Speaker 1: Borders have been created by men, and borders are very cruel.
Speaker 1: As I've mentioned before, partition is something that isn't part
Speaker 1: of the past. It very much lives in our present
Speaker 1: and will certainly dictate our future. For our last episode,
Speaker 1: I wanted to explore this idea even further with our guests.
Speaker 1: One is an author and journalist who physically goes to
Speaker 1: very remote border areas. The others use art to transcend
Speaker 1: the physical barriers between India and Pakistan. For the past
Speaker 1: several weeks, you've heard an array of stories across generations
Speaker 1: about partition. But what do we do with all these conversations.
Speaker 1: There are many current examples across the globe where we
Speaker 1: can put this knowledge into action and attempt to make
Speaker 1: the world a little bit better. From I Radio, I'm
Speaker 1: Nahasis and this is Partition, a podcast that will take
Speaker 1: a closer look into this often forgotten part of history.
Speaker 1: The voice you heard at the beginning is from journalists
Speaker 1: and author A Lungeon of Bomac. She recently wrote an
Speaker 1: article for National Geographic about little villages along the India
Speaker 1: Pakistan border and their everyday physical struggles caused by this
Speaker 1: arbitrarily drawn line. In our article, she writes the following.
Speaker 1: Along India's international border with Pakistan, southern hamlets on the
Speaker 1: Ruby River rely on scattered lifelines for survival, a floating
Speaker 1: bridge that has to be dismantled for four months every
Speaker 1: year during months in season, A lone boat in the monsoons,
Speaker 1: a couple of empathetic boatmen. Around thirty people live in
Speaker 1: the cluster of seven villages known as Magora but Then,
Speaker 1: which include Thor Lascian, Rujport, Ceba, Baril, Caglee, Mami, Chakranga
Speaker 1: and Goodgard. On one side, the land is fenced by
Speaker 1: the Revie, a fierce river that separates it from the
Speaker 1: Indian mainland. On the other, miles of heavily guarded barbed
Speaker 1: wire and steel mesh fence partition it from Pakistan. I
Speaker 1: have always specialized in telling stories of the human condition,
Speaker 1: so you know, it was a very hot story to
Speaker 1: cover because that area is really remote. There is literally
Speaker 1: just one boat to you know, like crossover, and that
Speaker 1: also depends on how high the river is flowing. When
Speaker 1: Alanina was approached by the magazine, she wasn't sure if
Speaker 1: she was up for the job. She had just done
Speaker 1: a difficult story about vaccinations in rural areas. She was
Speaker 1: recovering from a third bout of COVID nineteen and she
Speaker 1: was doing promotions for her book Lies. Our mothers told
Speaker 1: us she was swamped at the end of it all.
Speaker 1: The story was so gripping, you know, seventy five years
Speaker 1: after independence, that you know, this was still the India,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the Indians, you know, that was
Speaker 1: still existing, was so so compelling that I honestly had
Speaker 1: to put aside all my reservations and I said, I'm going,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, this is not a story that
Speaker 1: I cannot not tell, you know, this is a story
Speaker 1: I have to tell. She mentioned that although the area
Speaker 1: she was visiting was a non confrontational border, she still
Speaker 1: faced a lot of issues were trying to get in
Speaker 1: even then because of the mere fact that this was
Speaker 1: the India Pakistan border. It was very, very difficult getting permission,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, We were running against the
Speaker 1: clock because the bridge was going to be dismantled, and
Speaker 1: first we wanted to be there, you know, when the
Speaker 1: bridge was being dismantled, but we didn't get the permission
Speaker 1: for that. After I think, you know, two or three
Speaker 1: weeks of struggling to get permission, we thought that this
Speaker 1: was not happening because once you know, monsoon started in earnest,
Speaker 1: then you know the river will flow and there was
Speaker 1: no point in going because we would not be able
Speaker 1: to cross. We could still do a story, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't do justice, you know, to the lives the people
Speaker 1: in those on Clive's lead, because you know, unless you
Speaker 1: experience what the experience, even though you know you're experiencing it,
Speaker 1: maybe you're like for a couple of days, three days,
Speaker 1: four days, you know, but still you have a taste
Speaker 1: of If this is so difficult for me for four days,
Speaker 1: just imagine this is a life that these people live
Speaker 1: every day now. Longina states in the article that life
Speaker 1: has remained unchanged since partition. Many issues remain. Roads are unpaved,
Speaker 1: primary schools are struggling, and there are no high schools
Speaker 1: or hospitals. In her article, she describes the daily pains
Speaker 1: residents must endure. To approach the villages from the shore.
