Feroza Khatun
Story: My name is Feroza Khatun and I was born in 1934 in the village of Ghono Shyampur near the town of Godagari, in Rajshahi District. The house I lived in was large. My father was a rich farmer and my family’s expenses were paid by the land. My family practiced Islam, and we had […]
Sarat Chandra Hira
Story: I was born in 1929 in Tuthamandra, a village in Faridpur District. My father was a farmer, and my mother was a highly educated woman who guided me in education. It was after my father’s sudden death, due to malaria, that the responsibility of running the family fell upon me. I specialise in Sanskrit […]
Purnendu Prasad Bhattacharjee
Story: I was born in the town of Gouripur in Mymensingh District in 1920. Gouripur has an important place in the history of Bengal. At the time of Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah’s reign, the Gouripur Estate was placed under Raja Krishna Rai Choudhury’s jagirdari (feudal land grant). Sri Krishna Rai had two sons, of which the […]
Kh Nasii
Story: I was born in 1927, in a village named Phaibung Khullen, to S Khazei and Thaisaorow. Phaibung Khullen is in the Senapati District of Manipur. I belong to the Duonamai Clan, which traces its origins to Saranamai (Siimai) village, considered to be the original village from where the Poumai tribe dispersed. Once during inter-village […]
Swarnaprabha Mahanta
Story: I was born in Barangabari, Gohpur, located in Sonitpur district in Assam in 1930. I come from a Hindu family that followed Vaishnavism. My father was the head priest of the satra and we were a well-to-do family since the satra was an important institution of Assam. From my childhood, I learned weaving and […]
Iqbal Bibi
Story:We were an Urdu-Punjabi speaking family living in Quetta. My father, Mohammad Hussain, originally from Hoshiarpur, Punjab, was a contractor for the railways. I was born to my mother, Sakina Bibi, in 1932 and given the nickname ‘Bala.’ The great earthquake of 1935 was so destructive that it forced our family to move back to […]
Khabbar Khan Seelro
Name: Khabbar Khan SeelroInterviewed By: Murtaza KharaniInterview Date:Interview Location: Story: I was born in 1939 in a village called Pari Jo Shahar, near the city of Shahdadkot in Sindh Pakistan. It is said that 200 years ago a man named Shahdad Khan, from the Seelro caste, was the first man to come to this barren […]
Subash Khanchand Bijlani
Name: Subash Khanchand BijlaniInterviewed By: Ishika ChatterjeeInterview Date:Interview Location: Story: I was born in 1942 in Thatta, Sindh. My parents, Khanchand Bijlani and Jassie Motwani were born in Manjhand and Larkana in Sindh respectively. My paternal family had traditionally worked as tax collectors in Sindh. In the mid-1970s, we had a family tree prepared which […]
Aya Singh
Name: Aya SinghInterviewed By: Ritika Popli Interview Date:Interview Location: Story: I remember my cousin who was left behind during Partition, and a Pathan family took the boy in and protected him. If there is a Partition memory that stands out to me the most, it is that of my paternal aunt’s family living close to ours: […]
Sarla Dutta
Name: Sarla DuttaInterviewed By: Sruti LodhaInterview Date:Interview Location: Story: I grew up in Mirpur, which was then under Jammu, and 15 kilometres away from Jhelum District. I grew up with two sets of parents. My biological father was a violin master and would often travel for his shows to Delhi, Bombay (now Mumbai), and Calcutta […]