September 19, 2022 • 32 mins
This week, Neha interviews Shanti Tangri as he recalls memories from Partition. From escaping to Kashmir to meeting Gandhi, Shanti shares an array of different stories.
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Survivor Account - Shanti Tangri
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Oh, a quick note about this week's episode. For extra clarity,
(00:08):
we have included a transcription of shanty's interview in the
show notes. Warning. The following episode contains stories of extreme violence. Yes, big,
(00:28):
big team. Every day. It was time to writing. Around
one in July I was granted a reprieve from the
(00:49):
Texas heat. I traveled to the bay area to interview
a man who experienced partition when he was nineteen years old.
Up until this point I had only communicated via email
with his song and the only thing I knew, besides
him being a survivor, is that he used to be
a professor in the Economics Department at Rutgers University. I
took the Coltrain from San Francisco to mountain view. My
(01:12):
mind was racing during the entire journey. I have never
spoken to my relatives who survived face to face about
their experiences, and here I was about to meet a
stranger and have him divulge painful parts of his past.
I met Shanty Tongrey and his son Neil at the
mountain view public library on a Friday afternoon. I got
(01:34):
there early to set up our meeting room and I
was constantly rearranging everything as if I was staging a
house about to be put on the market. Once the
equipment was set up to my liking, I sat down,
took a breath and looked over my questions, and a
minute later there was a knock at the door. They
greeted me with a joyful and kind energy. We introduced ourselves,
(01:58):
I explained how the process of recording would work and
I went over some topics of discussion. After that, I
pressed record and for two and a half hours I
just listened to shanty, hanging onto every word of his story. YEA,
each episode of this show has been difficult to put together,
(02:18):
but my time with shanty posts a lot more discourse
on how I should present his story to you all.
This episode could be hours long. I would have loved
to include everything shanty told me. Each sentence, each memory,
had so much significance. I hardly spoke during our conversation.
It didn't feel right to interrupt his stream of consciousness
(02:40):
as he recounted a number of memories for me, each
one more nerve racking than the last. From I heart radio.
I'm Nahasie's and this is partition a podcast that will
take a closer look into this often forgotten part of history.
(03:29):
We know that many attacks and crimes took place before
Independence Day. Shanty described some of the moments he witnessed
the weeks leading up to partition. Partition offessially took place
in make July. It was in the air. Matter had
(03:50):
been politically decided by all of the parties. They were
going to accept the compromising we sat me at the
radio for an hours. I heard there were a fire
in the inner Lahore and it wasn't being put out.
(04:14):
He told me that he climbed on the rooftop of
their home and realized the fire was only a few
miles away. We could tell from the direction how it
come from, that this was the old city and most
likely it said either, we didn't know for in the beginning,
(04:35):
with the hint them what must number, or bolt. Sometime
during that night the words started coming that it reached
the hint of version of the town. Picture right. We
were all up and beginning to what to do. For
(04:57):
a while everybody was totally confused. Think maybe next morning.
Think told calmed down and stiff. I kept listening to
the idea now, how two more police heavy now and
then coming through with all of the news shanty had
(05:17):
knowledge about. He began to think about what would happen
when the formation of a new country was quickly approaching.
So I would listen to the radio or read the
newspaper and there were articles about getting fired and down,
down Lahr and on. We started wadding about what's going
(05:39):
to happen when Pakistan our lives. A decision about the
family's future had to be made. Well, he had all
arguments and we had generatives. Had cousin who had gotten
matted recently and he had come as wife, new wife
(06:01):
and staying with us for a while. They were on
the way to cash media and that's check to him,
and so was my order brother, who was at Paris
in the university and Engineering School and probably India's prestor
that time. And we had a family session, all of
(06:23):
us as through what to do, because I think we're
getting worse. For some reason I found myself in agreement,
which some of them not an agreement retus, and one
of them happened to be my oldest brother's father in law,
who was very part of me. For some reason. I
(06:45):
had stayed with him and karage once and interrupted me
to stay with him for two months. So he kept
coming back and saying, listen to this young man. Listening.
