Her book Batware ka Dard is an explicit picture of the whole Partition trauma she saw through her own eyes.

For the safety of our family, Baba decided to leave behind his beloved land and everything he owned. We set forth on a journey to an unknown land and an unknown destiny.

From 1947 till today the dawn of 15 August ushers in with the deafening shouts of ‘Jai Hind’ and ‘Jai Bharat’. Among this cacophony, there are citizens, of the same independent country, that is taken back to the trauma and havoc that accompanied the independence. The harrowing storm of Partition 1947 that uprooted and dislocated […]

Remnants of a Separation is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through objects that refugees carried with them across the border. These belongings absorb the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations.

“I hope people realize the cost of Independence. It should not only be a day for celebration, but also for a time of reflection. People of this generation should treasure our independence because of the hardships and the bloodshed to attain it.” Shashi Talwar

“We never went back to RS Pura, even though my Nana always expected to return to his home. In fact, he didn’t even bother to carry any of his belongings with him when he left.” Shakuntala Gupta

The days in the lead-up to independence were filled with questions, anxieties, fears and rumours about what will happen.

Understandably, the experience of women is a difficult story to tell through direct first-person testimony. When we were looking for interviewees, overwhelmingly those who would volunteer were men, reads the excerpt from Kavita Puri’s book Partition Voices.