which had already become numb, was further blunted by the chaos around him. He sat there staring at the sombre, dust-laden sky.
The camp was in turmoil, shrieks and cries rending it from end to end. But old Sirajuddin seemed to have become deaf to the noise around him; he heard nothing. One would think that he was lost in deep thought. But that was not it. He was feeling utterly bewildered and kept sucking his lower lip as if whole being had got concentrated in it here. As he looked at the sky his eyes ricocheted against the sun and its glare shot through his body, keeping him fully awake. And then a picture, hazy and gruesome, racked his mind. Loot, arson, running feet, the railway station, bullets, the darkness of the night–and Sakeena.
Sirajuddin suddenly rose to his feet and looked around in a frenzy of madness, his restless, troubled eyes piercing through the milling crowd. For three hours he kept plodding through the entire length of the camp and back, shouting, ‘Sakeena, Sakeena!’ But he could find no trace of his young daughter, his only child. Everything around him was in state of flux, for everyone like him was frantically searching for someone-- a mother, a wife, a child, a father.
At last, utterly exhausted, Sirajuddin sat down by the side of his camp and tried to recall when and at what point of the journey Sakeena had strayed away from him. While thinking of his daughter his mind got entangled in the body of sakeena’s mother whose entrails had spilled out of her stomach and whom he had seen dying before his eyes. 'Don’t worry about me, ’ the dying woman had said. ‘Look after Sakeena. Take her to some safe place.’ But where was Sakeena?
He remembered seeing Sakeena walk by his side Then they had started running. As they ran they discarded their shoes so that they could run faster. Sakeena’s dupatta had slipped from her shoulders and fallen on the ground. When he stopped to pick it up she cried, ‘Abba, leave it alone!’ But he had stopped to pick up the dupatta and in the meantime Sakeena had disappeared from sight. Sirajuddin’s hand strayed to the bulging pocket of his musty coat and he started looking vacantly into space. When had he lost Sakeena? Sirajuddin’s tired brain refused to think in spite of his coaxing it. Had she come with him to the station? Did she get into the train? All that he remembered was that the rioters had entered his compartment and he had fainted. Scores of questions kept churning themselves in the old man’s mind without producing a single answer.
Of course, he was in need of sympathy. But so were others who were milling around him in the camp. Six days later when he felt more composed in his mind he met some people who he thought were in a position to help him, Then he chanced upon a group of eight men who had a lorry at their disposal. And a gun too. He described Sakeena to them. ‘Fair, very beautiful. She has not taken after me but her mother. Age about seventeen. Big eyes, jet black hair, a black spot on her left cheek. She’s my only child. You must find her. May God bless you.’
These good young people assured the old man of their full help. ‘If your daughter is alive we shall ransack heaven and earth and not rest till we have restored her to you,’ they said. ‘She will be with you in a matter of days.’
True to their word, these young men made a serious effort to trace the lost girl. At the risk of their lives, they even ventured as far as Amritsar. In the process they succeeded in retrieving many stranded women and children and taking them to safety. But no Sakeena. Ten days had passed and still they had not been able to find Sakeena. It looked like a hopeless task.
One day they were proceeding towards Amritsar in their lorry when they happened to see a girl near Cheharta. She was walking along the road. Hearing the sound of the lorry she seemed to have panicked and blindly dashed off into the fields.
The young men stopped the lorry and chased her. The girl was running like a frightened deer and kept her distance from them. But the young men were in fine fettle and in high spirits. They did not give up the chase and at last caught her in the field. The girl was indeed beautiful and there was a black spot on her right cheek. ‘You’ve nothing to fear,’ one of the young men said. ‘Is your name Sakeena?’
The girl’s face suddenly lost its color and she stood mute before them. But when the young men assured her that they were out to help her she reluctantly accepted the fact that her name was Sakeena and that Sirajuddin was her father.
The young men did their best to pull her out of her gloom. They tried to revive her spirits, gave her food to eat and milk to drink. Then they hoisted her onto the lorry. One of the young men gave her his coat for she didn’t even have her dupatta and not being in the habit of going about bare-bosomed, she was trying to cover herself with her hands which was only adding to her embarrassment.
Many days passed. Sirajuddin still had no news of Sakeena. All day long he would tire his feet out walking about from one camp to another and from one government office to the next. Then he would pray long into the night, seeking God’s blessings for those well-meaning young men who had gone out in search of Sakeena at great risk to their lives, assuring him that if she was alive they would trace her out and bring her back to him.
One day Sirajuddin happened to see those young men in the camp. They were sitting in the lorry, laughing and chatting among themselves. Although weary and physically exhausted, strength mysteriously surged back into Sirajuddin’s body and he ran up to the lorry. They were about to start the lorry.
‘Son, what about my daughter?’ he asked one of them. ‘Have you been able to trace my daughter, Sakeena?’
‘We’ll know,’ they all said in unison. ‘We’ll soon know about her.’ And they drove off.
Sirajuddin once more fervently prayed to God for their success. Their assurance had given him great mental relief. A few days later Sirajuddin was sitting in his xamp, watching the setting sun, when he noticed some commotion at some distance. Then he saw four men carrying somebody. On enquiry he found that a young girl had been found lying unconscious near the rail track and they had brought her to the camp. Sirajuddin suddenly remembered his daughter, Sakeena and he followed the four men like an automaton.
They left the girl at the hospital and went away. But Sirajuddin lingered near the hospital. Still living with the horrors that his eyes had witnessed, he stood leaning against a wooden pole outside the hospital gate and then walked in.
There was nobody in the room. Only a body lay darkly outlined on a stretcher. Sirajuddin warily proceeded towards the stretcher with hesitant steps. Suddenly the room lit up and he saw a girl lying on the stretcher. ‘Sakeena!’ Sirajuddin suddenly cried. There was a black spot on her pale face.
‘Yes, what do you want?’ the doctor who had just come into the room and turned on the light, asked Sirajuddin.
‘I…I’m her father,’ Sirajuddin stammered.
The doctor looked at the girl lying on the stretcher, felt her pulse and then turned to Sirajuddin. ‘Do you mind throwing open the window?’ he said. ‘Yes, open it!’
As the doctor uttered these words, Sakeena’s lifeless body suddenly stirred and her hands limply travelled to her shalwar. She loosened up its cord and pushed down her shalwar exposing her naked thighs to view.
Old Sirajuddin cried with joy, ‘She’s alive! My daughter is alive!’ The doctor trembled from head to foot and sweat broke out on his body.
