Essay on “The Refugee” by K.A. Abbas

Target Audience: Polytechnic Teachers and Students in Tamilnadu
Subject: English-2, II YEAR MOP, M SCHEME
Objective: Students should be able to interpret and explain a content in English. 
Question Pattern in Exam: IV. Answer any one of the following in 200 words: (1 x 10 = 10 marks)
Three questions out of 4 lessons will be given in the exam and students should answer a question in 200 words.
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Introduction:

                “The Refugee” written by K.A.Abbas describes the horrible events happened during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947.  It was a time when nearly ten million people fled from Pakistan to India and vice versa as refugees.  They were uprooted from their home and family.  There was bloodshed everywhere. The writer sketches the events in the life of an old mother called Maanji and thereby throws light on the sufferings of millions of people during the partition.

The Life of Maanji before Partition

Maanji is the mother of the author’s Sikh friend.  Before Partition, life was a bed of roses to Maanji.  She lived in Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan) in a two-storied house. She had steady income from many rented shops and harvest from her own land.  She had a buffalo and so milk, curd and butter were available in surplus. Being a Sikh, She distributed butter milk to all her neighbourhood and won the love and affection of all her Muslim neighbours.  The elder Muslim women called her Behanji (sister) while the younger ones called her Maanji or Chachi (mother) affectionately.  Rawalpindi was the whole world for her.

The Life of Maanji during Partition

The news about impending Partition in newspapers worried many Sikhs and Hindus in West Punjab (now in Pakistan) but not Maanji.  Many warned her that it was dangerous for a Sikh to live there and even her own son in Bombay asked her to come there.  But she strongly believed that her Muslim neighbours were friendly to her and all of them were her own children.

The Life of Maanji after Partition

In front of Maanji’s house, a tongawallah (horseman) was stabbed to death because he was a Hindu.  They also went on stabbing the poor horse and killed it that had “neither religion nor caste.” This made Maanji to abandon her home and neighbours in Rawalpindi and move to Bombay as a refugee.  In Rawalpindi, she had two male servants and a maid but here she has to cook, wash, clean, and do everything herself, living in a single room.  All her life’s savings and possessions are lost but not her hospitality.   She suffered a lot but never cursed anyone for that.  There was no anger or self-pity in her silent heart against anyone.