From partition to prosperity of a family - Tale of three Generations

The partition of India which gave birth to the world's largest democracy, left a devastating legacy and scars that refuse to heal. Even after 72 years and three generations, a part of legacy still within us, the remnants of the separation still haunts us. The competing political narratives surrounding the partition have continued to keep the root cause of the historical event a matter of dispute. However, personal memoirs are clear cut, as all of them - without exception- are full of stories of  shock, loss, grief and acceptance.    

Based upon the happenings and memories gathered from my Grand Father, Grandmother and my beloved parents,  I make an effort here to mention a few memories.     

My Grandfather,  third son of a wealthy business family had two brothers and one sister  born in Rawalpindi, stayed in a grand house, owned horse bogeys and used to spend summers in Murree, a potential hill station near Rawalpindi. The business interests of the family were established at both above cities.  One of his elder brother used to contest elections and on each election, he used to sell one shop each owned by the family, but never succeeded.  

After his marriage to my grandmother, eldest daughter belonging to a wealthy business family had five brothers and one sister, had three sons. They did have a dream of an independent India - but being aloof, apolitical and smug in their prosperity, the family believed that talk of partition was just rumors. As a result, the gory event happened one night when a bullet was fired upon my Grandfather when he was in Puja room. And then, they decided to pack up and move to India.  My father, being the eldest son of the family was carrying  out well his duties - both at home and business of builders and building materials. He used to hear loud rallies well sounded passing through the streets where shabbily dressed  people used to scream from open jeeps. He was in contract business in British India even during war time. The payments, used to be made late at evening and it was risky to carry cash.  He bought a talkie in order to park the funds safely. He told me that once, he saw a young boy was roaming outside the talkie looking for a chance to view the movie. My father allowed him to go in the hall to see the movie. 

It was a sheer chance of luck that with the passage of time, the same boy, who surfaced at the time of, when my parents and Grand parents were leaving for India as the Police Inspector,  helped the family to board the Army train coming from Peshawar to India at the time of partition. My Grandmother told me that she started crying when one of the hooligan kicked off her bucket of water on the station which she was carrying for use in journey. The long journey was full of cruel violence and nature's fury in the form of sweltering heat. It seemed as if there was a competition between nature and mankind. There were bodies everywhere on the roads, trucks etc.

Families moved by partition are scattered throughout Delhi, often continuing live on the original land allotted by Ministry of Rehabilitation. The first refugee allotment area, Old Rajindernagar  was allotted by Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru in 1948. The now disbanded ministry settled Delhi's refugees into areas like Kingsway camp, Karol Bagh Western Extension Area, East Patel nagar, Moti nagar, Punjabi bagh, Kalkaji. 

The second and third generations relate to the success of their families in two ways. On the one hand, they project back to a notion of pre-partition success, and on the other, they project forward, adopt their own version of a hard work ethic. The second and especially third generation emphasize the effect of partition on their families by recounting the wealth and status lost when the family become refugees. The third generation imagines a pre-partition lifestyle in which their forefathers had substantial tracks of land and lived in a sizable haveli inhabited by large families and many servants. A few may have lived like this. 

Many of the first generation were doing well before partition, and few benefited from dealing with British Raj. The second generation recalls the pre-partition success of their parents and strives to establish and maintain themselves a middle class lifestyle. Pride in that success, in many cases, also allows the third generation to maintain a high social status that was ruined by partition. While initially, first and second generation had very little wealth, the third generation has grown up as the refugee families transformed themselves into the middle class. 

These histories were often not to be shared,  for the sense of rejection and loss they threatened to bring to the surface could not be tolerated. At some level it was as if these histories had not really happened. Elder Grandparents tell stories to their Grandchildren, enabling certain memories to skip a generation. It reconciles with the quote " there was a sense that too much knowledge could prove dangerous."

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