He were probably more for two ways that me and
my father going along with he wanted to get back
to Karachi and he was saying no, you shouldn't do
(07:09):
what he's saying. What I was saying is send this
young man, my younger brother. He's gone up strong, bigger
than me. It looks like if the police it's coming
into any trouble, he will be picked up and card
knows what they would do to him. Get him out
of town, send him to Eastman job, we had relatives
(07:33):
and that would be a safe area because every largely
into secretion area. My father was a reluctantly want to
get back to work. He thought he'd went through so
many crisis before. But he agreed to that. And Christian
Party and his wife, who was sick. They said we're
(07:55):
going to crash me and we're going to take his
two brothers. There's witness and shut her down. Christian can
go to Nis in the university. If we don't, he
can go there now, but don't stay in town. And
finally that so it worked. As time began to pass,
(08:18):
Shanty's family went their respective ways. It was my turn
and I had an older brother who was in nontown.
He was living in a town callisle for about D
and fifty miles west. He was married. His wife was
(08:41):
with him. I had visited them two weeks before. She
was not too well and she had a child, which
is one reason my mother had sent me there to
help out. So I had to get her out so
that range had her out. Also sent her to some
(09:03):
relatives on her mother's side. So it was me and
Christian Parta and his wife's new wife and my mother. Well,
the vicar time to go mother like, and then we
had it serveant like many families who had been with
(09:28):
a sint Chad and he didn't have any family anymore.
Team boy. They sort of pressured me to go with
the Christian Parta and wife and that we should all
get together at the same time be easier, and we did.
That was someone harrowing because we gotten out in time,
(09:55):
but we left our mother and father behind. Father he
was still and Denny, he was saying you get out down.
He mentions one particular memory that is imprinted in his brain.
For the second of July, he and I was sitting
(10:17):
in the outer room of our house and I heard
kind of buzzing sound. I know it was after the
fires that were watched from a roof and I couldn't
stand the noise after a while and nowise get out
and outer. So I opened the window, get shutters and
(10:41):
inside there were screens and glass paints, so there was
some filtering out. It's the kind of noise I never
heard before, like you have a swarm of bees buzzing around.
This is tired and the love the day. It was hard.
(11:01):
Day may have been a hundred or hundred five degree.
I opened the window my hair rounds and I saw
a crowd milling you now, maybe thirty, forty or fifty people.
I couldn't tell, except that some of them were wearing turbans.
So I figured, and most likely even to some Muslims,
(11:24):
road carboants something. But it seems like, of coursely, as
crowder six, we had been speculating that there will be
troubled because of the fires in downtown and some people
are going to do it rightful and do something terrible.
(11:44):
That's exactly what it would happen. So what I see
in the few minutes, some people not only were just
milling around, but they had all kinds of rude weapons.
Some had souls, some had actors, somehow thinks made of
would anything they can use strike and they were meaning
(12:08):
around and for a couple of minutes I couldn't tell
what was happening. In spred they were also a link
around and shouting. Then before my eyes or I could
really get a vation hard. I didn't have glasses in
those days. I may have kneeled them by. I see
(12:30):
the crowd spreading up into three different clusters and surrounded
each one there was somebody in the center, a human being.
I saw at least two of them put a sheet
over their head and people striking down with the weapons
(12:51):
and shouting. And from the sound I could tell that
they were mostly six and handles. That couldn't be Muslim
in this avenue. And in five minutes, unless the crowd
started disappearing, before my heart came in. Some of them fell.
(13:11):
I saw some of them half dead and their body jumping.
I've never seen person die. Seeing all this through a
window in his home shanty, felt compelled to act, so
I rushed to the front of my house, Vent Gate,
(13:33):
was picked up a bucket. I started putting water in
the bucket to take it out and my mother came
rushing out from her because she had she had not
seen the whole thing. When she saw it, she grabbed
(13:55):
me and cut back. Don't go out, you'll get carried,
you won't get ready for are you can't do anything.
So I stayed and should I don't know if I'm
going to do all. My family want to hang onto
it again stay. That's where I am here. This date
(14:20):
also sticks with shanty because he was to take a
final the next day and heard on the radio all
exams have been postponed. Soon after that incident, he left
Lahore to travel Takshmir. We wanted to get out quickly.
(15:00):
MHM Shanty was told by another family member that he
could only bring one suitcase with him. In the bus
that we took, Christian part rods en wife and me
and my project Christians. There were two Christians, and we
(15:25):
were going up along the dividing line that became the
dividing gune between India and Pakistan. We were on the
Pakistan side because that's where the road was. So we
were going north to the town at Yambo, which was
the southernmost town in the state of Yambo and Casa,
(15:49):
which was a different political entity, and on the radio
with sometimes the driver, who was a sick versus afraid
also he to turn it off and keep it on.
