This is a touching story of human goodness gratitude, friendship and trust which began in 1947 and climaxed on October 22, 1990. The Partition of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan was a cataclysmic event in which hundreds of thousands died at the hands of crazed mobs and many times that number were orphaned and millions were uprooted from hearth and home.

Hanif Rana has lived a successful life as a London businessman and executive of British Airways. His face does not show his 60 years or give a hint of the eventful life he has lived, A few years ago he was declared clinically dead in a London hospital following cardiac arrest. Typically, he bounced back. He does not like to talk much of this encounter with death but of another time in 1947 when death was all around him and was a constant companion. The grim reaper spared him. In that, perhaps the active intervention of a brave and kind Sikh college mate and friend helped. Ever since then Hanif made various attempts to track down his benefactor and friend, Indrajit Singh Gill.

Hanif, a 17 year old youth of Manakpur Sharif in Ropar district, did not know in mid-August 1947 that his world was about to be shattered as he made his way to the Government College in Ropar. Hanif was about to be caught up in the biggest and bloodiest transmigration of people in human history. Hanif admits he had not even the faintest hope of living through it. Muslims were being killed on sight by crazed communal mobs as rumors spread that people were being slaughtered en masse in Pakistan.

A brave Indarjit took it upon himself to pass off Hanif as “Satpal”, a Hindu friend.Indarjit then found a bus driver he knew and put Hanif on his bus to Ropar where a camp under military protection was being set up for Muslims.

The journey to the camp was a harrowing experience, Fear made Hanif nervous and he got off at the wrong stop. Separated from his family and friends, Hanif spent a night alone in a sugarcane field amid the sounds of arson and mayhem all around. It was a very wet August in 1947 and the constant gloom and rain added to the feeling for millions that the end of the world was at hand.

Hanif just managed to reach the camp unscathed. There he found a few distant relatives. The 8-odd days Hanif spent at the internment camp were hell, there was scarcely any food and almost everyone was suffering from dysentery. And death was all around. Disease, hunger and violence vyed with one another to claim more victims. Every tree in the open air camp was stripped of bark and leaves by the hungry people awaiting trains to take them to Pakistan. Indarjit walked several miles every day with food for Hanif.

Finally, the trains came. But the ordeal was not yet over. At Jalandhar, the train was attacked by a mob. The exhaustion and fright were too much for Hanif who fell unconscious which may have saved his life. Many died before the train reached Pakistan.

Hanij set about rebuilding his life in Pakistan but soon greener pastures of the West beckoned him to the U.S. He was a student for a while in Sacramento in 1958. All this while he wrote numerous letters and made hundreds of phone calls to find his friend Indarjit.

Indarjit Singh Gill,a dapper and spry Sikh who looks and acts half his 64 years has a very cheerful and optimistic disposition, in the meanwhile, was making a successful life for himself first in Uganda and then in Kenya.

Where he is presently the manager of a large mill. A former colleague of Hanif in British Airways was going to Chandigarh in early October this year. Hanif asked him to look for Indarjit whose village, Jhingran Kalan, is close by. It was by sheer chance that he met Indarjit’s wife at a wedding reception in Chandigarh. Thus ended a 43 year search. The two friends were reunited in London on October 22. They had so much to tell each other that they are still together.

Hanif and his wife were here in Stockton for a fortnight. They came here with Indarjit Singh and Mrs Gill who were visiting their sons Dr Jasbir Singh Gill, a prominent local gynecologist, Rajbir Singh Gill and Dr.Karanbir Singh Gill of Florida.

Hanif did not despair of finding Indarjit despite India and Pakistan having fought three wars and unknown to each other their fortunes had taken them to different continents. “Amid all the evil in this world, the good shines through and no matter how long it takes, if you keep looking you will surely find it,” says a smiling Hanif with his arm around Indrajit.

Article extracted from this publication >> November 30, 1990