Speaker 1: A quick note about this week's episode. All three interviews
Speaker 1: featured were conducted in variations of Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi.
Speaker 1: They have all been translated into English and voiced by actors.
Speaker 1: Warning the following episode contains sensitive material. Living in Texas
Speaker 1: the majority of my life, I've unfortunately become quite accustomed
Speaker 1: to hearing stories about families being torn apart because of
Speaker 1: a border. While the situations of the Indian Pakistan border
Speaker 1: and the US Mexico border vary in many ways, the
Speaker 1: heartbreak of being separated from your children, your parents, or
Speaker 1: other loved ones are synonymous. We've briefly touched upon these
Speaker 1: grave circumstances and previous episodes of this podcast. Today, I
Speaker 1: want to introduce you to a man who was instrumental
Speaker 1: uniting family split up by Partition. One of these reunions
Speaker 1: was between two brothers who were separated during Partition and
Speaker 1: only saw each other again this year. It had been
Speaker 1: seventy four years from I Heart Radio, I'm Nahasie's and
Speaker 1: this is Partition. A podcast will take a closer look
Speaker 1: into this often forgotten part of history. Numerous children who
Speaker 1: survived ninety seven were abandoned, lost taken to religious retreats
Speaker 1: like ashrams, or they woke up in a hospital bed
Speaker 1: with no idea where their families were, whether they were
Speaker 1: alive or not. Authur Uvashi Battalia wrote in great detail
Speaker 1: about the lives of women in the other side of Silence,
Speaker 1: but she also devoted many pages in her book about
Speaker 1: the children of Partition. Sabbatry mcjohnny, a record collector with
Speaker 1: the United Council of Relief and Welfare, described a time
Speaker 1: when a large camp closed down in Lahore. At the
Speaker 1: time a few months after Partition, she was with the
Speaker 1: School of Social Work in Delhi. Shortly after the camp
Speaker 1: closed down, they received information that there was some dozen
Speaker 1: children who had been left behind who seemed to belong
Speaker 1: to no one. What was to be done with them.
Speaker 1: Many children grew up in orphanages or homes for the destitute.
Speaker 1: Others made their way through life on the streets, and
Speaker 1: some had the privilege to be adopted into homes. Brutalia
Speaker 1: mentions workers at the Gandhavan, Nita Ashram and Jilan there
Speaker 1: recount that in a two year old child was brought
Speaker 1: to the ashram, no one knew who she belonged to
Speaker 1: or where she came from. At the time the book
Speaker 1: was published, she was fifty two and still living there,
Speaker 1: a child of history without a history. This sentence is
Speaker 1: one that I keep coming back to. This woman would
Speaker 1: be in her mid seventies now. Is she still alive?
Speaker 1: Did anyone come looking for her? Was she able to
Speaker 1: find any closure or peace? Who knows if she's even
Speaker 1: there anymore. This is a devastating story, but, as we've learned,
Speaker 1: far from unusual. In January, I had a friend sent
Speaker 1: me an article from the Washington Post about two men
Speaker 1: named Sadiq and Sica who met after seventy four years.
Speaker 1: I was captivated in their reunion video. Siica is already
Speaker 1: waiting for his brother, and Sadik is approaching with his family.
Speaker 1: But you can hear someone saying, look there, that's your brother.
Speaker 1: After all of these years, it has finally worked out.
Speaker 1: Go run and hug him. The brothers have a teery embrace,
Speaker 1: and the younger brother, Sika, is comforting Sadiq. He tells him,
Speaker 1: we are alive, so we can be together again. Sadik
Speaker 1: Givesica a floral garland, a welcoming gesture in South Asian culture.
Speaker 1: The video of the his brothers. Reuniting gave me the
Speaker 1: full range of emotions happiness, anger, sadness, longing, annoyance, you
Speaker 1: name it. It was such a beautiful and touching moment.
Speaker 1: But when you think about the many arduous steps it
Speaker 1: took for these siblings to meet, it's hard to ignore
Speaker 1: the continuous policing of our borders. Nasir Dillo is someone
Speaker 1: who's desperately trying to change the status quo Nasir Lis
Speaker 1: and Fezzil bad and when he's not tending to his
Speaker 1: real estate business, he helps partition survivors find people they
Speaker 1: once knew and have now lost. What started out as
Speaker 1: a Facebook page created in transformed into a major online
Speaker 1: community with over six thousand subscribers and almost one hundred
Speaker 1: million views. Nasir is a prime mover behind the Pakistani
Speaker 1: YouTube channel Punjabi Lahare. The channel hosts an array of
Speaker 1: content from reunions and oral histories to the impacts of
Speaker 1: the recent floods. On this channel, Nasir post interview the
Speaker 1: people affected by partition. Although it started as a way
Speaker 1: to simply document these stories, it has evolved into a
Speaker 1: way for long lost family members separated in to reconnect
Speaker 1: with one another. The channel might post an interview and
Speaker 1: viewers who might know the family members comment and try
Speaker 1: to facilitate a connections. You have channel Cube. When I art,
Speaker 1: people asked us why we created this channel and what
Speaker 1: the purpose was. I used to talk to my grandfather
Speaker 1: about his village in India. I asked how the village was,
Speaker 1: how are the people, how are your friends? My elders
Speaker 1: used to say people were very nice in their village.