Speaker 1: One has to carefully negotiate almost a mile of sandy
Speaker 1: and slippery river band which turns into much when it rains,
Speaker 1: giving way to unpaved and uneven stretches leading up to
Speaker 1: the various villages. The challenges of daily living here has
Speaker 1: intensified with the increasing frequency of extreme weather events due
Speaker 1: to climate change, especially flooding. A seventy year old farmer
Speaker 1: Jold sing is quoted saying, we are the forgotten people.
Speaker 1: The fear of getting caught in a crossfire between the
Speaker 1: two countries is always present. India and Pakistan have fought
Speaker 1: two full fledged wars since, as well as several minor
Speaker 1: skirmishes and a limited conflict and gargo in If another
Speaker 1: war breaks out, the residents fear they would have nowhere
Speaker 1: to run. We could be wiped off the face of
Speaker 1: the earth during the night and nobody would know before
Speaker 1: it's too late, Singh said. Despite running into problems with
Speaker 1: the Indian Border Security Force while shooting footage, Landona was
Speaker 1: able to get the story with some adjustments. She said.
Speaker 1: Planning and executing the story took a little less than
Speaker 1: twenty days. She drove ten hours from her home in
Speaker 1: Lily to the Punjab province. She stayed in a local
Speaker 1: army base called Patan Court. Every morning, the crew would
Speaker 1: set out at five am in order to reach the
Speaker 1: river by six am, the time when the first ferry
Speaker 1: departs on a good day. Sometimes, you know, we would
Speaker 1: just go and sit there, you know, because the water
Speaker 1: levels would be high and the boat wouldn't be you know, lying,
Speaker 1: and we would just sit there waiting, you know, along
Speaker 1: with the passengers, you know, talking to them so or
Speaker 1: just generally you know, just it was dropping on their conversations.
Speaker 1: It is the whole thing, you know, that community unit
Speaker 1: just depends on each other. So it it's such a
Speaker 1: community feeling that even if you're a new person, you've
Speaker 1: become a part of the community immediately because that's what
Speaker 1: they do. You know. They have so little to go
Speaker 1: on and their life is so full of struggles that
Speaker 1: they somehow, you know, like embrace you, you know, with
Speaker 1: an openness that is probably not possible you know in
Speaker 1: a city or even you know, in places you know,
Speaker 1: where life is easier. Nalandina had a total of five
Speaker 1: days to capture the experiences of these communities. She and
Speaker 1: the team gained assistance from locals in order to interview
Speaker 1: the residents at these sparsely populated areas. They had a
Speaker 1: rough first day they weren't really getting the stories they
Speaker 1: had envisioned, but on day too, she encountered a husband
Speaker 1: and wife Manjeeth and Regin there waiting for about so
Speaker 1: you know, like this couple was, you know, like they
Speaker 1: were legs waiting to cross, and she was carrying like
Speaker 1: this big shoot kind of a bag, you know, and
Speaker 1: I could see that she had food in the bag.
Speaker 1: So then I just you know, like approached him. Just
Speaker 1: you know, this was not planned or anything. I had
Speaker 1: no idea about who the guy was or what they
Speaker 1: were doing. I just you know, approached him out of
Speaker 1: this this instinct, you know, like some instinct, you know.
Speaker 1: And when I was talking to him, that's when the
Speaker 1: story just came out. So I said that, you know,
Speaker 1: are you going on the other side and he said, yes,
Speaker 1: we are going on the other SIP side said that
Speaker 1: what is that you know your wife is carrying and
Speaker 1: he said that, oh, it's food for us. So then
Speaker 1: I was intrigued. I was like, what do you mean
Speaker 1: you know, so do you have larned there? Right? And
Speaker 1: he said, yeah, you know, we go across every day.
Speaker 1: We have learned there. So you know, like she has
Speaker 1: got you know, like breakfast and lunch and my father
Speaker 1: is on the other side, so you know, We're going
Speaker 1: to go there the entire day, you know, work on
Speaker 1: the fields and then you know, I mean in the evening.
