He scored a century
Sipoy Mirza -- a survivor of World War II
By Moeed Ur Rehman
It was a terrible night at the Burma warfront. The Japanese forces were shelling and firing at the bunkers of one of the advance parties of the British Indian army. Nothing could be seen except dust, flames, smoke and dead bodies of soldiers. The pieces of bombshell also hit Sipoy Mirza. His right leg, arm and forehead were badly bruised. But he fought alone till the last bullet. After two hours of fierce battle, a rescue team succeeded in picking him up for urgent medical attention. He was one of the luckiest soldiers who survived the incident on the forefront of World War II. The cut marks are still visible on his legs, arms and forehead indicating the magnitude of that dreadful night and many such days and nights that devoured millions. Sipoy Mirza was awarded gallantry award -- something he proudly displays.

In April 1984, young, callow and nescient, I blundered upon the ruins of Pari Nagar right by the Rangers post at Virawah in the heart of the Thar Desert of Sindh. My wife and I had managed to commandeer a brand new 4x4 vehicle and driver from somewhere and were making a whirlwind tour of the desert when we ended up in Virawah.

We were travelling like I had always done hoping to be put up by hospitable villagers. But then I used to be alone, now it was the two of us and so putting up in a village and sleeping out in the open with the local dogs sniffing around out charpoys, did not seem like fun. Especially because my wife has a pathological fear of dogs. So we stopped at the Rangers post of Virawah and I went looking for the officers.

The thuds and grunts emanating from the squash court told me where they were. I went in and introduced myself. Telling the major that my wife and I were about to be benighted in the middle of the desert with nowhere to go, I asked if we could kindly be put up. The major, whose name I now forget, was standoffish. Civilians were not permitted to stay at the Rangers facility and we should hurry and make other arrangements.

Even today there are no lodging facilities anywhere near Virawah; a quarter century ago this was like being in the middle of the greatest desert on earth. When all else failed, I told the major that I too had spent time in the army. Sharply he asked me my unit, established my seniority and everything changed. I was 'Sir' and my wife bhabi. We ate a huge dinner of game birds and slept on clean sheets that night.

The next morning with a heavy breakfast sloshing inside, we walked down from the mess to the ruins of Pari Nagar. There was a small temple of gray stone and all but hidden in the rank mesquite, there were ruins and ruins of houses, free standing arches and lintels, more temples and one beautiful raised pedestal with three arches looking out to the west. Even in that ignorance of youth I knew this last was once an open pavilion with arches on all four sides and a roof perhaps domed, perhaps trabeated. The ruins were spread over a couple of acres in my estimation.

The ruins were haunting because of the beauty of the few examples of carved stonework that remained. There were huge sunflowers, some human torsos, and a couple of broken heads with facial features knocked off. There would have been more had we looked around. The ruins were mysterious because the overgrown mesquite only added to the general aura of the place that very clearly once lived at a very grand and regal level. But I was ignorant and had no clue what we were looking at; yet the grandeur was impressive.

Time went by and I read a few books. Pari Nagar, I learned, was established in the 1st century BCE. It was a port city on an inland arm of the Gulf of Cutch. Where the salt-encrusted Rann now spreads its sterile white sheet, there was once a blue lapping sea and here, amid the tall grey dunes, was a deep channel that could take sea-going vessels.

The buildings we saw back in April 1984 were not from the time of its founding -- because no building can last two thousand years -- but from the early Middle Ages. Sometime in those years someone built that pavilion or baradari that we had so admired. Even in its ruined state, all but smothered by the undergrowth, this lovely building looked out on a splendid view to the west: as the sun set, the rich merchant who had ordered it would have reclined against bolsters set by the stone pillars and looked out far across the ships in the busy port to the reddening sky and the deep blue ocean.

For a full thirteen hundred years Pari Nagar flourished doing business with Malabar and Bengal on one side and the Persian Gulf on the other. The banks of Pari Nagar were full, its warehouses rich; its inhabitants were complacent and well off who wore the finest clothes; jewellery crafted by the masters of far off lands and pearls fished from distant sea beds. Their silver came from Indian mines and their gold from a remote land they did not even know was called Siberia. Even the poor of the city never went to bed hungry.

The winter of 1223 was a winter of despair for Pari Nagar. Only two years earlier in February 1221, Jalaluddin Khwarazm, that craven coward, lost to the superior arms of Chengez Khan. After several misadventures in Punjab trying to garner support from either Iyultimish in Delhi or Nasiruddin Qabacha in Multan, and failing, he set south along the Sindhu River. Qabacha deserted Multan and fled south to the island fortress of Bhakkar (between Sukkur and Rohri). Khwarazm plundered and sacked the defenceless cities of Multan and Uch and eventually made his way to lower Sindh.

Sehwan was spared, but the port of Debal was given up to arson and looting. With his mind set on reaching Baghdad where a brother of his held a chiefship, Khwarazm sought the expenses for that long and difficult journey. Word of the affluence of Pari Nagar would then have reached this rapacious coward. He turned his face east and making his way across the desert attacked the city.

We do not know what he plundered nor too how many lives were lost to his savagery, we only know that the rich and opulent city of Pari Nagar was laid low. When the flames died and the last wisp of smoke rose into the sky, those of its inhabitants that survived the carnage did not return to their much-cherished city. They dispersed across the lands and the shifting sand smothered what remained.

From the winter of 1223 until 1984, for a full seven hundred and sixty-one years, the ghostly ruins stood amid the dunes as reminders of the long ago splendour. Subsequent to the first visit, I made a number of trips past Virawah but I never stopped there until two months ago. Once again I had a guide from the Rangers. The old temple was still there, only this time around it was washed a brilliant white. But all the other ruins had disappeared. I turned on my guide rebuking him for bringing me to the wrong place -- even though it had a vague sense of déjà vu.

