Read an excerpt from Sindh: Stories from a Vanished Homeland

Oral historian Saaz Aggarwal’s 2012 book is a collection of stories from Sindhis reconstructing life before and during Partition. This excerpt, Baby’s Story, is from her aunt Shakuntala Talwar’s account of travelling to Bombay on a chaotic passenger ship, surrounded by suitcases and the warm familiarity of pickle bottles from home.

I remember the day we left our home for good. Our things were packed and as we were leaving I was crying and my mama Jessaram, Kartar’s father, reassured me quietly saying don’t worry, we are safe, don’t worry, we are going home. He held my hand and led me out. All along the lane the refugees were sitting and watching, waiting as we left, and I felt scared...

The day we left our home for good, the bus we went in was jam-packed. People were sitting squashed next to each other and one of my silver bangles was scraped off my arm, fell on the ground and rolled away. I always wore those six bangles and now one was gone! Among us Sindhis, a girl born after three brothers, like me, has to wear something made of silver given by her nana-nani, her mother’s parents. Every year Mummy would get a little silver jewellery made for me to add to what I already had. I was extremely upset to lose my bangle and cried more, and my mama kept trying to pacify me.

We were taken to the docks and got onto the ship that was to take us to Bombay. On the deck, our mother made a protective wall, arranging the suitcases and pickle bottles she had brought into a circle inside which we sat, all of us together, and slept inside at night. It’s a good thing we had the pickle because none of us liked the strange food we were given to eat on the ship. When we reached the Bombay docks there were many people, all refugees like us. I had never seen such a big crowd before in my life.