We bring you stories of three women, who despite the trauma and travails of violence, brutality and separation, hold on to a special memory of their hometown and want to return some day even though the current inhabitants are not known to them
VIMlA MAlHOTRA, WRITER
Dr Vimla Malhotra was born Vimla Uppal in Bannu, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, in 1940. She grew up with her younger sister and brother, her parents, a number of cousins, uncles, aunts, and her paternal grandmother. Her paternal grandfather held lands and farms in Bannu that fed her whole family and much of their neighborhood. Her father worked in the transport business. She remembers the communal respect in Bannu extended to the degree that everyone took care to prepare food during festivals that suited the dietary restrictions of each community.
Dr Malhotra remembers when the social atmosphere grew darker day by day in the time how Partition. The gates to neighbourhoods remained shut as rioting began to take place. Families kept watch from their rooftops after the imposed curfew hours. Dr Malhotra’s mother would cover her daughter’s eyes in her lap to shield her from witnessing the looting, killing and arson unfolding below. She heard stories of weddings taking place during the day, traditionally unheard of, to avoid any possible violence.
“I’m not letting you go — you are my brothers,” said a neighbour to the Uppal family. Not long after that, he advised them that it was better for them to go as conditions became more and more violent. He advised the family to disguise themselves. He took them all in his own vehicle and fought his way through a mob who suspected that his companions were in disguise. Upon reaching the train station, the Uppals boarded a train for Ambala.
In Ambala, many migrants often wore wet clothes, letting them dry on their back, Dr Malhotra says, as they brought nothing else. Dr Malhotra’s father would go on to wear the clothing he wore on the train to Ambala for the rest of his life. She remembers the scene of crowds crying profusely at the Ambala train station, waiting for trains to arrive and for news of those found dead or alive.
Her family stayed with relatives in Ambala. During this time, Dr Malhotra witnessed terrible violence. Homes all across the city were left vacant and set on fire. She remembers an elderly man who, attempting to sell all of his last wares and dishes, shattered them all when a woman offered him a meagre amount for them. “My grandmother often wrung her hands and asked who she should cry for, who she should remember after so many were lost or killed,” said Dr Malhotra. Many families from Bannu, she explains, were killed in a train when it was set on fire after it left from Gujranwala. Her aunt believed into old age that one day her missing son would return, every night returning to the Faridabad station and scanning the crowds for any sign of her son who never did come.
From Ambala, her family moved to Dehradun after they received a claim from the government. “We sold my mother’s jewellery for 300 rupees, which slowly ran out,” explains Dr Malhotra. Today, she and the elders continue to converse in the Banawali dialect with one another. One thing the women in the family enjoyed after Partition was the degree of freedom allowed in their movement and activities, she says. However, Dr Malhotra was pulled from school after eighth grade. She protested this, and eventually was given private education in home. By the time she had completed the tenth grade, she had done well enough to begin tutoring children on her own.
She completed BA in 1962. After marrying in 1966, she returned to school and learned Russian to become a translator, earning an MA, and teaching as a university lecturer in Hindi literature. She went on to earn a PhD and B.Ed from Bombay University. She has since taken up writing and translating in Hindi as her primary occupation. She and her husband now live in Kandivali, Mumbai. They have three daughters.
Dr Malhotra has written and published a book, called Vibhajan Ki Peeda about her grandmother’s family and what they experienced during Partition. Mrs Malhotra believes that Partition brought both the good and the bad. “Remember what women in 1947 underwent,” concluded Mrs Malhotra. “Ensure that such conditions never befall anyone again.”
PRITI BASU, HOME MAKER
Priti Basu, born as Priti lata Majumdar in 1946 in Bandar, Chittagong, Bengal, was caught in the middle of religious and political tension after Independence.
She was just four years old when her family left their hometown to escape riots. They moved to Kolkata. She, her parents, and her younger sister got on a plane with nothing but the clothes that they were wearing. After landing in Kolkata, they spent six months in a government refugee camp before settling down in Barasat, outside of Kolkata, where the government gave them land to build a home. Her childhood from the time that she can remember was filled with sweet memories in Barasat, but she was aware that her family faced some frightening moments while still in Chittagong. She learned these from listening to stories that her mother told her as she was growing up.
She learned from her mother that during those last few days in Bandar, groups would come and set fire to houses at night. So every night, the women in the village stayed inside the walls of a Muslim household while all the men stayed outside, guarding the house. Mrs Basu’s mother would stay up all night holding her and waiting for daylight. Priti Basu’s uncle crossed the border from East Pakistan to India in 1947 on a train in which everyone was killed except for him and a single other passenger. They had been hidden in the train’s bathroom.
In 1950, to ensure the safety of young, Mrs Basu and her younger sister, her parents decided that the family would migrate. They travelled to Kolkata by plane. They left behind a house filled with furniture and all the land they owned. They were only able to sell some of her mother’s jewellery at minimum value.