We want to hear and every now and then we
beduced come there was travel, a bus got stopped and
(16:14):
certain starts down, people got murdered and so on. There
are fires have started in sentences down. So they were
trouble popping up here and there and we didn't know
where we were heading, into it or into safety, where
they were dash to get away and be moving. And Luckily,
(16:41):
by the I forget how late it was. My impression
was six or seven p him or something, and we
got to Gumban where you were able to rent rooms
for the night and they were going to take us
across to cashmere in the morning. Chaunty was in the
(17:03):
Hindu majority area, so for the time being he felt
safe if there were anybody endangered or Muslims. Next morning,
after a few hours drive, the road goes over the
dollars areas in the country. Company Hall Pass About Twelve
(17:25):
Thousand Feet above sea level. Once she crossed that there's
a tunnel and you get a view of Kashmir valley.
It's beautiful and it's all mostly Muslim or Buddhist minority
hind so these are two different countries almost, but they
(17:47):
were all under the rule of one Hindu Maharada, so
it was safe at the time. He shared another encounter
that caused intention but said the suit a sho end
up being okay. Mostly didn't lack. I could feel that.
But a there were people with guns and weapons within
(18:12):
thirty ft of me and I was walking through, walking
on the road parallel to the published Sund border, and
there was most of the places it was one mile
apart from Indian territory. I had to walk from an
area west of them, probably not a long time, but
(18:39):
by the time when that road came very close to
the border, but it was not visible because there was
a sugar cane crop. It had not been harvested and
across the sugar cane you couldn't see but you could hear,
and I heard. No, it's just and a few guns
(19:02):
going golf and some people yelling lags. So going to
treat to a generally who are Chris and then we
know that we was troubled. So already you could do
us to just lie quietly, not make any noise and
hope that nobody will stumble your way. Shanty son, Neil
(19:23):
was in the room with us and I had to
ask if you grew up hearing any of the stories
from his father. Yeah, he would tell me these stories
of partition. We met Gandhine. Yeah, I would hear about this.
I think one of the things that made the greatest
(19:43):
impression on me is, you know, like he's telling the
story of when there was rioting and there were people
who would go out in the streets to call on
the crowds to disperse the riot with their words. You know,
much later I came across start with the King Juniors
phrase of talking to madness out of young men, and
(20:07):
that just struck me as such a such an incredibly
brave and selfless thing to do. Um and incredible to
have that capacity of speech, that you can reach people
who are in a nonreasoning state of mind. With this
(20:34):
next question, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had
asked how he coped with all of these experiences. It
seems almost silly in a way, but also vital at
the same time. How did I quote? I don't know
if I have an answer to that is you know
a tank which something to happen and you can analyze
(20:57):
him and analyze him and and and no guarantee that
that analysis leads you to something which you can repeat
and benefit from. I find myself in the last year
or so again, for some reason, a bad night's sleeping.
(21:18):
It's not because I was very interesting those dangers again,
it's just that those memories coming back and they led
me and took other people to otherwise which I can't
explain easily. He describes one memory in particular to me
(21:44):
one night where we were walking in a Jimmu road.
He had walked about over a two day period, fifty
miles high. Had Two other people who were villagers from
local village whom I had met in snag and then
it turned out to be working for a distant relative
(22:07):
of mine and deadly and the relative who my dad
never met, uh ans opens. They said, you can come
with us. They yet come to pick up their son,
or not their son but their employers son, and come
(22:29):
with us and we have a village and will break
their journey on the village. The rest of the time
we may have to walk or we may be able
to find some transportation. So I left with them and
it's all right. Sleeping in the village was enough problem.
But when I got the village and soon after we
(22:54):
couldn't go any farther because, oh he hired in the
radio that there was flooding and Rabbi River. Rabbi River
fogged the boundary between focus son and India at that time.
