“Javange, kyon nai javange…(I will definitely go, why won’t I).” Kartar Chand, a sweets shop owner in Dera Baba Nanak, plans to ride pillion on a bike with a youngster from the town to visit the historic Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib in Pakistan once the new corridor opens. “Je rah khul geya tan main kise munde magar motorcycle te beth ke Kartarpur Sahib matha tek avanga,” says Chand, now in his eighties.
But he is not happy to learn that he would need a passport to travel across the border. “I am old now…I cannot go to Amritsar to get my passport made. I should be allowed to go to Kartarpur as I used to go before 1947. At that time, all we had to do was sit in a boat (to cross Ravi river),” he says standing outside his shop near the historical Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Dera Baba Nanak.
Chand, a Hindu, remembers visiting Gurdwara Kartarpura Sahib often before Partition. “I was young at that time. There used to be a big festival at Gurdwara Kartarpur Sahib on the occasion of Baisakhi. Everyone from Dera Baba Nanak would sit in boats to cross the Ravi to visit Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur… The boats were owned by two Muslim brothers. My neighbours were also Muslims. There were many shops of owned by Muslims in Dera Baba Nanak then. Everyone lived in peace. But then things took a turn for worse in 1947. I could never visit Kartarpur Sahib again,” he says.
Kartar Chand talks with mostly with his eyes closed as he recalls his visits to the historic gurdwara before 1947. He rues that Dera Baba Nanak’s growth stagnated due to Partition, as it became a border town overnight. As he recollects the years after Partition, Kartar Chand speaks of a railway bridge over Ravi which was demolished in the 1971 Indo-Pak war.
“We used to go to the railway bridge on Ravi. There were hardly any restrictions then. Now, they do not even allow us to stand at the border. But I remember a few meetings with my Muslim friends on the railway bridge after they went to Pakistan in 1947. This contact was completely lost after destruction of the railway bridge in the war. The restrictions also came after that.”
