Speaker 1: Before this week's episode, I wanted to take a moment
Speaker 1: to let y'all know about the devastating floods happening in
Speaker 1: Pakistan right now. Over thirty million people have been affected,
Speaker 1: with the death toll around eleven hundred and rising with
Speaker 1: every passing day. Entire buildings are being washed away, with
Speaker 1: many people sustaining injuries. I encourage every listener to donate
Speaker 1: any amount they can to help alleviate this disaster. You
Speaker 1: can find a list of organizations to send funds to
Speaker 1: linked in the show notes. These stories had to be
Speaker 1: the thing with saud Asia and many other ancient cultures
Speaker 1: of the world is that all our histories are all
Speaker 1: While there is such a beauty in these older traditions,
Speaker 1: there is also real fear that these stories will get
Speaker 1: lost if they're not driking down. I really felt that
Speaker 1: that I didn't want these nuances to be raced. I
Speaker 1: wanted to where do you go if you want to
Speaker 1: pay tribute to someone? Most people would visit a specific
Speaker 1: place like a grave, a memorial, or a site that
Speaker 1: has been well preserved for visitors. But what if you
Speaker 1: don't have any of those places at your disposal? Neither
Speaker 1: India nor Pakistan have any memorials dedicated to partition. There
Speaker 1: is no communal place to reflect on this grief. One
Speaker 1: of the only ways we can ensure that memories and
Speaker 1: stories of those who went through this very distressing event
Speaker 1: don't get lost is by preserving their oral histories. Children
Speaker 1: and grandchildren of partition survivors took it upon themselves to
Speaker 1: start asking questions, recording interviews, and writing down stories that
Speaker 1: their elders told them. It became clear that if they
Speaker 1: didn't note these histories, no one else would. From I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, I'm Najazi's and This is Partition, a podcast
Speaker 1: that will take a closer look into this often forgotten
Speaker 1: part of history. My grandparents from my father's side, my
Speaker 1: paternal grandparents and my dad when he was a baby,
Speaker 1: they migrated from Lahore to what is now India in
Speaker 1: ninety seven and it was a forced migration. It wasn't
Speaker 1: something that they wanted to do, but you know, like
Speaker 1: millions of people, they were uprooted from their home and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I grew up in India. The first ten
Speaker 1: years of my life. I was an army kid, so
Speaker 1: I lived in a lot of different places, including Gemmuine, Kashmi.
Speaker 1: That's Dr Gunita Singh Bala, the founder of the ninety
Speaker 1: seven Partition an Archive. You may recall her telling us
Speaker 1: about the vast differences between what she learned about partition
Speaker 1: from her family versus what she learned from school from
Speaker 1: episode two. This discrepancy is something that has stayed with
Speaker 1: her for decades. When conned the travel to Japan to
Speaker 1: conduct research for her PhD, she visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial.
Speaker 1: It was here that she was inspired to document the
Speaker 1: stories of her family and community in an archive. We
Speaker 1: had read books in high school about the history of
Speaker 1: the atomic bombing of Japan and so on, But when
Speaker 1: you hear from survivors, it really fits you in a
Speaker 1: different way because you connect with it on a human level.
Speaker 1: You hear it in their voice, you see it in
Speaker 1: their expressions, you hear how it impacted their very human lives.
Speaker 1: She quickly understood this way of storytelling is one that
Speaker 1: demands attention. It is not something that could easily be
Speaker 1: swept under the road. I realized in that moment that
Speaker 1: you know the power of witness testimony, that we needed
Speaker 1: to hear the story of partition directly from people who
Speaker 1: lived through it, because if I said something like I
Speaker 1: did to my school teacher was dismissed very easily. But
Speaker 1: when my grandmother, who lived through it, she told it differently.
Speaker 1: She told it through every form of expression available to
Speaker 1: Herder is very instinctive because she had lived through it,
Speaker 1: and you can't really deny that. You know, this was
Speaker 1: Goanitas Aha moment. I sort of casually started recording stories
Speaker 1: on a trip to Punjab in two thousand nine. People
Speaker 1: thought it was insane, like really strange what I was doing.
Speaker 1: People who had witnessed it started to line up and
Speaker 1: it was like, Oh, there's a need, like people want
Speaker 1: to tell their story. Ever since then, Guanita has been
Speaker 1: devoted to collecting these memories. Through this work, she's realized
Speaker 1: that every moment is fleeting. In two nine, I finished
Speaker 1: my pH d and I moved to Berkeley to do
Speaker 1: my post talk and in a family member that I
Speaker 1: was going to interview the last member of my family
Speaker 1: in that nineties age group. I forgot my camera when
Speaker 1: I meant to go talk to him before I came
Speaker 1: back a couple of months later with my camera, he died.