Speaker 1: And then I said that, you know, so you do
Speaker 1: this every day and he said, yes, we do this
Speaker 1: every day. We you know, like he lives around twenty
Speaker 1: kilometers away and he leaves home at around four am
Speaker 1: every morning to come to the boat stop. I want
Speaker 1: to take the boat you know, to the other side.
Speaker 1: For me, that was the first you know, like glimpse
Speaker 1: of the story I was going to tell that I had.
Speaker 1: When she tagged along with this couple, another angle of
Speaker 1: the story presented itself. It is a story about separation,
Speaker 1: you know, like a story about a border within a country.
Speaker 1: The people live in land that belongs to India. Part
Speaker 1: of the land is you know, on the Pakistan side,
Speaker 1: but they don't live there. You know, it's like just
Speaker 1: you know, land for cultivation. But they're still you know,
Speaker 1: like live on Indian land. But you know, the river
Speaker 1: Rugby is such a furious river that almost everyone I
Speaker 1: spoke to there told me the same thing that you know,
Speaker 1: this river is like, you know, it separates us from India.
Speaker 1: This is our border, you know for India. The order starts,
Speaker 1: you know, like from the border fences, but for us,
Speaker 1: you know, the border starts from here. So what came
Speaker 1: out on the second day is that you know, like
Speaker 1: the elderly have decided to stay back because they can't
Speaker 1: abandon the land. But you know, like they also know
Speaker 1: that they're the younger generation, like not their children, but
Speaker 1: their grandchildren. You don't have no future on that land.
Speaker 1: That land doesn't even have a primary health care center
Speaker 1: or anything. You know, there is like nothing there, you know,
Speaker 1: so they have what they have all done, you know,
Speaker 1: is that you know, they all bought land on the
Speaker 1: other side, which is you know, like the mainland Maka Patan.
Speaker 1: So the younger generation has moved there. Their children, you know,
Speaker 1: go to school, you know, like over there, they just
Speaker 1: you know, like come and go every day. Nol Angina
Speaker 1: goes on to say that the people who live in
Speaker 1: these small villages are lifelines for each other when the
Speaker 1: water rises that from the mainland in the night, you know,
Speaker 1: after seven o'clock when the boat stops back out off.
Speaker 1: So you know, even if there is a medical emergency,
Speaker 1: I mean they sometimes you know, the bass will help them,
Speaker 1: you know, like to probably get to the mainland. But
Speaker 1: you know, and and the boatman you know also because
Speaker 1: he's part of the community and he feels so bad
Speaker 1: for them. If they call him in an emergency, he'll come,
Speaker 1: you know, and despite you know it's being so dangerous
Speaker 1: in the night, you know, to take the boat. He
Speaker 1: is sometimes you know, he does take the boat, you know,
Speaker 1: to help you know, someone who's probably ill. So you know,
Speaker 1: there's this community feeling. You know that is literally you know,
Speaker 1: the lifeline of this community over here. And you know,
Speaker 1: like when you get on the boat, because there is
Speaker 1: no embankment, right so you know, like they have to
Speaker 1: struggle to get the boat and then you know, like
Speaker 1: the people who know wore pushing the boat, and even
Speaker 1: the boat is steered on the one end you know,
Speaker 1: by the boatman, but on the other end by the pass.
Speaker 1: Just so it's a very you know, like they do
Speaker 1: it together because you know it's they all are from
Speaker 1: the community. They have grown up. You know, this has
Speaker 1: been the life for you know, seventy five years, hundred years,
Speaker 1: you know, like as long you know, like as some
Speaker 1: of them can remember. So you know, like there is
Speaker 1: this community feeling because they understand that if nobody is
Speaker 1: there for them. You know, they have to make the
Speaker 1: best of you know, like whatever they have. That's how
Speaker 1: you know, like it's working there, she says, when visiting
Speaker 1: Macora Patan, you really see how this may may divide
Speaker 1: affects these people. Someone came there, measured the land and
Speaker 1: fenced it off. But the land they fenced off where
Speaker 1: some people's livelihood. Right, they've fenced it off without you know,
Speaker 1: paying heat to the fact that there is a furious
Speaker 1: river that flows by, that keeps on changing course, that
Speaker 1: floods a lot, and that you know, these communities would
Speaker 1: be totally cut off from the mainland. They created a border.