Going north south, shanty recalls seeing numerous boats filled with
(23:15):
refugees mushrooms going west. Who Are you? Going East? They
had been washed away during the night. The three boats
were lost and with them a lot of people. So
we didn't go. We decided we're going to wait to
(23:36):
see what the situation is. Record from the hills water
can come down any time quickly and they can be
flooding without much warning. Shanty and his group are trying
to figure out their next course of action. There were
camels and donkeys, but neither could really make it across
the river. They were blazing hard during the day and
(24:02):
we were totally ill equipped. No water bottles down and
walking Chad is getting into our shoes. You take the
shoe off and hardly walk ten feet when sand gets
in too. So walking one mile in that hard sand,
(24:26):
if it's like you've been walking half a day. So
we weren't not we are not confidented for you being
able to do the thirty miles or so before we
reached the river. Meanwhile, India Pakistan travel and escalated into
(24:47):
it Malatary flight. The road they were taking wasn't in
good shape, so the group had to figure out what
did do next. They won't be any even halfway decent
road for a while. There's questionable whether to stay in
that village and well, everyone an option were very well accepted.
(25:11):
These people are cool and they wouldn't. I didn't want
to take money from US and anyway we're sifted. So
we walked. We decided to go and see as far
as we can get and if we have to, was
they would sleep in the forest. When I head out,
I did not want to sleep in the forest drive.
(25:35):
We did walk months and I saw that the forest
chat some old buildings from a temple complex and there's
not being used, had not been used for a long time.
So I started asking these people about what some of
these holes wires somewhere found outside this it's a wilderness,
(25:58):
and there were snakes of tinds, so modeling afraid of stakes.
So I said I'm not sleeping here. So you have
a choice. We can go down to the Riverside, which
is Sandy, but there is also the risk of being
(26:18):
washed down in the middle of the night if it
starts raining in the mountains, or go back to your village.
I was a tough decision. In the end a compromise
is made. What if we walk back until we don't
(26:41):
have to go all the way back to the village?
But it's sandy and there's no no big flotest around
in the world. So we found such an area and
walked back several miles, and I'm glad we did, because
it very key. Shaunty said he became better in terms
(27:12):
of religion. He details in exchange he had with Gandhi.
I accused him of not acting on its own faith
and answer it. You're a legocity and adhering to it's
contributing to it, and he couldn't, of course, understand that.
(27:35):
Thought it unfair. I wanted to know. So what do
you suggest I do? What? So you should speak against religion?
You know history as well as I do. Maybe better
tell me all the time when Christians, Muslims, Hindus have
not fought each other and not carried each other. And
(27:57):
Tell me, why do you believe in God? Couldn't he
do any better than produce people like us, so he says.
And what would you do if I've talked like you?
How long did you said, it's not helping people that
hate each other. So, if your God is there, and
(28:17):
God is all powerful, what's the excuse for his being
such a lousy engineer? He was taken aback by my
sharpness and Gandhi repeatedly asked shanty what he should do,
and shanty responded to denounce religion, he says, if I
(28:39):
do what you tell me, how long will it take
for people to agree with me? I said you got
the winning argument. Probably if would never be no, he's
just so. What can we do? You have to do
what you can that. I have to do it I can.
(29:03):
The last thing I asked was how he felt after
seventy five years. I've been much of the life in
my life in order to keep going and do change,
rich I found difficult to do. Not kept changing. Well,
thanks can change, and there is a Hilosophy, especially an
(29:25):
American education, of emphasizing the positive, emphasizing a better time.
It came to come. I can't see I am believe
in them anymore. It's maybe it's just my age. I've
become very festivestic. I listened to the news, I get depressed.
(29:49):
He mentioned Putin and the war in Ukraine as a
current example of greed. How can you be optimistic? If
I a teacher, I who could? I'm be telling you
so many good people working in so many different countries,
and yet for each one of them there's somebody out here.
(30:12):
You turned the TV on and see how many people
are trying to give you. Next time you'll hear from
two brothers who lost each other during partition and finally
met in person seventy four years later. It was through
(30:35):
social media and community they were able to find one another.
NACIA DELO is a real estate agent in Pakistan and
in charge of the Youtube Channel Punjabi Lahare. He was
a vital component to Saddiq and Sika reuniting. It used
to take a long time to find people because whenever
(30:56):
someone used to contact us about a missing relative or kidnapping,
we used to do everything. Before that we didn't have
a community to assist with finding people. Now, as soon
as we upload a new video we get a clue
because we have quite a few subscribers and people contact
(31:17):
us or leave notes in the comments. It usually takes
eight to ten days to find an idea. Around two
people have met not only their blood relatives but old
friends and neighbors through the channel. Until next week, an
(31:39):
haze's and this is partition. Partition was developed as a
part of the next up initiative created by Anna Hosnia,
Joel Monique and your Sinia. Median partition is produced by
Anna Hosni, a, Tricia mccagee and back Oramas. It is
(31:59):
added it by Rory Gagan, with the original score composed
by Mark Hadley M
Oh, a quick note about this week's episode. For extra clarity,
(00:08):
we have included a transcription of shanty's interview in the
show notes. Warning. The following episode contains stories of extreme violence. Yes, big,
(00:28):
big team. Every day. It was time to writing. Around
one in July I was granted a reprieve from the
(00:49):
Texas heat. I traveled to the bay area to interview
a man who experienced partition when he was nineteen years old.