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, this is a wake up call
Speaker 1: like I have lost the adult version of my story
Speaker 1: or in my family, but there are millions of other
Speaker 1: families out there who still have this memory of partisition
Speaker 1: and it needs to be documented for the world forgets.
Speaker 1: She said. It was overwhelming and overpowering, and there was
Speaker 1: nothing that was going to stop her. Every cell in
Speaker 1: my body was committed into making this happen. At this time,
Speaker 1: Counta had a strenuous career as an experimental condensed matter
Speaker 1: physicist at UC Berkeley. She was working constantly, but somehow
Speaker 1: she was still able to find time to look for
Speaker 1: objects to interview. Somehow, I was finding time to go
Speaker 1: and table at mosques and Mondays and Goodwias in the
Speaker 1: Bay Area, and people were lining up to sign up
Speaker 1: to tell their story. She realized she needed to enlist
Speaker 1: people to help her if she wanted to keep up
Speaker 1: with the demand. So I started speaking at student clubs
Speaker 1: at various South Asian groups. You know, I was new
Speaker 1: to the barrier. I didn't know anyone, which I think
Speaker 1: really helped because I didn't have that fear of judgment,
Speaker 1: you know. I kind of just started doing this stuff.
Speaker 1: So that's how our initial teams were formed, and it
Speaker 1: was just um. You know, there was a lot of obstacles,
Speaker 1: but I think when you are so drunk on an
Speaker 1: idea and you're so absolutely committed and you feel it
Speaker 1: to your core, nothing can stop you. So that's how
Speaker 1: it happened. And I was working around the clock. She
Speaker 1: recalls her home turning into a library in a way.
Speaker 1: She had a lot of video and recording equipment from
Speaker 1: a variety of places. Sometimes people would stop by and
Speaker 1: borrow tape recorders and other equipment from her to record
Speaker 1: oral histories of people they knew. Knita spent hours and
Speaker 1: hours digitizing all the tapes she collected. So my computer
Speaker 1: was running seven UM. So that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1: We started teaching in order to you know, the idea
Speaker 1: was the crowdsource. Basically, the idea was that you can
Speaker 1: use the internet to get support from other people to
Speaker 1: solve big problems. So I was like, well, why don't
Speaker 1: we do that, Why don't we come together to document partition?
Speaker 1: So we collaborated with MUC Berkeley's Regional Oral History Office
Speaker 1: and UM learned how to conduct oral histories properly, developed
Speaker 1: training modules, and you know, I had a lot of
Speaker 1: teaching experience in other fields, but it was very easy
Speaker 1: to adapt that to oral history. She created a webinar
Speaker 1: where thousands of people all over the world could take
Speaker 1: a course and learn how to record these histories. What
Speaker 1: was originally a side project turned into a fully fledged organization.
Speaker 1: We've documented stories from I believe fourteen or fifteen countries
Speaker 1: at this point, more than five hundred cities and villages,
Speaker 1: thirty six languages, over ten thousand oral histories of partition,
Speaker 1: which was our founding goal. To showcase the magnitude of
Speaker 1: what Kunita created, I'm going to walk you through the website.
Speaker 1: Once you reach the Partition Archive, you're showing a map
Speaker 1: that is incredibly interactive. You can see where people migrated from,
Speaker 1: where they migrated to their current city. You can zoom
Speaker 1: in on different areas, and you can see the number
Speaker 1: of stories that are located in each city and village.
Speaker 1: It's truly truly in heat a bowl. Within moments, you
Speaker 1: have thousands of stories of partition survivors at your fingertips.
Speaker 1: That being said, one unfortunate and common reality of partition
Speaker 1: is that many people are still looking for siblings, friends,
Speaker 1: and other loved ones whom they were separated from back
Speaker 1: in ninety seven, I asked Anita if she came across
Speaker 1: any stories like this. Yes, we have connected lots and
Speaker 1: lots of brothers and sisters, friends and family and cousins
Speaker 1: who were separated in so that's been part of our
Speaker 1: work for a decade now. Interestingly, I had documented this man,
Speaker 1: l Bano. I had documented his grandmother's story in the
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay area, and he was really inspired by
Speaker 1: what we were doing. The man wanted these interviews to
Speaker 1: be put up on YouTube, but the archive was unable
Speaker 1: to do that at that time. In this discussion, I
Speaker 1: told her about an article I read earlier in the
Speaker 1: Washington Post about two brothers who are reunited after seventy
Speaker 1: four years, and in a lovely and surprising twist, the
Speaker 1: same man she mentioned helped create the same YouTube channel
Speaker 1: that showcase the brothers meeting again. He actually started his
Speaker 1: own channel. It's called Punjabi Lahire. It's a live thing.