We went around and came back to the temple and then I noticed the blue sign put up by the Department of Archaeology informing all comers that this was a protected monument and must not be vandalised. My guide was correct; we were at the right spot. 'But what happened to all those ruins, the arches, the pedestals, everything?' I asked my guide in dismay.

Over the years, the people of Virawah had quarried the ruined city whenever they needed dressed stones, he said. The pillars were now in the thresholds of new houses, the slabs of the floor of the baradari now in the washing up places and the lintels perhaps broken up to provide ballast.

I turned on the poor man again: 'If some young people were holding hands here, you chaps would have pounced on them and hounded them to hell. But you turned a blind eye on the destruction of our national heritage. It was happening right in front of you. Shame on you!' It was not this poor man's fault, but that of an entire system that thrives on its facility to dwell on meaningless issues. This rotten system had deprived future researchers of a chance to discover another little bit of our past.

As compensation, the man said there were some really old graves that I ought to see. We drove through the Virawah bazaar to a low dune on the far side and parked by a boundary wall. This was a walled-in graveyard and among its many new-fangled graves there was a bunch of old ones. The large bricks that made the graves have been in use in Sindh since the 3rd century BCE and remained in vogue until edged out by the thinner, smaller version favoured by the Mughals as recently as the 17th century.

As a layman, I was not in a position to say which period these graves belonged to, but even as we stood their regarding them, I felt this vicarious pleasure imagining that some of the Khwarazmian villain's aides may well be buried in the sands of Thar. No compensation for the plunder and destruction of some priceless cities in the land of the Sindhu River; only some wicked pleasure that the land did claim some of that worthless blood.

This pleasure however does not offset the sense of loss for the damage done to the old port city. I was fortunate to have been there twenty-five years ago; another traveller today will never be able to gauge the lost splendour of Pari Nagar.

It was a terrible night at the Burma warfront. The Japanese forces were shelling and firing at the bunkers of one of the advance parties of the British Indian army. Nothing could be seen except dust, flames, smoke and dead bodies of soldiers. The pieces of bombshell also hit Sipoy Mirza. His right leg, arm and forehead were badly bruised. But he fought alone till the last bullet. After two hours of fierce battle, a rescue team succeeded in picking him up for urgent medical attention. He was one of the luckiest soldiers who survived the incident on the forefront of World War II. The cut marks are still visible on his legs, arms and forehead indicating the magnitude of that dreadful night and many such days and nights that devoured millions. Sipoy Mirza was awarded gallantry award -- something he proudly displays.

Currently, Sipoy Mirza is living with his sons and grandsons in the picturesque valley of Nagri Totial in District Abbottabad. As per the official record, he is a pensioner from the Punjab Regiment, was enrolled as a soldier in 1941 and assigned a number -- 2336959, and discharged from duty on September 14, 1957. He along with other jawans represented the British Indian army and fought against the Japanese side at various battlefields.

When I visited the valley I saw Mirza outside his kacha house, sitting in the wooden chair, wearing white shalwar kameez and Hazara jacket and puffing a cigarette. There he was, sharing the sweet and sour memories of World War II. He also narrated the famous operation of Mir Ali (Bannu) 1956, when the Waziristan tribes destroyed all the British posts killing a number of soldiers apart from two check posts.

Interestingly Mirza is not sure about his actual age but his co-villagers and younger brother Nazar Mohammad alias Babu Nazra are positive that he is not less than 100 years old. "We are three brothers and Mirza is the eldest. I was born in 1925 and Mirza is about 10 years older than me," he says.

"I'm not sure about my exact age but I do remember that when I tried to join the army I was rejected because I was overage by 6 years. However, after the interference of a notable villager Bahadur Abdul Rehman Khan, I was considered again and got selected in the army. My official chest number was 18421," Mirza says.

Sharing memories of World War II, he recalls, "All my colleague soldiers were killed during the attack and I was seriously injured but I did not lose my heart and kept firing on the advance party of Japanese. I was lucky to have survived along with thirteen jawans at the Burma warfront when the Japanese hit our frontline bunkers."

He was taken to the hospital for immediate treatment where he stayed for about three weeks and after recovery he rejoined the battlefront and remained there till the end of the war."

With the three war medals, awarded by the then British government, Sipoy Mirza, however, regrets that his name was not included in the list of living soldiers who fought World War II. This list was reportedly prepared by the British government a few years back.

"At this age I cannot beg for rewards. However, if the Britishers want to reward or recognise my services they should provide clean drinking water supply scheme, and a hospital to my village," he says.

Although his memories have faded due to old age, he does remember his days in the army when he joined First Punjab at Jhelum before World War II. They called the company First Punjab and his company was Hazara. He fondly remembers the names of two British officers Smith and Gipp as good and co-operative officers.

Considering that he has scored a century, Mirza's health is remarkable, eyesight perfect. When asked the secret of his perfect health and eyesight, Sipoy Mirza says, "I get up early in the morning and sleep early. I have never interfered in the affairs of others and remained happy -- this is the secret of my perfect health. The only bad habit that I still have is smoking. But believe me I have never ever borrowed a cigarette from anybody throughout my life."

Interestingly, he has a 'West End' watch that he purchased from Calcutta. "It has never been out of order," he says. While showing the serial no 7378, at the back of the watch he says in Pahari, "Bandyan di Tara cheezain vi khalis hoonia sun uss wailaa. Hun na bunda khalis na cheez asli, fraud he fraud hur passa. Isi wasta Pakistan taraki na karma" (At that time everything was original, today neither human beings nor things are original it's fraud everywhere. That is why Pakistan is not progressing).

Email: M4moeed@hotmail.com