BHUBANESWAR: The sight of a frail but fair frame with distinctly non-local features accommodated at a small corner of the YMCA-run camp for Kandhamal refugees here immediately catches the attention. The name Joginder Singh also rings a bell.As you sit with the man and spend some moments by his side, you realise who you have hit upon. Amid the overpowering atmosphere of despondency in the camp is a man who still believes peace and harmony will return to the land which took him in as its own about 50 years back.The 88-year-old has undergone so much in life —— from miraculously escaping an air crash (he was a fighter pilot with Royal Air Force during World War II) to losing parents and family to the bloody Partition riots in Amritsar to making way to Orissa, starting family and settling down in Kalingia under G Udaygiri till being uprooted again by the recent communal outburst in the region.‘All these years, the Hindus and the Christians had been living in perfect harmony. The bond of co-existence had been so strong and I do pray that the severance is temporary and would be restored soon,’ he says struggling to fight back tears welling up in his tired eyes.Born Sikh to Dr Ganga Singh, a civil surgeon in Madras Presidency during the colonised era, Joginder’s convent education had generated an inclination for the religion within him. He was selected to RAF at the age of 19. He converted and took part in anti-German operations followed by the action against Japanese advance from Burma (now Myanmar) between 1939 and 1945. It was during a strike when his Spitfire fighter craft was shot down about 10 km away from Mingaladon airport in Burma. His co-pilot died.He was recuperating in hospital when Partition was announced and suddenly the news of his family’s annihilation came. The soldier in him could only enable him to internalise the tragedy and move on. He was then posted in the Exploratory Tubewell Organisation (now Central Groundwater Board) and sent to Orissa on deputation to develop Lift Irrigation systems. He was absorbed into Orissa Government Service and retired as Mechanical Engineer (drilling) in 1975.In Kalingia, he met Taravati Nayak and married her and settled down. His son Pradeep (30) is a lecturer with Christian College under Gospel for Asia at Brajarajnagar.The couple has been at the camp for about 20 days now. ‘Everything has changed suddenly. The fire of communal backlash after Swami Lakshmanananda’s death has blackened the beautiful land, both within and outside. Best of friends are deadliest of foes. I and my wife were asked to reconvert by the very people who did not have any objections one and a half months back and forced to leave,’ he lamented.‘But this phase will definitely pass. More assertive action on the part of the Government and interaction between communities can make it happen. I just want to go back,’ he says.
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