June '84

I have a story to tell. It was June of 84. My youngest sister was about to arrive in this world and my grand mother had come from bombay to help. She wanted to sleep out in open. So i slept with her. Incidentally we shared a common wall running across the full length of Gurudwara and we had big lawns and courtyard in front. At around midnight there were bullet shots and we saw army men entering in our house firing towards Gurudwara. Me and nani scampered inside and the whole night was spent in terror with bullets being fired. In morning the whole Gurudwara was army cantonment as they had been tipped off of some terrorist hiding there. I remember my grand mother's sentiments were badly hurt. Then around noon, they started taking out all male members from houses in our area on streets to inquire. My father waited with bated breath. No one came to call my father. Then when the army was to leave , their officer or whoever was leading that operation came to see my father. He said i wanted to meet my father as every 'HINDU' man in our locality had vouched for my father requesting to not 'dishonour' him. Now let me tell you why, because our family was famous for sheltering Hindus in our Sikh dominated area at time of communal riots. For this he had received threats many time to...but he always said ...'puttar insaan di jaan di keemat har cheez toh vadd hai' And two wrongs can't make a right. Whole 'Kaum' can't be blamed for wrongs of few people. Many of our close relatives outside Punjab were badly affected in riots but still the feeling of looking at wider ab=venue was instilled in us. Am proud that i was bred on love not hatred so it is easy for me to understand what you say and be distressed at so much residual hatred!

Excerpt from someone's dairy of Operation Blue star.