Speaker 1: They separated this community, you know, from the mainland from
Speaker 1: the Indian mainland, and didn't even provide them with the bridge.
Speaker 1: You know, a simple bridge can change the fortunes of
Speaker 1: this community. A simple bridge. You know, if you think
Speaker 1: about this five hamlets, there are people that they have lives,
Speaker 1: they have stories, they have lived lives. They have seen
Speaker 1: you know, the India Pakistan partition. They've seen India getting independent.
Speaker 1: They have had full lives. They have you know, lived,
Speaker 1: they have loved, they have lost, they have lost loved
Speaker 1: once because they didn't have a bridge. You know, women
Speaker 1: have died at childbirth because you know, they could not
Speaker 1: be taken to the hospital. And these are real stories,
Speaker 1: these are real people. Their stories should matter. Their stories
Speaker 1: should matter all of us, but their story should matter
Speaker 1: to our governments. In a world where we are boasting
Speaker 1: off immense technological you know, like innovation and advancement. This
Speaker 1: is the saddest story. The saddest story always belongs to
Speaker 1: human beings. The residents were tired of being abandoned, so
Speaker 1: they took a stand for the first time. You know,
Speaker 1: they have boycotted the elections, local elections. That's a huge
Speaker 1: thing because in India and probably in every you know,
Speaker 1: like developing nation or even developed nation. You know, policy
Speaker 1: is determined by the vote, vote back right, and if
Speaker 1: people are in a boycotting elections, that's a short way
Speaker 1: to get the retention. There has been a regime change
Speaker 1: in Punjab as well. You know, many ministers have visited
Speaker 1: that area and promised that up bridge would be built
Speaker 1: by the end of this year and hopefully, you know,
Speaker 1: we would have country. You take to the push a
Speaker 1: little bit me and saw me throughout story and hopefully
Speaker 1: you know, like there will be a bridge, you know,
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, No Londona and I
Speaker 1: are counting the days. The Pin Collective is a collaborative
Speaker 1: art space that seeks to bring together artists of all
Speaker 1: kinds across the border. It was founded by PhD candidate
Speaker 1: of Nanda and Vera and filmmaker ash Revere Ora. The
Speaker 1: name not only comes from the combination of India and Pakistan,
Speaker 1: but also the word pinned in Punjabi means neighborhood or village.
Speaker 1: In twenty thirteen, while at a college to pay competition
Speaker 1: of the visited Pakistan and it was there that a
Speaker 1: plan began to form. At the time, I don't think
Speaker 1: I thought about the weight of that experience or how
Speaker 1: difficult it was. But once I was there, Um, it
Speaker 1: was strange because it felt like I was visiting home.
Speaker 1: But obviously there were many ways in which it was different.
Speaker 1: There were all of these commonalities, whether cultural or social
Speaker 1: or linguistic, people with whom you know, I had so
Speaker 1: much in common. But at the same time I was
Speaker 1: aware that I had crossed the border and that I
Speaker 1: had traveled very far from home in a certain sense. Um,
Speaker 1: what was most striking for me, though, was that when
Speaker 1: I returned, when I made that journey back across Vaga,
Speaker 1: I returned with all of these friendships and these new
Speaker 1: connections that I hadn't even imagined were possible, but also
Speaker 1: the realization that short of crossing that physical border, there
Speaker 1: weren't very many opportunity to use for young people like
Speaker 1: myself to connect with young people across the border. And
Speaker 1: that sounds strange because as people who grow up on
Speaker 1: the Internet, who grew up digually connected and savvy, the
Speaker 1: assumption is that anybody that you want to speak to
Speaker 1: across the world is within reach, and that's really not
Speaker 1: true when it comes to India and Pakistan. When you
Speaker 1: think about the average Indian twenty something, they're not likely
Speaker 1: to have friends across the border, even though there are
Speaker 1: so many reasons for those friendships spaces. She quickly wanted
Speaker 1: to remedy this obstacle and create a space for like
Speaker 1: minded people to join her, regardless of theographical distance on
Speaker 1: the subcontinent. Put the next and speak and address for
Speaker 1: what we have in common and the past that lies
Speaker 1: behind us, as well as the possibilities that lie ahead
Speaker 1: of us, and initially was one of the participating artists
Speaker 1: that I was keen to work with at the very
Speaker 1: big ning of the project. But what I quickly realized
Speaker 1: was that we were very compatible in terms of our
Speaker 1: working styles and that he would be wonderful advision to
Speaker 1: the team. But also that with a project like this,
Speaker 1: more hands is always better, and the more space that
Speaker 1: is for collaboration and different viewpoints, the further the project
Speaker 1: can travel. Really, so I invited him to join and
Speaker 1: very kindly agreed, And that was the stuff. Ash remembers
Speaker 1: listening to stories from his grandmother, which not only inspired
Speaker 1: his role in the Pin Collective, but also as a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: For me, as a storytell over, I used to spend
Speaker 1: summer vacations with her growing up, and before going to sleep,
Speaker 1: she used to tell me stories of her time in
Speaker 1: Pakistan and what should remember the bit as a man
Speaker 1: look the story of when she worked on foot from
Speaker 1: Pakistan to India, when the when the partisher happened, and
Speaker 1: sort of the encounters she faced on the journey to
Speaker 1: India as well as what it was like to finding India.
