MELA BABA ROJE WALEY DA-WHY SIKHS HOLD IT..
HISTORY:- June the 3rd 1947,Lord Louis Mountbeton,the viceroy of India announces the independence plan and the partition of the sub-continent.
Religious hatred is at the extreem.Communal riots breakout.Starting from Nawakhali in the Bangal(Bihar) these spread to the north. Punjab is the worst
affected.Millions of people are massacred.Corpses are rotting in the open. There is no one to dispose them off.The rivers are in floods,there are torrential monsoon rains.People leaving their home to save their lives in search of a secure shelter have no such place under the sky.
Trains picking up the refuge seekers drop them accross the line of divide.Train bogies have bullet marks,some bogies contain rotting corpses and severed limbs.Carvans are marching on the roads, epedemics have spread and the life goes on.Even the dogs are fed up from the human flesh.My memory can hardly wipe those impressions.
Jamke Cheema is a village in Dist:-Sialkot near Daska. See the history of ‘’cheemas’’ in face book at .. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=216242145064A caravan of Sikh refugees from here leaves their homes and hearths and entrains at Pasroor Rly:- Station in a refugee train, The train drops them safely at Jassar Rly. station.From Jassar they cross the bridge on the River Ravi on foot and enter the Indain terotary. -The above are the scenes of the partition.’’
They are told about our village which was vacated a few days back.The village had already been looted and burnt. There was hardly any thing for immigrants to posses,except a few burnt roofs where they could take shelter from the monsoon rains and the scorching sun.
Gurdut Singh,Vajeer Singh and Gurcharn Singh are three real brothers.The eldest Gurdut is 25 and the youngest about 20.They have long journey before them. They have nothing to rely upon except hope and their youth.Facing all sorts of hardships they put a yoke in their necks,till the land, work day and night to survive and are gradually settled,Get married and have families to bring up.
Twenty years have passed since independence,agriculture has improved, modern methods are being introduced and ,Gurcharn Singh gets a fertilizer depot. Having no place to store the stock, he takes the benefit of the Shrine of Hazrat Imam Ali Shah Sahib and dumps the Urea stock inside the shrine dome,which has beautiful Quraanic calligraphy and the 99 names of ALLAH subhana hu wa taala(EXALTED -MOST PRAISE WORTHY) written on the walls. Time passes on and Gurcharn Singh feels depressed and un able to move as a healthy person and is slowly confined to his bed.His children are small, the eldest is studying in class 5th or 6th and goes to school at Batala daily by bus.
The financial condition is not so good, there is no one else to look after the family. Doctors find no apparent sighns of ailment and Gurcharn Singh goes lean and thin and is now confined to bed.
The eldest son is alone in a room on the upper story.The winter nights are cool.There is complete silence alround.A knock is heard at the door. The boy gets scared. The door is again knocked and then again.He gets up and opens the door.An old man, in white radiating robes with a staff in his hand is standing there.The boy offers the old man a well come as he has already met him many times.The old man looks at the boy kindly and bades him to tell the parents ‘’If ROZA SHARIEF is cleared of the dumped stock’’ your father will get well’’
Early in the morning the boy tells his mother, the night incident. Mother conveys to his husband ,and Gurcharn Singh through his son, calls for help ,some young friends of the village and clears the shrine of all the stock.The lady,his wife, washes the premises and in the evening lights a’’ DEWA’’ (an earthen rape-seed oil lamp)
A miracle has happened, Gurcharn Singh gets well and it is a news all around in the village and also in the vicinity and in the adjoining villages. People throng and congratulate Gurcharan Singh.
It is since that day that the people decided to hold a gathering’’ A MELA’’ a fair, to pay homage to BABA JI for his dignity and SAINTHOOD..They believe that the saints,gurus, prophets,auliya, don’t belong to any particular sect. They are common to humanity and come for their guidance. And are an asset for all those who respect their teachings and care for human values.Their devotion can be seen in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsbcQDrhfXw&feature=player_embedded#at=16
It is a coincidence that the annual URS being held by the descendants of Hazrat Imam Ali Shah Sahib Rehmat ullah aleh at Bhulair chak no.119 Dist;-NANKANA SAHIB falls on the same dates as the mela at Rattarchattar that is from 22nd to 24th Oktober each year, although there was no contact between these people by any means since partition.
It was through painstaking search by my son Dr. Syed Mohammad Mohsin that the website ‘’www.rattarchatar.org.in’’ was found ,which ultimately connected me to these persons,as for us the name of Rattarchatar was only confined to the Rly. Station and the place our village was called ‘’MAKANSHARIEF’
HOPE TO VISIT MAKANSHARIEF, AND PRAY THE NEIGHBOURS ‘PAKISTAN ‘-‘INDIA’ LIVE IN PEACE AND HARMONY.AND THE STRICT VISA RESTRICTIONS ARE RELAXED FOR AT LEAST ''SENIOR CITIZENS''
