Snapseed

(Gurugram) “We used to live in Jahang, Pakistan. The men in Pakistan were like our brothers. My father had a good relationship with everyone around us. He was a good person. We moved to India during the partition. We faced a lot of hardship while coming from Pakistan. The ground had just sand. The men used to put their pagri on our feet because the sand used to get very hot. We were very young, some of my siblings were still in our mothers arms. We took things that we could carry on our own but we left the rest in Pakistan.

We sat on the roof of a train for 15 days to reach Kurukshetra. We used to get down at night to cook and then get back on top in the morning. We were scared. Water was scarce and we saw a lot of people dying during the journey because of thirst and hunger. There was a well along the way and people jumped in the well for water. We drank water from the toilet. When we reached India, the government gave us some ration and in lieu of the land we left behind in Pakistan, we got a shop and a house left behind by Muslims who had moved to Pakistan. My father and my brother started running the shop.

My father is no more. My younger son passed away too. My nephews and my older son manage the business now. Everybody is very well settled. Happiness and sadness are part of life. If there is happiness, there will be some sadness too.”