ON A PATH TO FIND KUTCH OR KATCCH

We live today. We live in the past. We live for the future.

The common thread that holds all the three constituents of time a legacy, a lineage, a cultural history and its continuity. A known fact that is evident to a very marginal set of people.

Enterprising, Business minded, Stingy - what not has been the alias of the set of pre-partition Hindus who came to this new land of our destiny, leaving behind the land of the Indus - the world renowned cradle of civilization.

What this nation is to us

Possibly reading the initial above set, many but not most, would come to infer that the discussion is in line of the movement of the people of Sindh to the current day Hindustan / Bharat / India - the way you, the reader, chooses to call this nation. For us, the Sindhi’s it is home.

Having come to this new land the populace got spread across the length and breadth of not only this nation but the world as a whole. Reasons are aplenty. Some heartening, other of course of the other kind. This is where the current stories and the debates being churned over CAB seem to be sounding rhetorical. Good or Bad - give things time. The end is always for the good.

Search of the legacy of a people

Being one among the 3rd generation of those displaced people, not much is known to me and those alike, of who our ancestors were - what is the lineage - what was their legacy - what was their life like - how did they and many more before them came to be, what we are today - “Sindhi”.

A civilization that we all as a nation, and every human having a link with today’s India, takes pride in - the greatest the oldest known - Indus. And why not - how many of us, near 8+ billion people who walk this world today in 2019 - have the wherewithal to be able to witness or even experience such a feeling.

Thinking of such a huge reality has brought about a lot of thought, and equal inquisitiveness to be wanting to know answers to more of similar questions, that the mind brings forth. One such interaction of a familial kind, lead to the word - kutch - being referred to, which sparked a self musing of a kind, which felt interesting to its core. For those not familiar with the word - it has multitudes of meanings. I try to bring forth in the simplest of my understanding.

Assimilation of people like birds of a feather

Kutch - a place falling in the northern part of the state of Gujarat which in pre-partition era was a part of Sindh province. The dialect of this region can be referred to be an amalgamation of the Sindhi language, the Gujarati language and some equally important inferences from the Marwari language as well.

Katcch - the lap of an elder to which a child clings on to for comfort and security. It is a term used when an infant is cradled by its parents or elders to bring about the feeling of being away from harm, give comfort so the child rests. The right sentence would be something on the lines of - ‘baar, katccha mein aahe, painje maa-piyaje’ which roughly translates to ‘the child is in the arms of its mom-dad’.

Annihilation of a culture

Come to think of it, the initial plans of the then governing bodies, as is foretold and shared by the 1st and 2nd generations of those days and times in and around 1947; was to bring the Sindhi Hindus here to current day India and then find an answer to what was to be done to rehabilitate this hordes of displaced population of erstwhile Sindh Province.

There were many places which were identified, to initially place this population which is not the subject of this piece. The subject point is ‘kutch’ whose then ruler donated a large piece of land in his estate, to be the settlement place for the thousands of Sindhi Hindu’s migrating to the new unknown land.

The significance lies in the fact that the region of Kutch hence translated into the very abode, the very place that gives a child the security and warmth that it gets in the arms of its loved ones. The translatory fact, hence is the facet of the people starting afresh in this land exactly like a newborn coming into an unknown world and slowly, steadily with some time, making it its own.

Like The rise of the phoenix

Not only have those generations of the displaced people survived but have propagated and with their endeavors transformed a deserted land to the one that it is today - one of the most generous places for the business community, finding a place as equal on the geographical map of the world, as was their prior homeland of Karachi, the lost motherland, of this now re-placed community in Kutch. With almost 40%+ the population residing in the state of Gujarat today the region has indeed turned out to be new homeland for Sindhi’s.

Continuing with making as well as leaving a legacy for the current and the next generations to come, the largest place for cultural identity, a pilgrimage is also being built - Jhulelal Tirthdham, for and by Sindhi’s, slowly and steadily in this very region. The ideation of having a center of belonging, that brings about oneness is in the making. Could be, that this endeavor turns out to be the next chapter getting defined in finding, rather recreating, the motherland that has been lost to the cultural fabric of the Sindhi’s in India and the World across.

The fact that every human being, since the boom of civilized living, has been creating a cultural identity for him/herself, was missed by many among the growing generations or Sindhi’s today may finally have a chance to rekindle those lost stories over the past 70+ odd years.

The parent awaits to bring back the children in their ‘katcch’. The child awaits to be in the ‘katcch’.