1947 STORIES THIS WEEK

Stories you helped preserve this week

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Recorded this Week:
An interview with Syed Nisir Ul Hassan Gilani by Story Scholar Fakhra Hassan.

Now 85 years old, Mr. Gilani recalls his childhood and fondness for flying kites, singing, horseback riding. During Partition, his family traveled on foot from their village at Amritsar to Lahore. The caravan was attacked between Munj, India and the border town of Kakar, Pakistan. The family had to climb over dead bodies to get to safety. He is pictured here with his wife, Taseer Batool, in 1969.

Stories you helped preserve this week:

Safia Ahmad was born in 1928. At the time of the interview, she is full of life and energy. She is dressed beautifully and is very eager to share her story. In 1996 she and her husband moved to the United States. Mrs. Ahmad trained as a nurse in New York and worked at a nursing home for ten years. She and her husband also lived in San Diego before moving to Illinois, where they have lived for almost 17 years.
Read her story

During the riots, Jhangi Ram Arora was hidden by one of his friends. His father was caught by the mob and taken away. At the time the family did not know what had happened to Mr. Arora’s father. However, he says they found out later that his father was taken away by the same mob who had shot down 55 men that day. In all probability, his father was among those 55.
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Hari Prakash Gupta was born in 1935 in Old Delhi. He speaks of the huge influx of migrants that Delhi witnessed at the time of Partition, primarily affecting the areas of Lodhi Road, Lajpat Nagar – areas which had been converted from forests to residential areas almost overnight. He was 12 years old at the time.
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Jameela Afzal was born and raised in Lahore. When Partition was announced, she was four years old. The Hindus community was evacuated because of the threat of increasing violence. Mrs. Afzal recalls that it was difficult for both communities to evacuate their homes and leave everything behind. Losses were incurred on both sides.
Read her story

In Tribute to Muhammad Shareef.
Mr. Shareef was born in Pind Armanay, in Faridkot, Punjab near Kotkapura. At the time of Partition, Mr. Shareef and his family left the village and went to a place called Bangla that was three miles from their home. Their Sikh neighbors came after them, asking them to stay but Mr. Shareef’s father declined their offers. Mr. Shareef recalled the mountains of dead bodies among crying and screaming babies as he crossed over to Pakistan.
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Zafar Hassan Rathore remembers a schoolmate took him to a house in Srinagar, Kashmir that had been abandoned by its previous owners. When they went to the roof, there was a radio hidden behind bricks. “It still makes me wonder sometimes why they would hide the radio at such a place,” he says.
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Radio was Yasmin Tahir's passion, she says that she loved working for Radio Pakistan as a broadcaster. During Partition, she was 12 years old. Mrs. Tahir recalls the first time she got an inkling of what was going on: she had gone visiting with her parents, she went up to the roof and saw a pile of bricks. She was told that the bricks had been kept there to throw down on to attackers.
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Dilip Mukhopadhyay was born in 1939 in Faridpur (now known as Shariatpur) in East Bengal. Mr. Mukhopadhyay’s family shifted to Calcutta before Partition was announced. His father had the foresight to rent out a huge building, aware that there would be many relatives who would be needing shelter as events unfolded.
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Arun Mehra was born in 1942 in Lahore, Punjab. Shortly before Partition, Mr. Mehra's father sent the family to Shimla. To rejoin his family, Mr. Mehra's father hid himself among the corpses that filled the train from Lahore to Shimla. Today, Mr. Mehra is retired, spending most of his time either serving his own NGO or at countless other organizations.
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After migrating from East Bengal during Partition, Ira Chakrabarty spent two long years at various refugee camps. She recalls the government provided the refugees with rice, cereals, vegetables, and different forms of meat. Although the refugee camps provided these basic amenities to the refugees in the form of food and kitchen rooms, there were no schools or hospitals within camp.
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Haji Abdul Rasheed was born in the village of Sher Garh, Amloh Tehsil in the princely state of Nabha. At the time, his village was predominately Muslim, there were only three Hindu households. He says that people lived peacefully, but things changed drastically after Partition. Soon after Partition, Mr. Rasheed’s family, along with other villagers, left their village and moved to Pakistan.
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By 1948, Kakal Das Chawla and his parents had relocated to Shikarpur. Times were changing so rapidly and it had become so dangerous that Mr. Chawla and his family had to hide for many days in the house of his father’s friend. They would only get raw food items and it was very difficult spending their days in these conditions.
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