Thought track

PREMCHAND Dalwani, 77, takes out a carefully preserved ticket. It8217;s with pieces like these that he has mapped out his past. An old map ...

PREMCHAND Dalwani, 77, takes out a carefully preserved ticket. It8217;s with pieces like these that he has mapped out his past. An old map in Sindhi that shows railway lines. And a luggage ticket he bought on his journey from Sind to India in 1947.

News of the revival of the Munabao-Khokhrapar rail link between Pakistan and India has brought back this journey. 8216;8216;I will love to travel again on this route,8217;8217; says Ahmedabad-based Dalwani.

A retired railway employee, Dalwani was just 19 at Partition. Before that he travelled frequently on business between Mirpur Khas in Pakistan and Ahmedabad.

8216;8216;The train then belonged to the erstwhile Jodhpur State and it ran on the single track metre gauge line with four types of coaches8212;third class, inter class, second class and first class,8217;8217; he says. 8216;8216;I still remember the fare from Mirpur Khas to Ahmedabad was eleven rupees and twelve annas and there used to be four bogeys for Ahmedabad which would be connected to Delhi Mail at Marwar junction,8217;8217; remembers Dalwani.

Had India not been partitioned, he adds, this line would have got at least four more trains as it was the main link to the Karachi port.

FOR other Sindhis like him it8217;s a link to the past. In 1947, most of them had come to India on this rail route, settling in Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Renowned ghazal writer Arjan Hasad who won the Sahitya Akademi award in 1985, now lives in Ahmedabad. He was 17 years old when he had travelled by this train.

8216;8216;I was returning to Hyderabad after attending a Rashtriya Seva Dal camp at Chittor in 1947. In those days, there was single line on this route,8217;8217; he remembers. Hasad says the train was then known as Marwar-Hyderabad train as Munabao or Khokhrapar were insignificant places. Marwar was a big junction even at that time.

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8216;8216;I don8217;t think I will travel again by this train because my health won8217;t permit that,8217;8217; says Hasad.

ADIPUR Gandhidham, about 60 km from Bhuj, is called the second home of the Sindhis. Nirmalaben Gajwani, chairperson of Sindhu Resettlement Corporation in Adipur, came by the Khokharpar route.

8216;8216;I was 22 year old then. The killing and bloodshed I saw was horrible. Thank god, we were saved by God. I would certainly like to visit my beloved Sind. But I would prefer to fly since the Rajasthan rail route is a long one. On the other hand since it is connected with our memories, I might go by it,8217;8217; says Gajwani, 78.

Even those who have not travelled on this line are now keen to do. Says Sindhi writer Hundraj Balwani: 8216;8216;I have good writer friends there like Tajul Bewas, Ayaz Gul, Adal Sumaro and Mehtab Mehboob with whom now I am in touch only through mail or phone.8217;8217;

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Relatives of BJP president L.K. Advani who live in Kutch wonder if he will go to Pakistan 8212; he8217;s been invited by General Pervez Musharraf 8212; by this new route. 8216;8216;I would have certainly loved to travel by this very route connected with our old memories, but for my old age. I don8217;t know if Advani will8212;he often told me about horrible train journey as refugee from Sind,8217;8217; says Arjan Malkani, 84, Advani8217;s relative and the first advocate of Gandhidham.

But for others even the fearful memories can8217;t quite quell a growing curiosity to take this train out of Kutch.