Speaker 1: They go when they talk to people who migrated in
Speaker 1: the same thing as us, but they focus only on
Speaker 1: pun job and they do it live. And it's not
Speaker 1: like the rigular squirrel history, if you will, it's more
Speaker 1: like a conversation and uh, you know, like a little
Speaker 1: TV show where they visit. It's a beautiful thing that
Speaker 1: they've done well. Friends and family being reunited after decades
Speaker 1: is a wonderful thing to see. These moments are constantly
Speaker 1: plagued by the unmaleable borders of India and Pakistan. India
Speaker 1: and Pakistan have a very complex relationship with each other
Speaker 1: because of the lasting legacy of partition. It is still
Speaker 1: near impos sable today for Pakistan needs to visit India
Speaker 1: and for Indians to visit Pakistan. The wounds of still
Speaker 1: run very deep. Goodita and I really commiserate over this
Speaker 1: in my twenties when I was like traveling all over
Speaker 1: the world for conferences during this enough for my academic
Speaker 1: work and even in general, you know, just for fun.
Speaker 1: I was really floored by the fact that it was
Speaker 1: so easy for me to travel everywhere except Pakistan. That's
Speaker 1: like the motherland, that's where we're all from. She was
Speaker 1: a lot more composed in our conversation than I was,
Speaker 1: but we came to a hopeful thought. Perhaps with a
Speaker 1: number of oral history projects out there and the more
Speaker 1: stories of reunions coming out, there is a slight glimmer
Speaker 1: that maybe slowly, but surely, these walls and barriers will
Speaker 1: come down. Now we have people who made the effort
Speaker 1: to open up that recorridor. People are starting to take
Speaker 1: small step up and I think projects like ours and
Speaker 1: others are helping to break those boundaries. Finally, the Cathar
Speaker 1: Pork Corridor is home to a sea holy site that
Speaker 1: is on the Bakistani side of the border. It's it's
Speaker 1: only three miles from India and it wasn't until two
Speaker 1: that the area became a visa free crossing. This corridor
Speaker 1: was the only way the aforementioned brothers could physically meet.
Speaker 1: I think if we keep working at it, all of
Speaker 1: us in our generation, I think we can help you
Speaker 1: praise some of these tensions which really don't need to
Speaker 1: be there if you really dig deep. At the top
Speaker 1: of the episode, the voice you heard was of author
Speaker 1: and oral historian until Molotra. She acknowledged her fear about
Speaker 1: these stories disappearing if there wasn't a record of them anywhere.
Speaker 1: Over many years, she has talked to numerous people about
Speaker 1: partition and their memories associated with it, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: until two thirteen she thought to start writing a book
Speaker 1: called Remnants of Partition twenty one objects from a continent divided.
Speaker 1: It might seem strange to some that I have written
Speaker 1: a book about mere objects carried across the border, when
Speaker 1: I could very well have written about the enormity of
Speaker 1: memory and experience that survives. And I must admit that
Speaker 1: at times during my interviews I did feel uncomfortable and
Speaker 1: perhaps even petty, to be continually asking about things people
Speaker 1: brought when clearly they had witnessed so much horror along
Speaker 1: the path to safety. But still I would persist, what
Speaker 1: did you bring? How much did you bring? How did
Speaker 1: you bring it? What did you leave behind? Why? These things? Things? Things, things.
Speaker 1: I have learned to say things in so many different languages.
Speaker 1: It alarms me. But I will say this that continuing
Speaker 1: to remember clearly as very difficult. And so my entry
Speaker 1: point into the memory of that time remains the material object,
Speaker 1: the personal possession. It is still my main gateway and
Speaker 1: the life before it fabrics and documents and soil and
Speaker 1: stones and touch and smell and caress. In October, Unto
Speaker 1: was on sabbatical from grad school and returned to India.
Speaker 1: One of her friends mentioned to her that he was
Speaker 1: writing about old houses in billy. He was interested in
Speaker 1: visiting Until's nanas her maternal grandfather's home phrase project Manana's
Speaker 1: eldest brother. I remember he left the room and he
Speaker 1: came back with an array of objects, and he said
Speaker 1: that if you have to talk about the past, then
Speaker 1: you know these objects are also old, and you must
Speaker 1: talk about them as well. And two objects from that pile,
Speaker 1: which were a medium sized vessel in which Lessie has
Speaker 1: made out and a yardstick or the gas, had been
Speaker 1: carried by his family from lower to Lizza, and they
Speaker 1: were obviously by five and older than the house Pap
Speaker 1: was standing in. And I had never seen those objects before.
