Reliving childhood memories, nonagenarian returns to India with bitter sweet memories
Reena Chhibber Varma appealed to the governments of India and Pakistan to facilitate old citizens to visit their ancestral places by easing the visa process for them
Nonagenarian Reena Chhibber Varma, who returned to India on Monday after visiting her ancestral home at Rawalpindi in Pakistan’s Punjab province after 75 years, couldn’t be happier after fulfilling her long cherished dream and reliving her childhood memories in the house that she and her family had to leave behind during the 1947 partition.
Varma, 90, who left for Pakistan on July 16, crossed over to India through the Attari-Wagah border here. She was only 15 years old when her family moved to India. The Pakistan High Commission in India had issued a three-month visa to Varma as a goodwill gesture.
Pune-based Varma visited her home on Wednesday. On reaching her home ‘Prem Nawas’ in the garrison city, the residents in the neighbourhood gave her a rousing welcome. Drums were played and flower petals were showered on her. She looked composed, completely unmoved by the frenzied crowd around her.
Before partition, her family used to live on the Devi College Road in Rawalpindi. Varma’s house was sold and the people who bought the house requested her to stay there. She slept in the same room where she used to sleep during her childhood.
“I am very delighted that I have spent the night in my room in my ancestral house after 75 years. We don’t have any other instance of a person who is separated from his or her motherland to be able to do so under such circumstances. I got so much love and respect there that I never expected it,” Varma said while interacting with the media.
Varma has vivid memories of the day she and her family left their house.
Her family was among the millions whose lives were thrown into turmoil by the Partition of India into two states in 1947.
Varma went to every room on the second floor of her ancestral home and refreshed her memories. She sang while standing on the balcony and cried remembering her childhood.
She kept looking at the door and wall of the house including her bedroom, yard and sitting room for a long time. She talked about her life back in those days.
She told neighbours that she used to stand on the balcony and hum when she was little.
She sang the same 75-year-old tune to reminisce about her childhood and cried. She said that the memories of the house were palpable to her.
“While spending time at my ancestral home, I kept on remembering my family. I felt like I had returned to my childhood and my sisters and brothers all came in front of my eyes. I did not feel that I was in another country. I found no difference between the two countries,” she said.
Varma, who always referred to Rawalpindi as her hometown, said, “it was my long-cherished dream to visit my house. I am short of words to thank the residents of Rawalpindi for the love and affection they gave me.”
“I tried a lot to find any relic of my childhood days, but I could not. I found a design below the shelves in the room that was created by my father. I got a photo clicked with that design,” she said.
Varma appealed to the governments of India and Pakistan to facilitate old citizens to visit their ancestral places by easing the visa process for them.
Sonali, her daughter, who came to receive Varma, said, “her (Varma’s) last wish has been fulfilled. This is the biggest happiness for her.”
Varma had applied for a Pakistani visa in 1965 but failed to get it then as tensions between the two neighbours were high because of the war.
Recently, she again applied for a Pakistani visa which was denied. She then expressed her wish to visit Pakistan on social media and tagged Pakistan’s Minister of State on Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar on the post. Khar then facilitated her visa to visit her ancestral town.
(With agency inputs)
