Lest We Forget Recalls How Three Sisters Braved The Partition

India is being divided,’ Didi tried to explain. ‘Like a cookie? Whoever gets the smaller half will be upset,’ I nodded wisely. Indira Varma was six years old when she first heard of the impending partition of India. Soon, it would sweep her and her family up in its wake. They would leave behind in Peshawar, a fabulous house and vast lands, their horses and cars, in fact, an entire way of life. A family that had gifted the clock tower in Peshawar to Queen Victoria would go on to live a life of poverty as homeless refugees in India. Like the millions it affected, for Indira Varma too, the Partition was a scar that would remain, even as the wound healed with time.

In Lest We Forget, Varma lets her memory stretch as far back as it will. She recounts her family’s years as refugees, her life shuttling between cities and towns until she finally settles in Delhi, and her journey to building a successful business in travel. Against all odds, Varma weaves for herself a life rich with poetry, family, and friendships.

This is the story of lives upturned by the Partition, but it is also an ode to the power of love and that thing called hope.

Here's an excerpt from Indira Varma's Lest We Forget

‘You are a citizen of independent India’, I heard often. That meant we were no longer ruled by the British, I was told. But I was sad that the Culleys were leaving. Who would I play with?

I would also have preferred to be in independent India in Peshawar. I missed home. The trees, the sky, the feel of the air, the smell. Not just of the city but of our house. Oh, how I craved the smells of home. The smell of cooking from the bawarchi khana. Was it chicken? Was it dal? Was it khamiri roti? I would dream of running through the house where the fragrant dhuan and polish would give way to the mouthwatering smells of food as I would run through the courtyard and towards the kitchen. The general smell of food would separate into its different ingredients, like pyaaz being fried, and then become something new as I would go through the kitchen and onto the verandah on the other side, where the aromas would mix with the smells of the earth and trees.

I also missed the smell of Badi Mummy’s toosh that she always covered us with when we slept on her lap, and how Didi and I would vie for that precious spot. Decades later, when my granddaughter Tarika was travelling, as young people do when they pack, she did not keep anything warm except a shawl that I had insisted she take. ‘Nani, the whole night I slept with you,’ she told me later. That was how I felt with Badi Mummy’s shawl.’

I missed watching the dogs, keeping my distance, always just a little scared. I missed the terrace. I missed riding ponies. I missed being carried in Papa’s arms. I missed the innocence of childhood.

We now had a new name too. We were called refugees. What did it mean?

I did not understand much but I still understood one thing—all hopes of returning to our own home in Peshawar were now dashed.

‘Our haveli is in a different country now,’ Didi explained to me patiently. ‘It’s not ours any longer.’

Did Didi think I would fall for that? How could our home no longer be ours? The land of my forefathers, where I was born, was now a new country? And that too not my country? Hah.

Where were we then? Hadn’t we always been in India? What was new then? What was our identity? Where were we?

My family was with me, all my loved ones, yet I yearned for Peshawar. For our home, family, friends.

I don’t know if I ever stopped yearning for it, only that I got better at putting that yearning aside. And I slowly came to understand what being a citizen of independent India meant. What being a refugee meant.

We were to live in Nainital for almost three years. Three years of limbo, as we waited for the Resettlement Commission to compensate our claims.

We were invited to tea with Governor Sarojini Naidu at Raj Bhawan, which looked like a Scottish castle. Naidu was the first female Governor of a state in independent India.

We were dying to eat but had been strictly coached to say, ‘No, thank you,’ if offered anything. The table was laid with thin, mouth- watering sandwiches and biscuits, there were delicate teacups in front of us.

And so, we watched hungrily, but oh-so-politely, as the adults drank their tea and spoke about how our transfer certificates and admissions would be sorted out. When Governor Naidu insisted, we finally ate a biscuit each. But the sandwiches stayed on the table. I sneaked a glance at them. Maybe if she insisted enough I could eat one out of politeness. Badi Mummy caught my eye and my hand dropped back into my lap.

Our transfer certificates arrived from Peshawar, and Didi and I moved from Wellesley Girls School to our alma mater St. Mary’s Convent, Ramnee Park.

Our first major event after Partition was a drill display. Everyone had to carry the Indian flag. The Indianisation had started to show. 

Wellesley and many other schools wound up from Nainital in the next year or two. The British started to leave. Many of the teachers migrated to Australia and New Zealand. Mrs Newington left for Australia and sent me a card from there hoping that my sisters and I were well. The card had a picture of kangaroos on it—that was the first time I had seen kangaroos in my life.

We survived on whatever money we had and sold whatever little jewellery Mummy had.

The numbers piled: 14.5 million people crossed the new borders, or that according to the 1951 census of displaced persons, 72,26,000 Muslims went to Pakistan from India while 72,49,000 Hindus and Sikhs moved to India from Pakistan.  

We were six of those numbers. Trying to understand where we should go and what we should do.

Excerpted with permission from Lest We Forget: How Three Sisters Braved the Partition by Indira Varma, Westland Books.