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Eh tuhada nikka puttar je
Kalam Nishan Singh

Thirty five years ago, when a strapping Kashmir Singh bid goodbye to his wife Paramjit Kaur, before going to Rawalpindi on a business trip, he promised he will be back soon. He was a responsible father of three, a former soldier, and knew it was important to be back home, and in time. Two days ago, he called his wife from a cell phone, a gadget he did not know existed. "I will be back by noon," he said. He still knew it was important to get back home, and in time.

Sure, by noon, Kashmir Singh was back, hugging his wife in full public view, with world's cameras gazing at him and people of two nations applauding. No one from his sleepy Nangal Choran village was ever seen meeting his wife like that in public. Rural Punjab is a traditional small town society and public display of affections is limited to love for children.

But this was different. Kashmir Singh had reached in time. That he was 35 years late is a fact of history that should put to shame democratic governance in South Asian countries and the apathy of the regimes. Others are allowed to cry, and everyone was wiping tears as the couple met.

This was the Kabuliwala in real life. Tagore's Kabuliwala was heartbroken because Mini failed to recollect her childhood association. Kashmir Singh's wife and children had marked out every single day on the calender, never missing their daily ardas.

You will spend a lifetime but may not come across an encounter as humane as this one:

She pulled to the front a young man."Eh tuhada nikka puttar je (He is your youngest son)," a mother was introducing the father to his youngest son.

Shishpal Singh was only four when his father went missing. Kashmir was arrested as a 'spy' and sentenced to death. He soon became Ibrahim Iqbal, and then started a wait which could have consumed any lesser mortals on both sides of the border, but this family just did not let the threads go.

Paramjit Kaur go to know in 1986 of Kashmir being in a Lahore jail from some Indian men whom Pakistan had then released. Enough reason it was for Paramjit not to stop praying. While regimes could be apathetic, Akal Purakh couldn't be.

Pakistan caretaker Human Rights Minister Ansar Burney worked tirelessly to orchestrate Kashmir's pardon and eventual repatriation. "Burney Sahib farishta hain mere liye," Kashmir Singh said. When he hugged Burney for a long time near the zero line, every clap that resounded the air was a well deserved one.

The almost bald Kashmir looked fit. He was released from Lahore jail on Monday and arrived at the border on Tuesday where his wife and one son awaited. BJP MP Avinash Rai Khanna's official vehicle brought the family to Nangal Choran in Hoshiarpur where hundreds converged to meet the man who beat not only history but even geography, possibly maths too. Ever counted till 35? Thirty five years?

This was also South Asia's poignant love story. Paramjeet must have been taken aback when Kashmir referred to her as his "Begum". A little bit of Ibrahim Iqbal will perhaps remain for some more time even though friends and relatives first took him to the village gurdwara to undo the religious conversion that he was made to undergo.

"She is still beautiful but has grown old now," Kashmir Singh joked, but deep within his heart, he knows he will never find a more beautiful creature, the woman who not only gave him three sons, but brought them up too, single handedly while doing a little side job of being the one and only hope for a man in a dark dingy solitary cell in an alien country on a death row, a hope she knew would defeat the apathetic regimes, keep the man alive, bring him back, and give her the opportunity to say: "Eh tuhada nikka puttar je".

5 March 2008
 

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