Up until this point I had only communicated via email
with his song and the only thing I knew, besides
him being a survivor, is that he used to be
a professor in the Economics Department at Rutgers University. I
took the Coltrain from San Francisco to mountain view. My
(01:12):
mind was racing during the entire journey. I have never
spoken to my relatives who survived face to face about
their experiences, and here I was about to meet a
stranger and have him divulge painful parts of his past.
I met Shanty Tongrey and his son Neil at the
mountain view public library on a Friday afternoon. I got
(01:34):
there early to set up our meeting room and I
was constantly rearranging everything as if I was staging a
house about to be put on the market. Once the
equipment was set up to my liking, I sat down,
took a breath and looked over my questions, and a
minute later there was a knock at the door. They
greeted me with a joyful and kind energy. We introduced ourselves,
(01:58):
I explained how the process of recording would work and
I went over some topics of discussion. After that, I
pressed record and for two and a half hours I
just listened to shanty, hanging onto every word of his story. YEA,
each episode of this show has been difficult to put together,
(02:18):
but my time with shanty posts a lot more discourse
on how I should present his story to you all.
This episode could be hours long. I would have loved
to include everything shanty told me. Each sentence, each memory,
had so much significance. I hardly spoke during our conversation.
It didn't feel right to interrupt his stream of consciousness
(02:40):
as he recounted a number of memories for me, each
one more nerve racking than the last. From I heart radio.
I'm Nahasie's and this is partition a podcast that will
take a closer look into this often forgotten part of history.
(03:29):
We know that many attacks and crimes took place before
Independence Day. Shanty described some of the moments he witnessed
the weeks leading up to partition. Partition offessially took place
in make July. It was in the air. Matter had
(03:50):
been politically decided by all of the parties. They were
going to accept the compromising we sat me at the
radio for an hours. I heard there were a fire
in the inner Lahore and it wasn't being put out.
(04:14):
He told me that he climbed on the rooftop of
their home and realized the fire was only a few
miles away. We could tell from the direction how it
come from, that this was the old city and most
likely it said either, we didn't know for in the beginning,
(04:35):
with the hint them what must number, or bolt. Sometime
during that night the words started coming that it reached
the hint of version of the town. Picture right. We
were all up and beginning to what to do. For
(04:57):
a while everybody was totally confused. Think maybe next morning.
Think told calmed down and stiff. I kept listening to
the idea now, how two more police heavy now and
then coming through with all of the news shanty had
(05:17):
knowledge about. He began to think about what would happen
when the formation of a new country was quickly approaching.
So I would listen to the radio or read the
newspaper and there were articles about getting fired and down,
down Lahr and on. We started wadding about what's going
(05:39):
to happen when Pakistan our lives. A decision about the
family's future had to be made. Well, he had all
arguments and we had generatives. Had cousin who had gotten
matted recently and he had come as wife, new wife
(06:01):
and staying with us for a while. They were on
the way to cash media and that's check to him,
and so was my order brother, who was at Paris
in the university and Engineering School and probably India's prestor
that time. And we had a family session, all of
(06:23):
us as through what to do, because I think we're
getting worse. For some reason I found myself in agreement,
which some of them not an agreement retus, and one
of them happened to be my oldest brother's father in law,
who was very part of me. For some reason. I
(06:45):
had stayed with him and karage once and interrupted me
to stay with him for two months. So he kept
coming back and saying, listen to this young man. Listening.
He were probably more for two ways that me and
my father going along with he wanted to get back
to Karachi and he was saying no, you shouldn't do
(07:09):
what he's saying. What I was saying is send this
young man, my younger brother. He's gone up strong, bigger
than me. It looks like if the police it's coming
into any trouble, he will be picked up and card
knows what they would do to him. Get him out
of town, send him to Eastman job, we had relatives
(07:33):
and that would be a safe area because every largely
into secretion area. My father was a reluctantly want to
get back to work. He thought he'd went through so
many crisis before. But he agreed to that. And Christian
Party and his wife, who was sick. They said we're
(07:55):
going to crash me and we're going to take his
two brothers. There's witness and shut her down. Christian can
go to Nis in the university. If we don't, he
can go there now, but don't stay in town. And
finally that so it worked. As time began to pass,
(08:18):
Shanty's family went their respective ways. It was my turn
and I had an older brother who was in nontown.
