‘I wish I could see my house once before I die’

Reena Chabarvarma (Toshi aunty) who lives in Pune, India, will turn 90 next year, but even after 74 years of partition, her heart is lost in the memories of Rawalpindi.

With the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, millions of people had to migrate from this region. Even today, the memories of our home, locality and region make the hearts of millions restless.

Born in Rawalpindi on January 1932, Reena Verma belongs to an educated and enlightened family. His father was an officer in the British government.

Before partition, his residence in Rawalpindi was on Dev College Road. which had Company Garden and Gordon College. Now known as Liaquat Bagh and Liaquat Road, he passed his matriculation examination at the age of 14 from Modern School Rawalpindi.

Reminiscing the memories of her time, Pandi says, everyone lived there with love. Some of the Muslims and Hindus who met did not think it was right to eat and drink in each other’s houses.

But most people did not give importance to these things. She still remembers her elder sister’s friend Ghulam Fatima and her brother’s friend Shabir who used to meet and eat and drink in the house as if it was their own house.

We always read in textbooks how Muslim families were speared in riots. But these riots were not one-sided. Hindus and Sikhs also faced similar riots and attacks.

Toshi aunty tells that from February March 1947 riots also started in Rawalpindi. At that time, the streets were guarded alternately.

In the larger part of a house, a place was made for the whole neighborhood so that everyone would gather in one place when the miscreants attacked. The people in the houses where there were daughters were very worried.

An army major took her and other girls from the neighborhood to a military camp and returned home after a few days when the situation improved.

A few days later, Toshi Aunty’s mother went to the market and the situation became tense again. Shops were closed. There, a well-known tailor named Shafi hid Reena’s mother in his shop. After several hours, when the situation improved, he left his Beji at home.

Reena’s family left for India a month before partition was announced in May 1947. She says that every year we used to spend our summer vacations in Murree, this year mummy and papa sent us to Shimla. After two months, they also came to us with necessary equipment.

During this time, there was a formal partition between the two countries, but we all had no illusions that we would not go back to our homes.

Mimi did not let us take home there saying that we will go back to our house in Pindi. Mimi could not even think of leaving her home, she used to say that first there was British rule, now what happened to the Muslims? Partition can take away our home from us. But then the environment became such that we could never go back to our home.

Even the dividing line could not remove the love of his city from his heart. He made passport many times to come to Pakistan but he could not come to Pindi.

In the 1954 Pakistan-India match in Lahore, the government of Pakistan gave him the facility to come without a visa, which he took full advantage of and visited Lahore, but the memories of his home and city are still bothering him even at the age of 90.

He has many Pakistani friends on Facebook, one of whom is Sajjad Haider from Pindi, who sent pictures and videos of his house to Toshi aunty.

The house that comes in his dreams even today is exactly the same as it was in his childhood. Reena says, well someone else lives there but I still feel it is my home. There is no trust in age, I wish I could see my home once.

Reena, who gives priority to humanity, says that two countries were supposed to be formed, but the blood that was spilled during the partition is heartbreaking.

We saw the bloodshed and riots with our own eyes, but still there is no hatred in our hearts, so why do the children of today, who have not directly suffered the trauma of partition, have so much hatred for each other?

Follow your own religion strictly, but if we start respecting each other’s religion, then everything will be fine and we should forget what happened in the past and move forward. Both countries cannot become one but they can learn to live as good neighbours.