Similar story... we are from Kulachi in Dera Ismail Khan district. My grandparents had just been married few months back and my grandmother was expecting on 1947. Most of family members were killed. My grandmother and grandfather were few who could escape in a truck.
They made a small case of the gold at home (rest was in bank locker with cash) and sat in the truck. The 2 seats were got after bribing with all the money they had on them. When they sat in the truck, someone snatched the case and threw it saying it could make space for one more.
The case fell on ground and few Muslims pounced on it and fighting over the gold but my grandparents never got down from the truck as it would mean the seat would be given to next in line. So they came only in the clothes they wore. My grandmother had already miscarried
with days of running around in the riots...but they had no help or medical aid. So bleeding, with saree stained, she still sat silently on the truck. Few ladies gave her their cloth to cover. The aborted fetus came out on the way and was thrown all in public view of men n women.
Men turned their eyes to give her privacy. That's all they could do on the truck. She was half dead by the time they reached Bharat. And weeks later that she got medical aid. Her uterus was so ruined that she had 17 miscarriages post that and had abandoned all hopes of pregnancy.
But God had other plans and she conceived 5 kids post that after a lot of trials much later in life.
My great grandmother was lost in riots and thought to be dead. But my grandfather would go every week to Golden temple camp to check on new lot of refugees that arrive.
My great grandmother was lost in riots and thought to be dead. But my grandfather would go every week to Golden temple camp to check on new lot of refugees that arrive.
Hoping to find some lost relative. After months he found his mother (my great grand mother)...she had managed to walk half the way and then found lift. In fractured leg she had walked. She had also assumed that her son and DIL were dead. That reunion must have been something.
My grandfather was highly educated for those times. Double MA, well versed with English but was a clerk in British Govt as Indians couldn't go past the rank of Babu. Here for his education he got officers role as GoI needed educated men.
A kind Gujarati in Agra gave him a house on rent. They had nothing besides clothes. He got everything on loan and Hindus around opened their hearts seeing their plight.
Between my grandmother and great grandmother they had one saree - was a silk saree from her wedding trousseau
Between my grandmother and great grandmother they had one saree - was a silk saree from her wedding trousseau
So one sat at home in just petticoat if the other had to go out and they never went out together as they had just one saree between them.
A family that owned land, business, estates, havelis had one saree, nothing else.
A family that owned land, business, estates, havelis had one saree, nothing else.
They would get some wheat on loan had no vessel or spices or veggies. One old vessel was taken from neighbors and that wheat would be boiled with water and gulped once a day. That's how they spent months. When my grandfather got his first salary, they couldn't decide what to buy.
Clothes ?
Ration?
Blankets as winter had just arrived?
Pay rent and loan?
Vessels?
Other basic necessity?
Finally they settled on some food and 1 blanket. Grandmother started stitching clothes to help. Great grandmother too.
Ration?
Blankets as winter had just arrived?
Pay rent and loan?
Vessels?
Other basic necessity?
Finally they settled on some food and 1 blanket. Grandmother started stitching clothes to help. Great grandmother too.
Slowly they built their life. Then my grandfather applied for Govt housing where some installment would be deducted from his salary. 2-3 months in that house and then he found his elder sister. She had arrived (she was married in another city) with her husband. Their family had
suffered even worst. Her husband who we affectionately called as Bhayaji was always off and kind of "retarted". One day as he started shouting and howling weirdly I got scared and mom told me their story. His sister and mother were dragged and raped in front of his eyes.
He was forced to watch. And then he was beaten black and blue till he fainted and left to die. My grandfather's sister was not at home so she was spared. She came back and found her husband in that state. Sister and mother were no where. She dragged him around for days
And somehow after months and months of struggle managed to escape to India. But her husband was not the same. The trauma affected him mentally. He was the head accountant but he couldn't do anything after that. He couldn't even speak coherently. After a lot of treatment
Much like kids, he could do basic jobs himself...so my grandfather got him a job of a doorman so that there was some income and he was also busy. And also gave his house to their family as they needed it more. Then again he started from scratch.
One of the horror stories he told was of the Pathan police being compliant in the genocide. I wrote of it before. Linking it here.
Their muslim neighbors, workers told on them and not just told on them, participated in genocide and gang rapes of the women they called taiji, behenji till only few days ago. My grandfather witnessed some of the horror himself.
Can such folks ever trust again?? The partition made him realize only one identity mattered- that of a Hindu. His Punjabi muslim neihbors who spoke same language, dressed and ate like him participated in the genocide. But Hindus in UP, Bihar, Gujarat and Punjab helped them.
The experience made his caste identity kind of nullified for him. He never ever identified himself as a Punjabi Khatri thereafter. Only as a Hindu and Bhartiya. The arranged Intercaste marriages in our family are testimony to that.
They buried their pain, their trauma to raise the family...there was no alternative. When today's generation of Punjabi Hindus and Sikhs talk of Aman ki asha, same culture, secularization the story of Lohri festival, he would get angry.
And would ask...where was this same culture when they killed and raped us.
While we were protected, from very early on we were ingrained with this self preservatory sense in us. Never to trust a mlecch. Never to abandon dharma and fellow Hindu.
While we were protected, from very early on we were ingrained with this self preservatory sense in us. Never to trust a mlecch. Never to abandon dharma and fellow Hindu.
Inter caste marriage as long as within Hindu fold are appreciated. No girl can think of leave alone a relationship but even friendship with a mlecch. No one has to control...but we are nurtured and raised that way that none of us would even think of it.
DNA mein hai. No girl would be foolish to fall for it. And no boy would have deep friendship with them either. And yes none of us ever voted for congress ever in life 😅
And ofcourse the other thing that got ingrained was academics. Higher education is so so must for every boy n girl in family. For when the business, lands and wealth was lost, the academic achievements came to aid of my grandfather. 😓 Isliye naukri se jyada kucch nahi kar sakte.
My grandfather would say, if an incident like that could not teach Punjabis, Sikhs and Bengalis to think of self as Hindus first, we are doomed as a society, as a nation, as a civilisation. Till his death he worked only for this unity and dharma with Savarkarji, HMS & others.
I read this again now and to me reading it in this form was inspiring. One aspect that I had missed while hearing the story is the women. Such strong women who carried the family. My grandmother gritting a miscarriage and still surviving and raising the family. My great grandma
managing to survive alone in that mayhem, hiding and walking through a fractured leg. Grandfather's sister...managing to bring her traumatized husband alone to this side after months. How did they do it. I have the same blood in my veins, same DNA. This thought overwhelmed me.
Every woman was Yagnaseni in her own right. I am one of those kshatranis too. How can I give up with those genes within me. 🙏
Just showed this thread to mom. She said...do you know how old was your granny? She was 16.5 yrs yet imagine her grit. And then we recalled that we never saw her crying or cribbing. She would play ludo, carrom with me and tease me...never once she let her trauma affect us.
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