He was living in a town callisle for about D
and fifty miles west. He was married. His wife was
(08:41):
with him. I had visited them two weeks before. She
was not too well and she had a child, which
is one reason my mother had sent me there to
help out. So I had to get her out so
that range had her out. Also sent her to some
(09:03):
relatives on her mother's side. So it was me and
Christian Parta and his wife's new wife and my mother. Well,
the vicar time to go mother like, and then we
had it serveant like many families who had been with
(09:28):
a sint Chad and he didn't have any family anymore.
Team boy. They sort of pressured me to go with
the Christian Parta and wife and that we should all
get together at the same time be easier, and we did.
That was someone harrowing because we gotten out in time,
(09:55):
but we left our mother and father behind. Father he
was still and Denny, he was saying you get out down.
He mentions one particular memory that is imprinted in his brain.
For the second of July, he and I was sitting
(10:17):
in the outer room of our house and I heard
kind of buzzing sound. I know it was after the
fires that were watched from a roof and I couldn't
stand the noise after a while and nowise get out
and outer. So I opened the window, get shutters and
(10:41):
inside there were screens and glass paints, so there was
some filtering out. It's the kind of noise I never
heard before, like you have a swarm of bees buzzing around.
This is tired and the love the day. It was hard.
(11:01):
Day may have been a hundred or hundred five degree.
I opened the window my hair rounds and I saw
a crowd milling you now, maybe thirty, forty or fifty people.
I couldn't tell, except that some of them were wearing turbans.
So I figured, and most likely even to some Muslims,
(11:24):
road carboants something. But it seems like, of coursely, as
crowder six, we had been speculating that there will be
troubled because of the fires in downtown and some people
are going to do it rightful and do something terrible.
(11:44):
That's exactly what it would happen. So what I see
in the few minutes, some people not only were just
milling around, but they had all kinds of rude weapons.
Some had souls, some had actors, somehow thinks made of
would anything they can use strike and they were meaning
(12:08):
around and for a couple of minutes I couldn't tell
what was happening. In spred they were also a link
around and shouting. Then before my eyes or I could
really get a vation hard. I didn't have glasses in
those days. I may have kneeled them by. I see
(12:30):
the crowd spreading up into three different clusters and surrounded
each one there was somebody in the center, a human being.
I saw at least two of them put a sheet
over their head and people striking down with the weapons
(12:51):
and shouting. And from the sound I could tell that
they were mostly six and handles. That couldn't be Muslim
in this avenue. And in five minutes, unless the crowd
started disappearing, before my heart came in. Some of them fell.
(13:11):
I saw some of them half dead and their body jumping.
I've never seen person die. Seeing all this through a
window in his home shanty, felt compelled to act, so
I rushed to the front of my house, Vent Gate,
(13:33):
was picked up a bucket. I started putting water in
the bucket to take it out and my mother came
rushing out from her because she had she had not
seen the whole thing. When she saw it, she grabbed
(13:55):
me and cut back. Don't go out, you'll get carried,
you won't get ready for are you can't do anything.
So I stayed and should I don't know if I'm
going to do all. My family want to hang onto
it again stay. That's where I am here. This date
(14:20):
also sticks with shanty because he was to take a
final the next day and heard on the radio all
exams have been postponed. Soon after that incident, he left
Lahore to travel Takshmir. We wanted to get out quickly.
(15:00):
MHM Shanty was told by another family member that he
could only bring one suitcase with him. In the bus
that we took, Christian part rods en wife and me
and my project Christians. There were two Christians, and we
(15:25):
were going up along the dividing line that became the
dividing gune between India and Pakistan. We were on the
Pakistan side because that's where the road was. So we
were going north to the town at Yambo, which was
the southernmost town in the state of Yambo and Casa,
(15:49):
which was a different political entity, and on the radio
with sometimes the driver, who was a sick versus afraid
also he to turn it off and keep it on.