Speaker 1: They were so ordinary, so mundane, and there was nothing
Speaker 1: exceptional about it, except for the stories that emerged when
Speaker 1: he began touching the object, caressing it, talking about it.
Speaker 1: It's like he remembered his childhood in law. He remembered
Speaker 1: the gully, remembered eating chilgos as, he remembered drinking the
Speaker 1: kind of you know, what makes a giant. He remembered
Speaker 1: what the house looks like. He remembered his father using
Speaker 1: the yard stick in their clothing store. He remembered their
Speaker 1: mother making lesstie in the girl, and it was just
Speaker 1: such a visceral transportation. Uncle's words brought me back to
Speaker 1: the conversation I had with my mom in episode one,
Speaker 1: where she said she would take a photo of her
Speaker 1: family an object that couldn't easily be replaced. I often
Speaker 1: think about what my family members brought with them, A newspaper,
Speaker 1: a book, a piece from a school uniform. I can
Speaker 1: only really wonder since my living grandparents don't remember what
Speaker 1: they brought after seventy five years have passed. When I
Speaker 1: saw the item question from home, I asked myself, what
Speaker 1: would I have brought if I was in this position.
Speaker 1: From time to time this question pops up in my
Speaker 1: head and I still don't have any idea. So I
Speaker 1: just had never considered objects to be photos of the past,
Speaker 1: which of course they are, you know, the mini you
Speaker 1: infuse them with memories, and I think that kind of
Speaker 1: unfolding of the past that happened that afternoon, I couldn't
Speaker 1: forget it, and I kept thinking about what people carry.
Speaker 1: Actually that was the first thought, like what did they carry?
Speaker 1: And how could they carry things? And you know, if
Speaker 1: you're leaving your home at a moment's notice, one of
Speaker 1: the things that you take what is valuable to you
Speaker 1: emotionally or monetary. What do you carry? And so I
Speaker 1: basically started a small exercise for myself and Danny, asking
Speaker 1: refugees when migrated at the time of partition what they carried.
Speaker 1: One of the chapters and Remnants of Partition is devoted
Speaker 1: to Anto's grandmother, Bubma Lochra, who speaks of a piece
Speaker 1: of druy that belonged to her mother. I showed you then,
Speaker 1: but almost forgot that. My mother brought one other thing
Speaker 1: with her all the way from the French til it
Speaker 1: was the only thing She made sure to take it,
Speaker 1: and now it is with me. But you have seen
Speaker 1: it already many times. This was once a month taka,
Speaker 1: something to be worn on the head. The stones are
Speaker 1: peculiar to the frontier and upon only in that region.
Speaker 1: My mother received it as a wedding gift from her
Speaker 1: mother in law, and I believe it had been in
Speaker 1: my father's family for quite a while before that. But
Speaker 1: what I remember, she never worried after her wedding sermon,
Speaker 1: just looked at it from time to time. When she
Speaker 1: left Pakistan, though, she made sure to bring it because
Speaker 1: she thought she could send it and get some money
Speaker 1: to raise and educate us. I remember her telling us
Speaker 1: how she had tied it within the codes of her
Speaker 1: clothes for fear of being robbed on a way to Delhi,
Speaker 1: which was precious. It would have brought us a happy
Speaker 1: sum even at that time, but I don't think she
Speaker 1: could have parted with it, and in a way, this
Speaker 1: piece of jury was the only thing that remained of
Speaker 1: her leg Once again, the subject of the borders came
Speaker 1: up in addition to being an author until co created
Speaker 1: the Museum of Material Memory with her friend Navva Malocha.
Speaker 1: This online depository shares the same idea of objects telling stories.
Speaker 1: So as I was working on recording stories of objects,
Speaker 1: many people who started getting in touch with me that
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with partition, but had aged objects
Speaker 1: in their home. And these objects were sometimes even used,
Speaker 1: you know, like you tensity in the kitchen, or fabrics
Speaker 1: that had been fast down the generation that was still worn,
Speaker 1: and they would ask me to come and write stories
Speaker 1: about this. But I started thinking firstly about the accessibility
Speaker 1: of the archives. You know, I am based in India,
Speaker 1: but I would love for things to be seen by everybody.
