‘We heard terrible reports of trains arriving in piled up with bodies’

Hasan Bano, about 81

Born in Amroha, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, India, Hasan Bano, is 80 or 81.

“I was about 14 when I arrived in Karachi by plane. Partition had happened a year or two before we came here and I must be honest, unlocking those memories is not easy.

“Many of my our cousins were working in Delhi at that time, and the city saw a lot of bloodshed as all the groups charged at one another. Amroha isn’t far from Delhi but no one turned up in our area, perhaps out of reverence for the Saint Hazrat Sharfuddin Shahwilayat [whose shrine is in Amroha].

“But we heard terrible reports of trains arriving in Pakistan piled up with bodies, and that instilled fear in the community.

“One of my friends was supposed to get married, and she had gone to Pakistan while her husband-to-be was still in Delhi. The wedding was postponed due to the unrest, and we still don’t know how the bridegroom got to Pakistan. We heard he hid in a tonga [a horse-drawn cart].

“Another friend arrived by camel cart and had a terrible time with motion sickness.

“Apart from not knowing if we would stay alive, there was an air of insecurity regarding jobs. My brother was teaching at a school that was taken over by the Hindus. He was paid 25 rupees a month, which was meagre compared with what the Hindus were paid.

“My mother had passed away when I was young and my father was ill most of the time, so when my brother went to the other side, to Pakistan, I had no reason to stay back. My father asked a relative who was taking his daughter to take me along. My father followed shortly after.

“My great-grandfather had land under his name in India but all that was left behind.

“I had never been on a plane. My relative’s daughter kept throwing up in the bag they gave us but I sat near the window and watched the houses grow smaller, unaware it was the last time I would see them.

“My finances didn’t permit it, but I would have loved to go back and see how the house where I grew up had evolved. But then, it didn’t hold the best memories for me because life was tough there and it didn’t get better until a few decades ago.

“Class is indeed something that determines the course of lives anywhere perhaps, but yes, Hindustan is home because I was born there, and life would have been easier if Partition hadn’t happened.”