Partition survivors recall tale of two countries on World UN Day

At her Yari Road home, 86-year-old Bansi Singh sifts through black and white photographs of her life in Lahore in 1947.

But, it is the memory she has no physical proof of that still holds the power to rattle her to this day — a Muslim mob leering through her car's window, thumping on the bonnet as she clutched her five-month-old son.

"Seconds passed, or maybe minutes. I don't remember what went through my head, or whether I was even breathing. Suddenly, a voice said, 'Not them. This man saved my eyes," recalls Singh. Her husband, a doctor, had treated one of the armed men.

On Sunday, video testimonies of Singh and around 50 other Partition survivors will be screened at the 'Remembering Partition' project held at the Indian Merchants Chamber. Organised by city school and college students, the event includes unbiased discussions on Partition.

The institutions have partnered with the NGO, Citizens for Peace. The accounts from Pakistan are provided by another NGO, Citizens' Archives of Pakistan.
Seventeen-year-old Ria Mirchandani, one of the students who started the project, says it is important for her generation to understand Partition.

"We aren’t directly affected by it, but we are suffering its after-effects till date through insurgency and terror attacks. Yet, all we have are prejudiced ideas about it — all from textbooks."

Mirchandani hopes to eventually help build a Partition museum in the city.
Mirchandani first took the subject of Partition seriously after she noticed how her grandmother's face crumpled every time she read about an Indian getting married to a Pakistani.

Eighty-two-year-old Chitra Mirchandani admits she cannot fully understand her feelings even today.

"It's not like you want to hate everyone who belongs to a particular religion. But an inexplicable insecurity is deep-rooted in my psyche since 1947, and I cannot shake it off, no matter how sensible I try to be," she says, trying hard to find the right words that may do justice to the feeling of mistrust she grew up with.

Ironically Chitra's fondest childhood memory is of her Muslim addi (nanny). "I can never forget her smell…tobacco mingled with perfume," she remembers.

But once, in school, she overheard the boys egging each other on to 'pick any Hindu girl they liked since they were finally at their mercy' — Chitra didn't know what to make out of it.

One day, in September 1947, Chitra was made to don four sarees and kilos of gold to board the train from Hyderabad (in Pakistan) to Bombay. "What you wore, was what you carried," says Chitra. After a two-day-long journey, she was  shocked at the life that awaited her.

"Back home, we stored dry fruits in gunny bags and ghee in rooms specially built for the purpose. I first tasted dalda in Bombay and it tasted like wax," she smiles.

Ramesh Jagtiani, 74, left a similar life and came to Bombay to find himself in cramped chawls in Andheri and Chowpatty.

"We stayed with 11 other relatives and I cooked everyday after school. I walked for hours to get to school — education was all I could depend on then. Most of us came back to 'homes' that didn't feel like ours and struggled with scarce ration for years then," he says.

Jagtiani did well in life, but has seen the ordeal of close friends who could never could shake off the pain or move on.

For lives that have known this bitterness and insecurity, can a project like 'Remembering Partition' help bring closure? Jagtiani and Mirchandani don't appear sure that the concept can even be explained to the refugees whose lives have never been the same. Singh, however, seems willing to give it a shot. She reads out her favourite poems on letting go.

"There are times when I want to cling on to the pain. But I realise peace would be a better choice for our future generations…"

The event will be held at the IMC from 9am-4pm. Entry fee: Rs300