The Sixth River

Fikr Taunsvi, born Ram Lal Bhatia, kept a journal from August to November 1947 while Lahore fell apart around him. Overnight, in the cosmopolitan city he loved, he was reduced to a single identity: Hindu. The Sixth River is that journal, a day-to-day eyewitness record of Partition as it was lived.

Taunsvi is furious at the shortsightedness and ineptness of the men who drew and decided the new borders, naming Radcliffe, Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah. With like-minded friends such as the poet Sahir Ludhianvi, he grieves for the art and culture of Lahore, which were being swept away by bloodlust and the deluded euphoria of freedom. Old friends turn into staunch nationalists and tell him to convert or leave the newly created country, and he is left bewildered.

Then the horror that millions were facing reaches his own home, when a neighbour murders his daughter. Soon after, he is forced to migrate to Amritsar in India. The narrative moves between pathos, barbarity and black humour, and it is presented here in a translation by Maaz Bin Bilal.