For children: How Laxmi Panda became the youngest soldier in the INA’s Rani Laxmi Bai Regiment

As the weeks passed, the bombings continued and people began leaving. The foreigners in Burma were returning home.

One morning, Bidya came to me with her favourite doll, the one she’d sewn from old rags. “Can you take care of her?” she asked, handing her over to me. Bidya had had the blue-white doll with her for a couple of years. Her body was made from an old white saree with blue flower prints. I had never liked the doll much because, over time, she had turned light brown and looked like a limp, tattooed body. She wasn’t exactly sweet-looking. Bidya had given her two charcoal eyes, which only made her look scarier. But Bidya loved her and took her with her everywhere. I was surprised that she was handing her over to me, when she never, ever let anyone touch her.

“Why are you giving her to me?” I asked, not really wanting to take it.

“Keep it. We’re leaving. I can’t take her along,” she said.

“Leaving? Where to?”

“Maybe India, maybe Nepal. But away from here. Baba said the road is long and we need to carry only food and things for the journey. Since we have to walk a long distance, Gudia won’t be able to come along,” she said.

“You love Gudia so much. You made her. I’m sure you can carry her with you,” I said.

“I’ll have to carry rice and some clothes. Ma has to carry my baby brother. Baba will carry my toddler sister and all the other stuff on his back. Baba says there’s no space in the bags for Gudia,” she said. Tears filled her eyes.

“Why do you need to leave? We can stay here along the tracks like we always have,” I said.

From a distance, Mariamma must have seen Bidya handing me the doll and came rushing over. “Bidya, you never let me touch her. Now you’re letting Laxmi hold her?”

“Shh, Mariamma, not now,” I whispered into her ear. “Bidya is leaving.”

Bidya pulled out two coconut shells wrapped in a rag and a few tiny clay utensils we had made to play with and handed them to Mariamma. The coconut shells were the prized utensils of our kitchen set. We would not only pretend to cook in them with leaves and water, but we would build structures with them too. First, we’d have to mix mud and water till it was the right consistency – not too watery, not too dry. We would fill the coconut shell with the mixture and overturn it on the ground, and gently pull up the coconut shell, to get a mound of the shape of the shell. We made several such mounds and created buildings like the golden pagodas in Burma. Honestly, I would have preferred the coconut shells to the scary doll.

But I didn’t want to ask Mariamma to swap and hurt Bidya’s feelings. She was already so heartbroken.

“Bidya! O Bidya!” Her father had come looking for her. Perhaps my baba had been listening to our conversation because he quickly joined us when he saw Bidya’s father. “Are you leaving? Why? Where? When?” Baba asked.

Bidya’s father simply said, “We have to leave. All of you too should think of leaving.” He looked quite glum.

“What are you saying?” Baba said. By now, Mariamma’s father had walked up to us all.

“There are whispers that the British are losing Burma to the Japanese. The British Army will withdraw soon. We all need to hurry.”

“But how can we go? The British have stopped the sale of ship tickets to Indians. They don’t want us to leave. We’re trapped,” Baba said.

“It’s only the poor Indians who are trapped,” said Mariamma’s father. “They’d stopped selling tickets for the lower decks to prevent working-class Indians from leaving Burma. Tickets for the upper decks are available, but we can’t afford them. Only rich businessmen and moneylenders can buy those tickets and go back. Many from Rangoon have already left. But if the British are also leaving now, they may not mind the working-class Indians leaving. Maybe tickets for the lower berths will start.”

“But with so many people vying for tickets, lower-berth prices will shoot up. There’s no way we can be sure of getting them,” Baba said, “But we can walk. We can walk all the way to our homes. That’s what we intend to do,” Bidya’s father declared.

“Walk? It’s too far. There are jungles and high mountains along the way. There’s no straight path,” Baba said.

“Yes, but we’re mountain people. We grew up in the mountains. I think we can manage,” Bidya’s father said.

“What route are you taking?” Mariamma’s father asked.

“We’re taking the Hukawng Valley route, going through Pangsau Pass towards Ledo in the north and entering the plains of Assam,” he replied.

“You mean you’re taking the Death Valley route?”

Excerpted with permission from Laxmi Panda: The Story of Netaji’s Youngest Spy, Savie Karnel, Red Panda.