“Go to any restaurant in the city and you’ll find at least one Sindhi there. There are more than 5 lakh Sindhi families in the city today,” says Ramesh Dembla, a city-based fashion designer from the Sindhi community.
“Go to any restaurant in the city and you’ll find at least one Sindhi there. There are more than 5 lakh Sindhi families in the city today,” says Ramesh Dembla, a city-based fashion designer from the Sindhi community.
“Fine-dining, enjoying life and going for movies is very common among Sindhis in any city — they live to the fullest. However, they are very tough and hardy.”
“My parents started from scratch when they migrated to Bangalore right after Independence,” says Shreen Malani, art consultant, Renaissance Art Gallery. Malani says Sindhis are hard-working and eternally optimistic. “There’s a saying in Sindhi which means ‘Sindhis would put oil on their lips just to show that they’ve eaten mutton even if they’ve just had rice and dal’,” says Malani.
According to Malani, Sindhis blend in easily with people from other communities, and this has stood them in good stead in a melting pot like Bangalore. “However, I feel interaction with people from different communities was much simpler earlier. Today, it’s a little taxing,” says Malani, who is in her 50s. “Bangalore has become so huge and chaotic that now one hardly gets any time to relax and mix with people. I hate what has become of the city today. Back in the 1960s, it was one of the most beautiful cities I had ever been to. I used to love it.”
Bangalore veteran 85-year-old Indra Malkani says the city has changed for the better in many ways but there are negative aspects, too. “Bangalore has expanded to house migrants from all over the country. It has lost its old charm, the peace and quiet. Moreover, the city had specific areas that were dominated by Sindhi families earlier, now Sindhis are scattered throughout the city and it’s difficult to stay in touch,” says Malkani, whose family was among the first five Amil Sindhi families to have arrived in the city post Partition.
Talking about more positive changes, Ramesh Dembla says, “Sindhis have become quite liberal. Till as recently as the late 1990s, inter-caste marriages were frowned upon. However, today there are no issues. I got married to a Punjabi in 1998 and my parents weren’t happy about it then.”
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