Earliest Memories - Part 4 - Life Before War, Air-Raid Sirens and Preparations

Life before the war

The little boy’s sister was five year old and there was a kindergarten nearby. She was enrolled and went there a few days of the week.

He remembered:

His sister acted all grown up. She was going to school, while he was still at home. A man pulling a rickshaw would come in the mornings to pick up his sister and take her to school. There would be a few other little children already in the rickshaw. The rickshaw puller had a big turban and was big and strong. He would sound the bell (a bicycle bell) in front of their house and his sister would often take a little while to get on with her school bag and lunch box. The little boy sometimes would jump on in her place, before she came out of the house. He would pretend he was also going to school. Sometimes, it was difficult to persuade him to get off. One day the rickshaw man drove him a few hundred feet down the street and then asked him to go back to his mother. He was upset. But after that, for a long time, it became a ritual – he would ride the rickshaw a few yards every day and then get off. He could not wait to grow up and go to school himself!

Air-Raid Sirens and Preparations for Bombing

Civil defence worked with the police and other intelligence agencies to prepare for possible war involving air-raids and bombings. They were supposed to prepare the population to minimise possible damage and help people not provide the enemy with any indication or visible targets. Apparently night times were supposed to be the most vulnerable for bombing. The distance between Amritsar on the Indian side and Lahore on the Pakistan side is less than fifty kilometres. There would be very little time to respond to any sudden action from the air. There were reports and rumours of many saboteurs and spies from across the border living all around in town. There was talk of some who would go up on to the rooftops of building during the night, in the darkness, lie on their back and shine flashlights into the sky to guide enemy planes to their target. Many were supposed to be willing to die in the process even if the bombs rained on them. Everyone was on the lookout for these enemy agents. Some of the civil defence team members were professionally trained and carried weapons.

He remembered:  He and his sister were called to a room where all the family members had gathered in the household. A radio was on in the corner. His mother was so tired and ill that she lay reclined in a corner. There were adults who spoke and addressed them. They were told to that there could be planes from Pakistan which might drop bombs on them. The little boy wondered how one could tell that planes were coming. He asked the question.

“Can we see them? How will we know they are coming?” He asked excitedly. He did not realise the implications of bombs or war. He liked the idea of planes, since he occasionally say some passenger planes fly up above. He imagined it would be fun and thrilling. He thought it would be very entertaining and exciting. He always welcomed some new excitement in life. He had no idea of how a fighter plane or bomber would sound when it flew closer to the ground!!

“You will hear the sound of the siren before the planes approach,” his mother answered.

“What is the siren? Is it on the plane?” he asked.

“No, but when a plane is about to take-off from near Lahore, we will know and a siren will sound in the air,” his father explained, “You can hear the wailing sound that will soon come on the radio. That is called the siren.”

Some youngster in the household and some elders all mimicked the sound of the air-raid warning siren.

When they all quietened down, his father continued, “If I am not home, when you hear that that sound you and your sister need to wake up your mother, even if she is asleep and you must all go out into the front yard, near the gate. There, you need to get under the stone bench, face down, cover your head and pray. After you hear another different sounding siren (it was the All Clear) you can get up and go back to your room and sleep. Every time you hear the warning siren, you MUST come out with your sister and mother. Others will be there too. You must shake your mother awake even if she is very sleepy and tired. Sometimes she takes medicine that makes her sleepy and she cannot hear the siren and wake up by herself.  If she is awake, she will take you by herself. You must hold her hand and walk carefully so that none of you trip in the dark and fall down. Do you understand? Can you do this help for us, like a big boy and big girl?”

He remembered being excited about the siren. He felt grown up and responsible – being able to shake and wake up his mother – something she usually did to them!!

 Soon, they all heard announcements on the radio and the instructions for air-raids. The ‘Warning’ siren and ‘All Clear’ sounds were played. It was when he heard them, for a training simulation, one day, that he really could feel the powerful sound, seemingly coming in the air, from up in the sky. He could not understand how something he could not see could make that much noise. He imagined a siren as something that was travelling up invisibly overhead. It shook him the first time with surprise. He was not scared then. For a long time he imagined sirens as the “Sound in the Sky.”

The little boy’s mother taught them prayers – which were a medley of some favourite, rhythmic and soothing, familiar chants that he had heard before.  She also taught him and his sister how to roll up a pencil in a handkerchief and stick it in their mouths, biting on the sides of the pencils such that their mouths could not close completely. This was apparently so that they don’t bite their tongue if a shock-wave from a bomb hit them. Nobody mentioned what to do if a bomb hit them and he did not bother to ask. The little boy did not think it was part of the script nor did he understand what a bomb really meant!

He and his sister found it hard to say the prayers with the pencil between their teeth. He found that he was unable to keep from drooling and the handkerchief would get wet soon. He hoped the whole show would not last too long before his kerchief became soaking wet. He and his sister sat under the stone bench near their gate, next to each other, kneeling and crouched next to each other. He could listen to her praying next to him. He thought she had said the words to a chant wrong.

He told his mother, “Mummy, she said it wrong!!”

“It’s OK,” his mother told him. He was surprised!! Normally, his mother would go over it again and again until they got it just right – they thought that God would not get their message and plea if they did not pronounce their words clearly.

“But, God will not understand what she is saying,” He objected.

“I am sure, God will, this time,” his mother replied gently.

Once again they all practised the drill after hearing the air-raid siren, with his mother and others in the household. There was a spot for everyone to go to and duck for cover. His family’s spot was under the bench and they would share it with a couple of others from the family. When he thought his sister, huddled next to him, mispronounced a prayer, he found it very funny and started to laugh. She stopped and tried again and the pencil slid away from the mouth and the handkerchief fell off and her voice changed suddenly. It was just hilarious. He laughed and his own pencil and kerchief fell off. His sister started to laugh. Everyone laughed and went back home. He never imagined air-raids and war could be so funny and exciting.


Copyright  (c) Kannan Narayanamurthy 2014
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