Speaker 1: And she went on and on, and I with the
Speaker 1: perfect audience for it. So I think those stories in
Speaker 1: particular inspired my interest in a lot of the work
Speaker 1: that ended up doing with the collective as well as
Speaker 1: UH in the field of documentary. General or of my
Speaker 1: work personally tries to extore the idea of home and
Speaker 1: belong in separation. I grew up listening to all of
Speaker 1: those stories from my grandmother, and around the time the
Speaker 1: pain Collector began, when we were also starting to realize
Speaker 1: that we were very quickly using the generation that experienced
Speaker 1: the partition first hand. My grandmother included all I have
Speaker 1: is like memories of her telling the stories as drawing up,
Speaker 1: but I felt a sense of urgency wanting to crystallize
Speaker 1: some of those stories and passed them on Army wanted
Speaker 1: to more detail about their project. So the way the
Speaker 1: collective works is, the core that runs through all of
Speaker 1: the projects we do is one of collective work. So
Speaker 1: in the earlier editions of our project, we would pick
Speaker 1: a theme, so say home or resistance, and we would
Speaker 1: leave that theme open to reputation. And the artists who
Speaker 1: participate in our projects from all sorts of disciplines, so
Speaker 1: we have dancers, photographers, writers, poets, and the idea is
Speaker 1: that they look at that central theme and try to
Speaker 1: understand how it resonates with them and bringing to the
Speaker 1: table a piece of work that they think best macapsulates
Speaker 1: what the means to them, and from there we begin
Speaker 1: a process of response where he charges through the piece
Speaker 1: from the other side of the border and response to that.
Speaker 1: So what you have at the end is a collection
Speaker 1: of works and coverzation with from another participlants across orders
Speaker 1: that really allow you to look at the central idea
Speaker 1: to something a simple as home and talk about what
Speaker 1: that means in various registers and in various mediums. So,
Speaker 1: for instance, the home, we have ideas of the body
Speaker 1: and how we feel at home in the body. You
Speaker 1: have ideas of lost forms and what that means. When
Speaker 1: you have the idea of my creation and travel, and
Speaker 1: so having a process where there is a sense of
Speaker 1: trust in the artists and open endedness to you know,
Speaker 1: how you operate, we find leads to end results that
Speaker 1: supplies us in all the best ways. Because it's the
Speaker 1: focus of your project is diversity and a range of
Speaker 1: approaches and a range of expressions. Then having just one
Speaker 1: step central to it and then allowing that to go
Speaker 1: where it goes, we found organically leads to very interesting
Speaker 1: re selves. That's one mode that we've used in the
Speaker 1: various word just that we've run this process allowed the
Speaker 1: collective to make more collaborative projects. So for instance, we
Speaker 1: have the project to which translates to how far, which
Speaker 1: essentially fed up one office from India and one office
Speaker 1: from Pakistan mid pandemic to consider what it means to recastly.
