Sindhi
Exodus
A Desire Never
Fulfilled
By MANZOOR CHANDIO
"In July
2001,
after half a century of the Partition, a cupboard in a Hyderabad house
was opened. There was a message in Sindhi at the rear of the shelf,
which
read as follow: “Vundri Tejomal jo hee kabat jeko kholeendo, un khi pap
lagando."(Opener of this Vundri Tejomal's shelf will earn guilt).
That note was unfolded by eminent
Sindhi writer Wali Ram in his column "Rita Shahani aee Jalawatani jee
bhogna"
which appeared in Hyderabad based Sindhi daily Kawish on July 6, 2001.
Although the writer had written his column on Dadi Rita Shahani's
sojourn
to her motherland, but between the lines he revealed that message by
Vundri
Tejomal who while leaving her home in Hyderabad presages the opener of
her shelf in poignant words. She writes that note inside the shelf
placed
in a house, which once was in the neighbourhood of Dadi Rita Shahani.
Who was Vundri? Is she alive or
dead? Was she Tejomal's daughter or Wife? What happened to her after
exodus?
No body knows. However, one thing is understandable from her message
that
she is/[was] an innocent soul imperceptive of the dirty communal
politics
of those days. She [was] great, as she did not want burden of remorse
even
for transgressor. From her note she seems to be unaware that after her
departure who would be new inmates of her house? Would they be able to
decipher her warning in Sindhi or not?
I understand her note gives a
message
that she had a desire to come back to her home to take care of her
personal
belongings she might had packed in hurry, put in the shelf and wrote
that
note before moving to unknown destination.
While I was reading that
column,
I recollected another like situation. It is about another exodus by
Sindhis.
One day Sindhologist Anwer Pirzado, who took part in the excavation of
Mohen-jo-daro, was telling us at his Karachi residence that positions
of
skeletons discovered from ancient city of Mohen-jo-daro were suggesting
that they were about to leave their homes. Many Sindhologists now have
hypothesised that Indus men had left Indus cities, scattered across the
Indus Valley, due to attacks by marauders.
And it was the fear of attacks
that
millions of Sindhis, the natural stakeholders of Sindh, left ancestral
houses in 1947. Once again they left their houses in 1988-90 due to the
fear of attacks by [formerly] displaced settlers i.e. Muhajirs. Then
they
did not have an option to take refuge in any neighbouring country
because
no one was to embrace them. Therefore, they built other cities like
Qasimabad
near Hyderabad and many ghettos on the outskirts of Karachi. Why all
the
times Sindhis have surrendered their homes to marauders? Why didn't
they
resist? [These] are my questions to all Sindhis."
By MANZOOR CHANDIO
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