Speaker 1: Wanting to hear stories and experiences from others, connected with
Speaker 1: people from India through social media from about the Hindu
Speaker 1: and Sikh communities. He has a Sikh friend named Booping.
Speaker 1: They're saying Lovely living in nak Nanasia, a holy site
Speaker 1: for the Sikhs which is now located in Pakistan. When
Speaker 1: Lovely came onto the project, they got more exposure because
Speaker 1: the door opened up to meet a lot more people
Speaker 1: since many pilgrims traveled to nick Nanasya from India. He
Speaker 1: will get in touch with the people visiting officers from
Speaker 1: the real estate. There was an elderly person by my
Speaker 1: real estate office in fast Labad. He recognized Lovely was
Speaker 1: a seek and struck up a conversation about his time
Speaker 1: in India. Lovely did an interview with the elder and
Speaker 1: it went viral on YouTube and people really responded positively
Speaker 1: to it. After the success of the first partition story,
Speaker 1: we started contacting people by phone living in the area
Speaker 1: of Punjab in Pakistan regarding their history with partition. What
Speaker 1: did they see with their own eyes? They quickly started
Speaker 1: recording more and have been recording for the last seven years.
Speaker 1: Nasir says, with the Facebook and YouTube pages combined, they
Speaker 1: probably have around stories ms name. When people from the
Speaker 1: Punjab side of India used to come to Pakistan, they
Speaker 1: used to recall that they lost a sister, a brother
Speaker 1: or a friend. I never heard any complaints or animosity
Speaker 1: among the different religions of people living in the area.
Speaker 1: They lived in love and as many conversations with his grandfather,
Speaker 1: Nasa remembered him saying how much he wanted to visit
Speaker 1: his old village again in India, but he never got
Speaker 1: the chance. His grandfather passed away a few years ago
Speaker 1: and he couldn't go because he couldn't obtain a visa.
Speaker 1: I feel guilty that I never got to take him back.
Speaker 1: Punjabi La Hare has gained an immense following and because
Speaker 1: of that, it's become a little easier for people to
Speaker 1: find each other through the videos being posted. Coffee Logo.
Speaker 1: It used to take a long time to find people
Speaker 1: because whatever someone used to contact us about a missing
Speaker 1: reality or a kidnapping. We used to do everything NASA
Speaker 1: and Lovely had to record, upload an attempt to locate
Speaker 1: people themselves. Before that, we didn't have a community to
Speaker 1: assist with finding people. Now, as soon as we upload
Speaker 1: a new video, we get a through because we have
Speaker 1: quite a few subscribers and people contact us or leave
Speaker 1: notes in the comments. No Sir said it usually takes
Speaker 1: around eight to ten days for someone to have an
Speaker 1: idea to help solve where I loved one. Maybe around
Speaker 1: two hundred to two hundred and fifty people have met
Speaker 1: not only their blood relatives, but old friends and neighbors
Speaker 1: through the channel. People that leave comments on the videos
Speaker 1: and form groups. In Punjab they talk amongst themselves sanji
Speaker 1: south meaning people come together to join in conversations. We
Speaker 1: hosted it online and people would come on from their homes.
Speaker 1: Because of this, people are starting to get in touch.
Speaker 1: The story of Sadik and Sica reuniting reach an abundance
Speaker 1: of people across the globe and with it garnered a
Speaker 1: lot of media attention. Now with an even bigger audience,
Speaker 1: Nasa says he has more than one hundred stories to
Speaker 1: work on, but's in the problems I think um one stories.
Speaker 1: The problem is we can do the stories, but the
Speaker 1: issues getting visas for people to visit and if you
Speaker 1: can get assistance from the India and Pakistan government to
Speaker 1: verify their stories. I don't understand why there should be
Speaker 1: any issue with the success of reuniting survivors, there also
Speaker 1: comes crashing waves of disappointment. Much like the woman who
Speaker 1: has lived essentially her entire life in the astra Um,
Speaker 1: not everyone has a happy ending. The serious suspects that
Speaker 1: some people have been denied visas because their story was
Speaker 1: not as high profile as Deak and sick Us. Absolutely
Speaker 1: the stories, John, would you look after listening to stories,
Speaker 1: it feels like it is my story, all of these
Speaker 1: partitions stories. When people are talking about partition, it is
Speaker 1: really tough for them. It feels like it is my bust.
