A Train to Karachi by Amar Jaleel

Time changes everything, except, of course, memories

It took Chandu a considerable time in descending a few steps of the Karachi Cantonment Railway Station. On each step he was pushed and elbowed by a mammoth crowed that had swarmed the railway station to welcome their relatives and friends from India. It was emotional scenario all over the place. With moistened eyes, and tears rolling down their cheeks they hugged each other. They sobbed. They smiled. And, they laughed.

Chandu, the forlorn soul stepped aback from the crowded Railway Station. A few feet away Chandu was hounded by the taxi and rickshaw drivers. Each one almost dragged him to take him away from the clutches of other driver. Exhausted, Chandu pleaded, “Please, leave me alone. I will go by tram.”

“Never heard of trams in this city! Have you come to Karachi for the first time?” a frustrated driver asked.

A nostalgic smile appeared on Chandu’s parched lips. He proudly said, “I am a native of this city.”

The drivers took him for a lunatic, and they abandoned him. Chandu laboured his way through the swarm of men, women and children, cars, taxis and rickshaws, and frantically looked for the tram. He spotted a police inspector sitting in a jeep. Chandu approached him, and asked, “Sir, have they shifted the tram from here?”

The police inspector looked at him searchingly, and asked, “Who are you?”

“My name is Ram Chander.” He said, “They call me Chandu.”

“Have you ever been to Karachi before?”

“I was born here.”

“When did you leave for India?”

“In fact I had not left for India.” Chandu hesitantly replied, “I had accompanied my parents to see them settled in India.”

“When was it?”

“December 25, 1947.”

“Have you come to see someone?”

With nostalgic tinge in his voice, Chandu said, “Yes, Ritu. Ritu Muzaffar.”

“We have eliminated tram from Karachi,” said the tough inspector to whom Chandu appeared deranged. Feeling soft and sorry for the old man, he alighted from his jeep, and tenderly shook hands with him and asked, “Sir, where would you like to go?”

“Edulji Dinshaw Building on Barness Street. I was born there in 1930,” with a spark in his eyes, and a smile on his face, Chandu added, “Then, Ritu and I would go to Patel Park, and sit there through timelessness.” He paused, looked heavenwards, and said, “We would talk without talking for ten thousand years.”

The inspector realized the old Chandu was wavering between sanity and insanity. He said, “Sir, we don’t have a Patel Park. We call it Nishtar Park”

“But, Patel Park had nothing to do with Walabh Bhai Patel!” Chandu felt bewildered. He exclaimed, “It had never occurred to me that the history too like earth is separable!”

The police inspector gestured a taxi driver. He came running. The inspector quietly gave him three hundred rupees, and said, “He is my grandfather. Take him to Jamila Street, and drop him at the place he indicates.”

Chandu felt surprised. He exclaimed, “Barness Street!”

“We now call it Jamila Street,” the inspector told him, “Sir, the taxi driver will take you to your destination.”

The inspector picked up a pack of sandwiches from the jeep and gave it to Chandu, and said, “These are vegetable sandwiches.”

He then shook hands with Chandu, and looked sideways to hide his moistened eyes. He said, “Sir, my grandfather is of your age. He had refused to accompany his family to Pakistan. He lives alone in Mumbai.”

The inspector opened the door of the taxi for Chandu. He got into the vehicle. As taxi moved away the inspector and Chandu waved at each other.

Chandu watched with awe from the fast moving taxi the transformed appearance of Karachi. The city where he had spent 17 youthful years of his age looked alien to him. In December, 1947, when he had left for India, Karachi was a neat clean city of heterogeneous people far less than half a million in population. After 58 years Karachi now is an ever sprawling chaotic city of over 12 million people overwhelmingly belonging to same religion, but bifurcated in ethnic groups.

After driving through unruly traffic and an unending mushroom growth of high-rise buildings the vehicle pulled up near a footpath on a road congested with all sorts of two wheelers and four wheelers. The driver said, “Sir, this is Jamila Street.”

Confused Chandu hesitantly stepped out from the cab. He pulled out a valet, and asked, “Fare?”

“No fare, sir.” The driver asked, “May I leave?”

Looking bewildered Chandu said, “Yes, you may go.” He looked around. Three unmolested buildings, Saeed Manzil, YWCA, and Mamma Parsi Girls School assured him that he was close to his destination. And, then began his ordeal. He couldn’t locate Edulji Dinshaw Building where his and Ritu’s families had lived together as next-door neighbours for ages. He walked up and down the road between Saeed Manzil and YWCA for hours, murmuring “I have returned, Ritu. I have returned, Ritu.”

Hours turned into days and nights. Days and nights turned into weeks, and the weeks into a fortnight. Exhausted, old Chandu sank on a pavement near Saeed Manzil, reciting “I have returned, Ritu.”

Yesterday he was taken away for overstaying in Pakistan.