Speaker 1: This made this means politically because you know they're operating
Speaker 1: in a decline. It and believes of industry remind us,
Speaker 1: but also within the pandemic to think about what bustans
Speaker 1: meant there, and we created a series of games there
Speaker 1: that responded to that theme. So the project, you know,
Speaker 1: evolves over time, but with each edition works remain. Central
Speaker 1: is this idea of collaboration and also this idea of
Speaker 1: letting it be artistic and letting it free participant pism
Speaker 1: like several previous guests are, and any feel like they
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to get these stories out there. One
Speaker 1: of my takeaways from this has been in the India
Speaker 1: Pakistan context specifically, there's an inherited that there's a trauma
Speaker 1: that we've inherited and that's been passed on through us
Speaker 1: through a little in the third generation since the partition, uh,
Speaker 1: and we've we've had a very limited vocabulary to sort
Speaker 1: of help express what that drama is and help process it,
Speaker 1: given that, like i'ven you mentioned, there's been such limited
Speaker 1: avenues for us to even acknowledge that drama likes to
Speaker 1: have conversations each other across the border in a way
Speaker 1: that might help process it, or might help navigate through
Speaker 1: the challenges of being who we are and the living
Speaker 1: through having lived through that demoil with the past, but
Speaker 1: also navigating to sort of very fraught political relationships that
Speaker 1: our countries have. And what better way to do it,
Speaker 1: and what better doing is to try and sort of
Speaker 1: I get through those very complicated landscapes than to rely
Speaker 1: on story. I'm sure calls a few favorite memories from
Speaker 1: the collective. A couple of my favorite moments of the
Speaker 1: last couple of years that have come from interactions at
Speaker 1: the Pin Collective A bit This one time, after my
Speaker 1: I filmed my interview with my grandmother, one of the
Speaker 1: artists from Pakistan sort of ammuciately identified with a lot
Speaker 1: of what she was fearing in my grandmother's story and
Speaker 1: related it to the story that her color told her
Speaker 1: growing up that was so touched by my grandmother and
Speaker 1: saw her grandmother and in my nanny in a way
Speaker 1: that inspired her to create an artwork that that encapsulated
Speaker 1: my grandmother's journey from Pakistan to India, and that connection
Speaker 1: was able to break through sort of that one or
Speaker 1: one interaction between just me and Sanna Gratis, but also
Speaker 1: impacked and very meaningful ways. Uh. My grandmother then ended
Speaker 1: up recording a message for son. I am able to
Speaker 1: that connection, however brief in a way that I know
Speaker 1: my grandmother now has that artwork movement continues to the
Speaker 1: data every morning. Um So I think like the importance
Speaker 1: of those connections, so it sort of really what's worth it.
Speaker 1: Another favorite moment of mine and the favorites of outcome
Speaker 1: of a lot of these intellactions. It's been two artists
Speaker 1: who worked on a scene together in anet up and
Speaker 1: that scene end up being about their neighborhoods. This was
Speaker 1: part of the Kidney Do a project that acting was
Speaker 1: reflective the move and too through over the course of
Speaker 1: that project and describing their neighborhoods to each other and
Speaker 1: what it's like to live the cities that they live in.
Speaker 1: People they do did not just form upon that lasted
Speaker 1: over the course of that project, but every couple of
Speaker 1: months I see them wishing each other on Instagram and
Speaker 1: it's a it's a resilient connection that it's stayed on
Speaker 1: beyond that particular interaction that they had posit the confines
Speaker 1: of the PIN collectives. So I feel like being able
Speaker 1: to establish those long lasting relationships and then through the
Speaker 1: artwork we put out into the world, hopefully invoking conversations
Speaker 1: between the audiences and hope pay hopefully having them identify
Speaker 1: with a lot of the stories you're trying to tell
Speaker 1: a lot of fine friends something that resonates. I think
Speaker 1: it's the goal, and hopefully clergy a bit of that
Speaker 1: of the last. Of course, the pair of stress that
Speaker 1: having images of partition outside of those from the papers
Speaker 1: and news stories is vital. They want to connect these
Speaker 1: stories in emotion and not a few quick bullet points.
Speaker 1: I couldn't help but ask what future they saw for
Speaker 1: India and Pakistan. It's a hard question. You're not wrong, um,
Speaker 1: I think it's a very difficult trajectory to charge to
Speaker 1: try to understand where we go from here. On a
Speaker 1: personal level, I think, UM, I have a lot of
Speaker 1: hope when it comes to, for instance, other people, you wait,
Speaker 1: people doing incredible work across the border, whether documentary or artistic.