Speaker 1: If you can't help in some way, I feel sad.
Speaker 1: He mentions one woman in particular, names Aldana Begum, a
Speaker 1: famous poet. She visited Pakistan seven times to look for
Speaker 1: her relatives. She died recently, never having found her family members.
Speaker 1: Only a few days after her death, the Bunjabi la
Speaker 1: Our team was able to locate her family. Boni the
Speaker 1: people who sacrifice themselves, meaning the people who died, got
Speaker 1: hurt and suffered hard for India and Pakistan and left
Speaker 1: their homes. The governments won't allow them to meet with
Speaker 1: their families. We are behind compared to other countries. There
Speaker 1: is so much hate. We need to get out of it.
Speaker 1: We are going to stay in the past if we
Speaker 1: continue like this. Doesn't matter about the borders. It should
Speaker 1: be open so people can meet each other. You can
Speaker 1: travel to Japan, America, Canada and it's not as difficult
Speaker 1: as obtaining a visa to India or Pakistan. When will
Speaker 1: they get their senses after the break? We'll hear from
Speaker 1: Saddi and Sica eight months ago where they're Sadiq and
Speaker 1: Sica reunited at the Karthurpork Corridor. It was a day
Speaker 1: filled with laughter, tears, and most importantly, it was a celebration. However,
Speaker 1: what proceeded this day was over seven decades of separation
Speaker 1: and unknown answers to a flurry of questions. In Poul, India,
Speaker 1: Sadique was a young boy around ten years old and
Speaker 1: Sica hadn't even turned one yet. Their father was killed
Speaker 1: in the chaos and their mother took her own life
Speaker 1: not long after a partition. They had a sister, but
Speaker 1: she passed away from illness and a refugee camp, so
Speaker 1: he ended up walking in a caravan to Pakistan. I
Speaker 1: arrived in fest Labat and settled in Jenna colony in Pakistan.
Speaker 1: The government provided me with some rations. From there, I
Speaker 1: moved to a small village just to fifty five. We
Speaker 1: got two acres of land from the government to farm. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Sica was under the care of a poverty stricken uncle
Speaker 1: in their village and was then given away. He was
Speaker 1: taken in by the Saints, a family that raised him
Speaker 1: as if he was one of their own. Since ICIca
Speaker 1: was so young, A lot of what he knows about
Speaker 1: his life comes from the villagers of pool Wa. He's
Speaker 1: had to piece together the earlier parts of his life
Speaker 1: based on what others told him. Dr Jugs Are saying
Speaker 1: a farmer and friend of Sikas from the village was
Speaker 1: quoted saying he was the one who was left behind. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: don't vide the amaze. You didn't know. Well, my life
Speaker 1: after partition was spent in poverty. I spent every day
Speaker 1: doing labor. It was hard work tending to all the animals,
Speaker 1: but I didn't mind so much because I had people
Speaker 1: who protected me. They both started looking for each other
Speaker 1: at different points in their life. For Zadig, the older brother,
Speaker 1: it was relatively quickly after making the track to Pakistan.
Speaker 1: You do men, Yeah, I started looking for Chica two
Speaker 1: months after I had lived in Pakistan. I tried very hard,
Speaker 1: but it was impossible, but little to no resources. Sika
Speaker 1: began his search for his brother when he was eighteen.
Speaker 1: Oh Shari, I used to ask Muslim families going to
Speaker 1: Pakistan to look for Sadik. I'd helped put some ads
Speaker 1: in newspapers and writing letters, but nothing was working. Both
Speaker 1: brothers went on with their lives, but even as years passed,
Speaker 1: they never stopped attempting to find each other. And then
Speaker 1: fate intervened. In May, Dr Singh was visiting his daughter
Speaker 1: in Canada when he was showing a video from a
Speaker 1: YouTube channel. It was a video of Sadiq reciting all
Speaker 1: the details he knew about his brother and begging for
Speaker 1: anyone with any news to reach out. The circumstances sounded
Speaker 1: oddly familiar to doctor Singh and he had a hunch
Speaker 1: that maybe the person this man was looking for was Sica.
