I remember a conversation that I had with a dear friend of mine who too (like me) has a refugee background about how his grandfather ( "Dada") is particular about record keeping especially documents that establish identity/proof of residence such as land papers, electricity bills, water bills etc. Our families have known each other for a long time, both having been allotted a plot of land in Rajinder Nagar post migration from Sindh in 1947. I have grown up witnessing similar instances with both my Dada and other elders in the family were extremely particular about documentation. In our home, there are folders relating to electricity bills, water bills, house tax proofs (and the list goes on...). Every time I inquired as a young child about the rationale, I was told " Documents sab zaroori aahen, khabar kaane kadain ker ghuraye vathe. Manu vath proof t huje" ( All documents are important, you never know who calls for what when. We should have all proofs handy). I find this narrative similar across most refugee families. As a young kid, I often used to laugh at such description.
Reflecting about such instances now, I think, a part of the rationale behind such response is the loss of identity that partition inflicted upon us (and millions of others). Being in an absolutely new place in such difficult circumstances, having lost all that you had can play havoc with an individual's self esteem. Over time, "your plot" or your "kuchcha house" became your new identity. You come to be known in your new surroundings as " Rajinder Nagar waro Teckchandani" or " Rajani jeko Rajinder Nagar mein Paani ji tanki je puthya rehendo aa"[ (Mr.) Rajani who stays behind the water tank in Rajinder Nagar]. It is this identity that one then seeks to protect at any cost for this might be his only identification mark in the new land.Over decades, whilst one may become familiar with the new surroundings , however that feeling of (potential) rootlessness still remains. Perhaps Dada was not that wrong!.
Over the past few weeks, I have been reading Professor Rita Kothari's works. Professor Kothari is a fellow Hindu Sindhi with ancestry hailing from Upper Sindh. She is a PhD in English and is the author of several monographs, including Translating India :
The Cultural Politics of English (St.Jerome Publishing, U.K ) and The
Burden of Refuge : Sindh, Gujarat, Partition (Orient Blackswan, New
Delhi) . Her academic appointments include teaching at St. Xaviers College (Ahmedabad), Indian Insitute of Technology, Gandhinagar, MICA Ahmedabad and (now) at Ashoka University. I am attaching a link to her hour long session at IIT Gandhinagar on "Sufis in Sindh" which I believe clearly establishes her scholarship on the subject. I recommend everyone to watch this as it gives a good background into origin and practices of Sufism in Sindh.
Jiye Sindhiyat !
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