Speaker 1: And by everybody I mean Indians in the diaspora, Pakistani's,
Speaker 1: Bangladesh's the dietspor of those two countries, nepolis of Ghanies,
Speaker 1: people from Sri Lanka. How would you do that? And
Speaker 1: the other thing I started thinking about was wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be great if people started archiving stories of their objects
Speaker 1: on their own. She emphasizes that intergenerational stories unrelated to
Speaker 1: partition are just as important for the public to know.
Speaker 1: Much like Pertica's work from last week's episode, the idea
Speaker 1: of accessibility and resonating with one another across borders is
Speaker 1: a vital Then I think that by doing that, we
Speaker 1: not only are able to encompass obviously more of the
Speaker 1: geographic diversity, but also include, you know, those kinds of
Speaker 1: communities that really want impacted by partition, but who histories
Speaker 1: have also gone and recorded. And I think the object
Speaker 1: is a great way to enter into something that is
Speaker 1: relatively unknown because you have something tangible in your hand
Speaker 1: with a region whose borders continue to be so tenuinue.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the digital is really a gift because it is
Speaker 1: borderless and it allows us to converse. Really, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: the internet can be a really harmful place in that
Speaker 1: sense as well, but I think for us it was
Speaker 1: really a gift because the common section of the archive
Speaker 1: is really beautiful because people find I suppose the aspects
Speaker 1: of themselves and other people's objects, or my mother had
Speaker 1: something like that, or how intested Can you tell me
Speaker 1: where you're from? My grandfather migrated from that place, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think it was really about storytelling through the objects.
Speaker 1: You can't walk on the soil of your ancestors because
Speaker 1: of this border. There are a lot of obstacles standing
Speaker 1: between you and your history. But I think the great
Speaker 1: paradox of partition also is when Indians in Pakistani's meat overseas,
Speaker 1: and how they immediately relate to one another and they
Speaker 1: feel like they're speaking to their own. You know, I
Speaker 1: am Indian and you are Pakistani Maia, but I know
Speaker 1: so many nas that I dove and I have. I
Speaker 1: feel like you are one of my own because you
Speaker 1: relate to what I say, you understand my language, you
Speaker 1: can pronounce my name in the right way. We have
Speaker 1: shared history, which ultimately also means we have shared things,
Speaker 1: which eventually, I hope, over the years, will mean we
Speaker 1: can have shared reconciliation. It was at this point that
Speaker 1: I began to cry. Unhel touched upon the truth that
Speaker 1: I'm sure Indians and Pakistani's must know to be universal,
Speaker 1: is that there is so much more that unites us
Speaker 1: than divides us. I told her that I don't consider
Speaker 1: myself a pessimist. I may be more of a realist.
Speaker 1: But the light and optimism that Antil possesses on a
Speaker 1: soy made me reconsider the mentality I have for my
Speaker 1: everyday life. I think it's very easy to be quite
Speaker 1: sad about what has happened in the past, but partition,
Speaker 1: it can teach us less for the future. It can
Speaker 1: teach us how we want to live in the present,
Speaker 1: what kind of future we want to have for our children.
Speaker 1: And I know that the work I'm doing it may
Speaker 1: not make a difference, because one book cannot really make
Speaker 1: a difference. But you know, many writers together, many artists together, musicians, dances, choreographers, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: a cultural movement can make a difference. You see Miss
Speaker 1: Marvel in Hollywood and you feel seen. You feel like
Speaker 1: the pain that you may not have been able to
Speaker 1: voice ever has found the voice and you feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is my story. When I watched Miss Marvel, I'm
Speaker 1: not Pakistani I'm not an immigrant. I don't live in America.
Speaker 1: But everything that Kamala lived through, that can with how history.
Speaker 1: Being in garages, speaking to her grandmother, trying to make
Speaker 1: new associations with this catastrophic event that she has not
Speaker 1: lived through but has defined the generations of her family.
Speaker 1: I related to that. I think that you know, empathy
Speaker 1: is borderless. You don't need to be Indian Pakistani to
Speaker 1: be able to empathize. One of my interview is said
Speaker 1: to me that governments divide far easier than people. I
Speaker 1: think it's true. Next time on Partition, I spoke to
Speaker 1: Shanty Dungary about how he escaped from Lahore to Kashmir.
Speaker 1: In He shared an abundance of herring memories with me.
Speaker 1: So I would listen to the radio, read the newspaper,
Speaker 1: and there were articles about the fire and down down Lahore.
Speaker 1: In con we started wadding about what's going to happen
Speaker 1: men of your summer lives until next week. I'm nass
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 Sina Median. Partition is produced by Anna Hosnier,
Speaker 1: Tricia Mukerjee and Becca Ramos. It is edited by Rory Gagan,
Speaker 1: with the original score composed by Mark Hadley.