We want to hear and every now and then we
beduced come there was travel, a bus got stopped and
(16:14):
certain starts down, people got murdered and so on. There
are fires have started in sentences down. So they were
trouble popping up here and there and we didn't know
where we were heading, into it or into safety, where
they were dash to get away and be moving. And Luckily,
(16:41):
by the I forget how late it was. My impression
was six or seven p him or something, and we
got to Gumban where you were able to rent rooms
for the night and they were going to take us
across to cashmere in the morning. Chaunty was in the
(17:03):
Hindu majority area, so for the time being he felt
safe if there were anybody endangered or Muslims. Next morning,
after a few hours drive, the road goes over the
dollars areas in the country. Company Hall Pass About Twelve
(17:25):
Thousand Feet above sea level. Once she crossed that there's
a tunnel and you get a view of Kashmir valley.
It's beautiful and it's all mostly Muslim or Buddhist minority
hind so these are two different countries almost, but they
(17:47):
were all under the rule of one Hindu Maharada, so
it was safe at the time. He shared another encounter
that caused intention but said the suit a sho end
up being okay. Mostly didn't lack. I could feel that.
But a there were people with guns and weapons within
(18:12):
thirty ft of me and I was walking through, walking
on the road parallel to the published Sund border, and
there was most of the places it was one mile
apart from Indian territory. I had to walk from an
area west of them, probably not a long time, but
(18:39):
by the time when that road came very close to
the border, but it was not visible because there was
a sugar cane crop. It had not been harvested and
across the sugar cane you couldn't see but you could hear,
and I heard. No, it's just and a few guns
(19:02):
going golf and some people yelling lags. So going to
treat to a generally who are Chris and then we
know that we was troubled. So already you could do
us to just lie quietly, not make any noise and
hope that nobody will stumble your way. Shanty son, Neil
(19:23):
was in the room with us and I had to
ask if you grew up hearing any of the stories
from his father. Yeah, he would tell me these stories
of partition. We met Gandhine. Yeah, I would hear about this.
I think one of the things that made the greatest
(19:43):
impression on me is, you know, like he's telling the
story of when there was rioting and there were people
who would go out in the streets to call on
the crowds to disperse the riot with their words. You know,
much later I came across start with the King Juniors
phrase of talking to madness out of young men, and
(20:07):
that just struck me as such a such an incredibly
brave and selfless thing to do. Um and incredible to
have that capacity of speech, that you can reach people
who are in a nonreasoning state of mind. With this
(20:34):
next question, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had
asked how he coped with all of these experiences. It
seems almost silly in a way, but also vital at
the same time. How did I quote? I don't know
if I have an answer to that is you know
a tank which something to happen and you can analyze
(20:57):
him and analyze him and and and no guarantee that
that analysis leads you to something which you can repeat
and benefit from. I find myself in the last year
or so again, for some reason, a bad night's sleeping.
(21:18):
It's not because I was very interesting those dangers again,
it's just that those memories coming back and they led
me and took other people to otherwise which I can't
explain easily. He describes one memory in particular to me
(21:44):
one night where we were walking in a Jimmu road.
He had walked about over a two day period, fifty
miles high. Had Two other people who were villagers from
local village whom I had met in snag and then
it turned out to be working for a distant relative
(22:07):
of mine and deadly and the relative who my dad
never met, uh ans opens. They said, you can come
with us. They yet come to pick up their son,
or not their son but their employers son, and come
(22:29):
with us and we have a village and will break
their journey on the village. The rest of the time
we may have to walk or we may be able
to find some transportation. So I left with them and
it's all right. Sleeping in the village was enough problem.
But when I got the village and soon after we
(22:54):
couldn't go any farther because, oh he hired in the
radio that there was flooding and Rabbi River. Rabbi River
fogged the boundary between focus son and India at that time.
Going north south, shanty recalls seeing numerous boats filled with
(23:15):
refugees mushrooms going west. Who Are you? Going East? They
had been washed away during the night. The three boats
were lost and with them a lot of people. So
we didn't go. We decided we're going to wait to
(23:36):
see what the situation is. Record from the hills water
can come down any time quickly and they can be
flooding without much warning. Shanty and his group are trying
to figure out their next course of action. There were
camels and donkeys, but neither could really make it across
the river. They were blazing hard during the day and
(24:02):
we were totally ill equipped. No water bottles down and
walking Chad is getting into our shoes. You take the
shoe off and hardly walk ten feet when sand gets
in too. So walking one mile in that hard sand,
(24:26):
if it's like you've been walking half a day. So
we weren't not we are not confidented for you being
able to do the thirty miles or so before we
reached the river. Meanwhile, India Pakistan travel and escalated into
(24:47):
it Malatary flight. The road they were taking wasn't in
good shape, so the group had to figure out what
did do next. They won't be any even halfway decent
road for a while. There's questionable whether to stay in
that village and well, everyone an option were very well accepted.