Speaker 1: There's a real sense, I think, both in India and
Speaker 1: Pakistan that what we have in common is is worth preserving.
Speaker 1: I think art and the personal is where I see
Speaker 1: most space for connection, simply because and I'm a going Unshire,
Speaker 1: because there's room for depth, and there's room for accessibility
Speaker 1: for the personal, for understanding, for complication, a lot of
Speaker 1: which is a rays. When it comes to political conversation,
Speaker 1: I think the culture of artul countries is likely to
Speaker 1: be really is two people a lot of conference, just
Speaker 1: because the political is hard to charge and it's hard
Speaker 1: to control. I think for a very long time victims
Speaker 1: or survivors of partisans have had typicular relationships with that experience,
Speaker 1: but a lot of love and a lot of fondness
Speaker 1: and a deep connection with where they came from, something
Speaker 1: that's not always acknowledged when we think about how differently
Speaker 1: and as a political concept for about it is a
Speaker 1: difficult concept. Um. I think our identities spent far beyond
Speaker 1: geographical boundaries, and we'll continue to do so. And I
Speaker 1: hope honestly that projects like our own continue to multiply
Speaker 1: so that it's not exceptional for people. And I decided
Speaker 1: the border to be speaking, it's not exceptional or projects
Speaker 1: that cars to be connecting people because that's been knowing.
Speaker 1: So that's the peple that I hope for. Empathy the
Speaker 1: skill I think every person needs to possess. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: ignore events happening in our backyard or other places because
Speaker 1: we think it has nothing to do with us. This
Speaker 1: idea of an ease when it comes to the other
Speaker 1: isn't specific to India and Pakistan. Many countries do not
Speaker 1: want citizens from other countries that don't look like them.
Speaker 1: For example, the treatment of Syrian refugees differed immensely from
Speaker 1: Ukrainian refugees. There has been a rapid rise of nationalism
Speaker 1: among many countries, including the UK and the United States.
Speaker 1: Children are still being separated from their families, Hateful legislation
Speaker 1: continues to be created to erase marginalized communities, and there
Speaker 1: are large amounts of misinformation when it comes to a
Speaker 1: variety of topics like elections and immigration policy. In order
Speaker 1: to have empathy, we need to go beyond sixty two
Speaker 1: TV clips or breaking news articles and learn about these
Speaker 1: issues more deeply. There is no one piece of material
Speaker 1: that can encompass an entire major historical event and every
Speaker 1: detail that comes with it, whether it is a film, book,
Speaker 1: or podcast. As a creator, my goal with this show
Speaker 1: is to highlight Partition in relation to memories, lesser known stories,
Speaker 1: and it's continuing effects after seventy five years, but there
Speaker 1: is so much more to discover. I encourage everyone to
Speaker 1: look into the numerous examples mentioned and to continue your
Speaker 1: journey with Partition. Read one of the books we quoted from,
Speaker 1: look at the Partition archive and watch other experiences, or
Speaker 1: visit pretheca's art installations online or in person. You can
Speaker 1: find a list of all of our sources linked in
Speaker 1: the show notes. Look into your family's history and have
Speaker 1: a chat with your relatives. If partition is something that
Speaker 1: you didn't know much about, ask yourself what else you
Speaker 1: may not know. Share your understanding and realizations with others.
Speaker 1: There is no highline on learning or changing our perspectives
Speaker 1: when we obtain new information. The simple willingness of wanting
Speaker 1: to investigate stories and histories outside of what we already
Speaker 1: know is incredibly powerful. I am eternally grateful to you
Speaker 1: for listening, thank you for giving me your time and
Speaker 1: attention these past ten weeks, and I sincerely hope I'll
Speaker 1: be back soon with more underrepresented stories. Until we meet again,
Speaker 1: I'm Nahasis and this is Partition. Partition was developed as
Speaker 1: a part of the Next Up initiative created by Anna Hosnier,
Speaker 1: Joel Monique and Seni A median. Partition is produced by
Speaker 1: Anna Hosnier, Tricia Mukerjee and Becca Ramos. It is edited
Speaker 1: by Rory Gagan, with the original score composed by Mark Hadley.
Speaker 1: The in