Speaker 1: Dr Singh called Nasir, who had conducted the interview, to
Speaker 1: get some more details. The very next day, Nasir and
Speaker 1: Sadiq found a man who lives with Sica, and all
Speaker 1: four of them began having conversations. In a matter of days, Friends,
Speaker 1: villagers and family members began to collect all the necessary
Speaker 1: paperwork to apply for visas so Sadiq and Sica could
Speaker 1: meet at long last. However, the Indian and Pakistani government's restrictions,
Speaker 1: in addition to the coronavirus through a wrench in their plans,
Speaker 1: and their reunion was put on hold indefinitely until they
Speaker 1: could physically meet, Video calls would have to suffice. There
Speaker 1: was one way around fund it, though. The Carthurpark Corridor
Speaker 1: is a visa free crossing, so once COVID loosened its
Speaker 1: grip on the world, Sadik and Sica started making plans
Speaker 1: to meet at the Sikh temple in the middle of
Speaker 1: the crossing. They would meet on January each group began
Speaker 1: to prepare in order to make the trip, so they
Speaker 1: expand fifty thou Pakistani rupees, which is a little over
Speaker 1: two U S. Dollars. I did. I had to sell
Speaker 1: my buffalo in order to get some money to travel there.
Speaker 1: I traveled by bus with all of my family, friends
Speaker 1: and neighbors of Sicca also rented a bus to the corridor,
Speaker 1: and both groups brought with them an array of gifts
Speaker 1: and food to give to each other. Sara union was
Speaker 1: at the mercy of the temple's operating hours. Sadik and
Speaker 1: Sitka spent three hours together before they had to say
Speaker 1: goodbye again. Nasir said when it was time to leave,
Speaker 1: Sadik whendn't let his brother go. Since their initial meeting,
Speaker 1: both brothers have received the opportunity to travel to each
Speaker 1: other's homes. On the Punjabula Hair channel, there is one
Speaker 1: video of the brothers talking and laughing in a car
Speaker 1: while Naser drives, and in another we see them celebrating
Speaker 1: near the border and the horror Pakistan. They love Pakistan. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you paid in other pace, How is you get? I
Speaker 1: stayed in Pakistan for two months and one of Sadik's
Speaker 1: grandson is getting married, so I'm hoping to visit again
Speaker 1: very soon. Well. I traveled to India in me and
Speaker 1: stayed for a couple of months. Hearing their story, I
Speaker 1: hope that India and Pakistan will allow other partition survivors
Speaker 1: as well as other people to obtain visas so they
Speaker 1: too can visit their roots and memories. Before Sadik and
Speaker 1: I hung up the phone, he asked where in Pakistan
Speaker 1: I was from. My dad was on the line to
Speaker 1: assist me with these phone calls, and he said we
Speaker 1: were from Carachi. Sadik in return said the next time
Speaker 1: ruined Pakistan, please come meet us. My dad responded with inshalla,
Speaker 1: which means God willing. This was a phrase that my
Speaker 1: parents said to me whenever they wanted me to stop
Speaker 1: asking about something when I was younger, and on some
Speaker 1: occasions even now, instead of giving me a yes or
Speaker 1: no answer, this is what they would say. But here
Speaker 1: it was real, it was genuine. I could feel it.
Speaker 1: I've read, seen and heard countless stories of people wanting
Speaker 1: to visit their homes they left behind and thought they
Speaker 1: could visit, or their absolute exasperated grief when they describe
Speaker 1: someone who they have lost contact with and yearned to
Speaker 1: see again with all of these stories, they say in
Speaker 1: shella or something to that effect. When it comes to
Speaker 1: getting their visas approved to visit either India or Pakistan,
Speaker 1: this phrase is really the only sense of hope they
Speaker 1: can cling to. Next time, I'll take a deeper dive
Speaker 1: into how Partition is portrayed in film and television. What
Speaker 1: content is accessible, Are there any good examples? What is
Speaker 1: the audience supposed to take away from these depictions h
Speaker 1: We'll talk to filmmakers and writers Chanty Dcor and Fatima
Speaker 1: Ascar about their own creative work with partition, along with
Speaker 1: media they consumed on the topic. So literature really informed me.
Speaker 1: And then I saw a documentary and it was a
Speaker 1: very journalistic, you know, give me the dates, give me
Speaker 1: the politicians name of what happened. And of course I
Speaker 1: watched it because I wanted to learn as much about
Speaker 1: the politicians who were involved and so forth. But there
Speaker 1: was really something lacking. It seemed really one dimensional around
Speaker 1: these kind of almost arbitrary conversations between politicians, but not
Speaker 1: like what was happening in the hard and soul of
Speaker 1: the people on the street. Until next week, I'm Naazie's
Speaker 1: and This Is Partition. Partition was developed as a part
Speaker 1: of the Next Up initiative created by Anna Hosnier, Joel
Speaker 1: Monique and Senia Median. Partition is produced by Anna Hosnier,
Speaker 1: Tricia muker Gee and Becca Ramos. It is edited by
Speaker 1: Rory Gagan, with the original score composed by Mark Hadley.