Sindh: stories from a vanished homeland

Ram Gulrajani was twelve years old and clearly remembers the hurried visit from a Karachi inspector of police to his family home in Karachi in early December 1947. Till then, Karachi had continued to be a peaceful place. The family had not considered leaving. Ram’s father, Jashanmal Jhamatmal Gulrajani, had a prestigious job: he was manager of the Oriental Insurance Company in charge of the Karachi and Hyderabad districts, a well-to-do and respectable man. Jashanmal had recently purchased a tract of land in Malir, an attractive but distant suburb of Karachi at the time, near Drigh Road Airport. The 100 acres stretched from India’s anti-aircraft gun school, the Ack-Ack School, all the way up to the Malir River. Cultivation had not yet started but the family occasionally rented the fields for grazing camels and cattle. His two elder sons had recently taken up jobs with BOAC and Military Aviation Fuelling Depot, both located at Drigh Road. The policeman who had rushed to their house to...

“It was 14 November 1947 when we arrived in Bombay and stepped out into the noisy, crowded city that was going to be our home.” I was stunned to hear this. In the course of telling me her story, my mother had casually mentioned the date on which their ship landed in Bombay. I felt shocked and also a bit guilty to know that she remembered this date even after 65 long years, but had never mentioned it before. We were still only in June, and I decided that I must have the book ready soon so that it could be launched on that very date! I started writing as fast as I could – typing at 100kmph, reading with pages flying, and racing about to get all the interviews done. When I started, I knew absolutely nothing. I believed that all Sindhi families had similar stories. I believed that there was no source material I could draw from. Without making any particular effort, I was led from one person to another. Nandita Bhavnani was closely related to a friend and she opened her library to m...

A gentle, stoic acceptance This picture of Devi and Kishinchand Bijlani was  probably taken in Hyderabad, Sindh, in 1947. Devi is expecting her seventh child, Hiru. Image courtesy Meher Bijlani Every year, as the 15th of August approaches, thoughts about my grandparents crowd into my mind. As our Prime Minister addresses the nation from the Red Fort, children across the country turn out in their school uniforms to salute the flag and honour the memory of the great leaders of our independence struggle, and India celebrates yet another Independence Day holiday, I try to peer back in time to feel and understand what independence for India, and the birth of our sovereign nation, meant to them. In August 1947, my grandfather, Kishinchand Bijlani, was five months short of his forty-second birthday. My grandmother, Devi, was thirty-nine. They lived in Hyderabad, Sindh. He was a prosperous lawyer with a practice that extended across Sindh and occasionally took him to Bombay. ...