THEY remember IC-632 as a flight from Pakistan in more ways than one. As the plane touched Mumbai's Sahar International Airport on March 23, late Sunday night, excitement rose high among the 38 Indian children released by Pakistan. Not from their first aeroplane experience, but for the fact that they had touched ground—home ground—after three interminable years on the other side of the wired fence. "Never again. Never, never again," shuddered 17-year-old Babu Manchu from Punath village, Valsad.
From Sachin Tendulkar to Shahrukh Khan, they got to know all they wanted of the 'enemy nation'. That Pakistanis hated Sachin openly and loved Shahrukh secretly since public screening of Hindi films was not allowed, and that they themselves were part of Pakistan's India-bashing itinerary.
"Reciprocal vengeance" was how M.F. Parmar, joint commissioner of fisheries, Gandhinagar, summed up the capture and prolonged detention of the 38 minors and 200-odd men, most of whom hailed from Diu, Valsad and Junagadh. Caught for venturing into Pakistani waters off the port of Dwarka and Okha, little did these children know that the games nations play were merciless, meaningless and measured out. Measured out long enough to have robbed them of their childhood fo0r three years.
Now, older and wiser in the ways of the world across the hazy border, they stand out from their contemporaries back home. Their footwear is fanciful, the clothes colourful, their hearts hardened. The trial by water has considerably diluted the ties of blood. "Yes, they have changed. But I wonder if it is for the better. Earlier they were more playful; now they are quieter, subdued...," say family members. Strangers when they first set out, they are now visibly more at ease with each other than with their families.
Despite the return of the children, however, the inhabitants of Kanadu, Punath and Dodhipada, three adivasi hamlets in Valsad district, Gujarat, continue to sleep with haunting thoughts of the enemy. Home to nine of the 38 children, these settlements have lost their menfolk to the prisons in Pakistan for straying across the watery border. "It's a misconception that these people are fisherfolk. The fact is that they are adivasi labourers who work for rich Tandels (fishermen community) for eight months a year and come home only in the monsoon," explains J.N. Tandel, fishing officer, Valsad. "They are paid a monthly salary of Rs 1,500 and are offered no compensation if an event such as this takes place." The villagers are, therefore, caught between the poverty-devil and the dangers of the deep sea.
IT is a high price to pay for choppy waters and icy undercurrents—in a sense, a metaphor for Indo-Pak relations. "How were we to know where the border lies? Vaguely, one was aware that India's borders end at a particular point. But if the sea conditions force crossing over, the fishing fraternity from both sides accept each other's presence. At times, we exchanged notes, gossip, even Indian bidis for cigarettes from Pakistan. Besides, the catch is best in the deep sea," says Jania Budhia of Dodhipada village. For Pakistani officials too, it was a mighty haul as the Indian fishermen drifted into their hands and into their mercy three Diwalis ago.
For the minors, it culminated in a two-day jail stay, a six-month stay at a remand home followed by two-and-a-half-years in Adbul Sattar Edhi's centre. A noted philanthropist, Edhi is often referred to as 'Father Teresa of Pakistan'. At Edhi's Welfare Centre, situated an hour's drive from Karachi, the children were taught painting, plumbing, electrification.... "We were not sent to school—maybe because we were Indians; or maybe because there was no Gujarati medium," says 18-year-old Mukesh Harji from Punath. "We worked a lot but we were allowed to wake up whenever we wanted to in the mornings. We learnt to speak Urdu and yes, we even wore salwar-kameez (the Pathan suit)," he laughs.
The indulgences at Edhi's centre were a far cry from the excesses at the remand home where, as 18-year-old Parshatam Davji recollects, "they threatened to and actually did beat us up the way Sachin Tendulkar hit fours." Abdul Sattar Edhi remains a hero. So does his wife Bilqees and their four children. "All fingers are not the same," says Ashok, "so, how can all Pakistanis be the same?" Edhi allowed the children a dose of something that the children found in short supply across the border—freedom! Still, that didn't stop 16-year-old Diru Bhika of Diu from running away. Finally, the one who got away was the one who actually did not. "For 15 days after that we were forbidden from going out. They were afraid that we would also do the same. But we wish Diru didn't run away. Today we are back home, but he could be roaming the dangerous streets of Karachi," say his friends.
Those who didn't seek ways to escape sought each other's company; they stuck to each other in the spirit of bhai-bandhi. There was a doctor to attend to their ailments, there was Edhi's healing touch; yet...these were no cure for home-sickness.
Two letters a month were permitted, and contents alternated between hope and despair. "I was reduced to this," says Ashok's mother waggling a solitary finger. "Today he is back, but his uncle and brother-in-law are still there." Fishing out a letter, she observes that the letter posted from the Ladhi Jail in Pakistan on February 20 reached her home on March 9. "Two weeks is all it takes for a letter to reach from Pakistan to India. Then why did it take three years for my son to come back?" she asks.
But the return of the children has infused a streak of hope, even humour, to those imprisoned. "Passport vagayar Pakistan jooa madiyo. Ae amaro kismat che (We have got to see Pakistan without a passport. This is our luck)," writes Ashok's uncle from Ladhi Jail. "We have heard that governments of both countries are meeting and within a month we will be released," continues the letter. Stating that the men are being beaten, starved and worked to death, the boys plead: "Please do something and get them back soon." The letter, however, is aptly anaesthised!
Back at home, ironically, the youngsters are at sea. Propelled from a turbulent past in Pakistan, the future in India too appears frightening. "We have just come back and are too tired to think," says Mukesh, echoing the sentiments of the others. "Is it true that unlike Saurashtra, if you fish in Mumbai you will not reach Pakistan?" inquires one. "I want to get my $200 exchanged in Indian rupees. What if somebody here steals them," frets another. "Maybe I will start a painting business," offers a third.
"I will go back to fishing," says Jania Budhia. The 26-year-old escaped languishing further in prison by claiming that he was 18. "Even if there are chances of being caught again, this is our traditional occupation. After all, what else can the poor do?" The older Jania, of course, is an exception. Not one of the others are considering his option. Given a choice between the poverty line and a fishing one, they'd much rather choose the former.
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