(25:11):
These people are cool and they wouldn't. I didn't want
to take money from US and anyway we're sifted. So
we walked. We decided to go and see as far
as we can get and if we have to, was
they would sleep in the forest. When I head out,
I did not want to sleep in the forest drive.
(25:35):
We did walk months and I saw that the forest
chat some old buildings from a temple complex and there's
not being used, had not been used for a long time.
So I started asking these people about what some of
these holes wires somewhere found outside this it's a wilderness,
(25:58):
and there were snakes of tinds, so modeling afraid of stakes.
So I said I'm not sleeping here. So you have
a choice. We can go down to the Riverside, which
is Sandy, but there is also the risk of being
(26:18):
washed down in the middle of the night if it
starts raining in the mountains, or go back to your village.
I was a tough decision. In the end a compromise
is made. What if we walk back until we don't
(26:41):
have to go all the way back to the village?
But it's sandy and there's no no big flotest around
in the world. So we found such an area and
walked back several miles, and I'm glad we did, because
it very key. Shaunty said he became better in terms
(27:12):
of religion. He details in exchange he had with Gandhi.
I accused him of not acting on its own faith
and answer it. You're a legocity and adhering to it's
contributing to it, and he couldn't, of course, understand that.
(27:35):
Thought it unfair. I wanted to know. So what do
you suggest I do? What? So you should speak against religion?
You know history as well as I do. Maybe better
tell me all the time when Christians, Muslims, Hindus have
not fought each other and not carried each other. And
(27:57):
Tell me, why do you believe in God? Couldn't he
do any better than produce people like us, so he says.
And what would you do if I've talked like you?
How long did you said, it's not helping people that
hate each other. So, if your God is there, and
(28:17):
God is all powerful, what's the excuse for his being
such a lousy engineer? He was taken aback by my
sharpness and Gandhi repeatedly asked shanty what he should do,
and shanty responded to denounce religion, he says, if I
(28:39):
do what you tell me, how long will it take
for people to agree with me? I said you got
the winning argument. Probably if would never be no, he's
just so. What can we do? You have to do
what you can that. I have to do it I can.
(29:03):
The last thing I asked was how he felt after
seventy five years. I've been much of the life in
my life in order to keep going and do change,
rich I found difficult to do. Not kept changing. Well,
thanks can change, and there is a Hilosophy, especially an
(29:25):
American education, of emphasizing the positive, emphasizing a better time.
It came to come. I can't see I am believe
in them anymore. It's maybe it's just my age. I've
become very festivestic. I listened to the news, I get depressed.
(29:49):
He mentioned Putin and the war in Ukraine as a
current example of greed. How can you be optimistic? If
I a teacher, I who could? I'm be telling you
so many good people working in so many different countries,
and yet for each one of them there's somebody out here.
(30:12):
You turned the TV on and see how many people
are trying to give you. Next time you'll hear from
two brothers who lost each other during partition and finally
met in person seventy four years later. It was through
(30:35):
social media and community they were able to find one another.
NACIA DELO is a real estate agent in Pakistan and
in charge of the Youtube Channel Punjabi Lahare. He was
a vital component to Saddiq and Sika reuniting. It used
to take a long time to find people because whenever
(30:56):
someone used to contact us about a missing relative or kidnapping,
we used to do everything. Before that we didn't have
a community to assist with finding people. Now, as soon
as we upload a new video we get a clue
because we have quite a few subscribers and people contact
(31:17):
us or leave notes in the comments. It usually takes
eight to ten days to find an idea. Around two
people have met not only their blood relatives but old
friends and neighbors through the channel. Until next week, an
(31:39):
haze's and this is partition. Partition was developed as a
part of the next up initiative created by Anna Hosnia,
Joel Monique and your Sinia. Median partition is produced by
Anna Hosni, a, Tricia mccagee and back Oramas. It is
(31:59):
added it by Rory Gagan, with the original score composed
by Mark Hadley M
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