Starting again in a new place after crossing the border was difficult, she remembers. Mrs Basu’s father, who was a doctor before Partition, was unable to work in the new land because he did not have the licence needed to practise medicine. Her uncle ran a pen store, which served as the main source of income on which the whole Majumdar family depended. Despite being an ambitious student who wanted to earn her own living and perhaps be a doctor one day, Mrs Basu could not do so because her father told her that he could no longer afford to send her to school. Soon after, he arranged for her to be married. Before Partition, both Mr Basu and her husband’s families lived in the same village.
Her husband lived and worked in Kolkata, so when Mrs Basu got married, she left Barasat and moved to Kolkata as well. There she took the responsibility of the entire household. They had three children, one son and two daughters. On January 22, 2013, Mrs Basu and her husband celebrated their 50th anniversary, and during the summer of that year, they travelled to the United States – an anniversary gift from their eldest daughter and son-in-law, who live there. They saw Boston, New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago. The trip is a highlight of her life, she shares.
Today, she and her husband live with their eldest son and his family in Kolkata. She enjoys cooking the family favourite dishes and spending time with her four grandchildren. Now, Mrs Basu’s wish is to travel to Bangladesh once, to see the land she left behind as a young girl. She believes that her home is still there, though its current inhabitants are not known to her.
HASEENA MOIN, PlAYWRIGHT
Rawalpindi playwright Haseena Moin remembers that when she and her family got off the railway platform in Rawalpindi in early 1947 after migrating from Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, there was not a soul in sight.
Ms Moin was born in 1938 in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, to an Urdu-speaking family. Her father was an officer in quality control division of the British Indian Army and her mother was a homemaker, originally from lucknow. Her paternal family, she says, are Pathans hailing from Central Asia. Her grandfather was the interior secretary for the Nawab of Bhopal. Her father was born and raised in Bhopal and went on to be an officer in the British Indian army. After their marriage, Ms Moin’s father taught her mother how to read and write in English.
Ms Moin was raised with five brothers and sisters at the Civil lines and Chaman Ganj in Kanpur before Partition. She recalls being restless, naughty, and eccentric during her childhood. They were neighbours with Hindu and British families and had a cordial relationship. “My parents would often have them over for dinner and lunch. After the birth of my younger brother, they had a big celebration, and invited our Hindu and English neighbours. They brought a lot of presents for me and my brother. Our cooks would make vegetarian food for Hindus, and non-vegetarian food for the English,” she says.
During Christmas and Diwali, her family used to get large crates of sweets and fruits. Ms Moin remembers her English teacher, Ms. Selina, at the Mohammedan School in Kanpur fondly.
In early 1947, riots forced all of the schools to shut down. She remembers, “There was no communal violence or rioting in Kanpur, but news of violence from neighbouring cities and towns had become a source of great fear and anxiety. During the census, my father opted for Pakistan, and was given six months to evacuate our home in Kanpur.” During this time, Ms Moin’s family auctioned all of their household goods at Chaman Ganj, which were purchased by one of the Hindu families they knew. “I remember our furniture was laid out in the open, and we as kids were jumping on the sofas restlessly. At that moment, I saw my mother breaking into tears. We didn’t really pay attention to why she was crying a lot lately. We told her that she should be happy we are going to a new country,” Ms Moin says.
They went on to the Kanpur Railway Station under Army supervision, and boarded the train to Mumbai. From Mumbai, her entire family boarded the ship to Karachi. “Even on the ship, we were accompanied by guards. After my father’s decision to move to Pakistan, the Army had made all the necessary arrangements for reaching Pakistan safely. After staying for a few days in Karachi, they took the train to Rawalpindi, where her father was expected to report for his transfer orders,” she shares. Rawalpindi, she remembers, was devoid of any sign of life, when they got off the railway platform.
“During our search for a house to settle in Pindi, all the houses offered to us, evacuated by the Hindus and Sikhs, were full of their belongings, and my father refused to occupy them. For the next three months, therefore, we stayed at a hotel in Rawalpindi. At that point I realised we had left a life of luxury and comfort behind. Here we were confined in tight spaces, and faced with problems like water shortages,” she says.
Her father was transferred to lahore and Ms Moin’s family settled in a house at Model Town. She resumed her schooling at the City School in Karachi, from where she completed her middle school education. After matriculation, her family moved to Karachi and in 1956. She obtained her Master’s degree in History from Karachi University in 1963.
Then she began to write plays for Radio Pakistan. “There was a strong culture of adapting published novels and authors, to plays and drama serials. I wanted to contribute something original,” she says. Ms Moin’s first play was Kiran Kahani, which she says was inspired by a book on psychology that she had read. To date she has produced over 40 drama serials including Ankahi, Tanhaiyaan, Dhoop Kinare and Aahat, and several drama serials for Doordarshan, including Kashmakash and Tanha. In 1988, she made her first trip to India after Partition.
Courtesy and photo copyright: The Partition Project