Sisters divided: How partition ruptured a family in a vanishing community

Remembering the trauma of the India-Pakistan partition of 1947 through the stories of divided families.

She walked out of her bedroom a few minutes after I arrived, the pallu of her sari draped, as always, across her right shoulder, Gujarati in style. Shireen* smiled at me as she slowly made her way to the couch, her short grey hair resting on her neck. For the next few hours, we sat in the lounge, amid remnants that each told their own story. An over 60-year-old grandfather clock from England, her father’s rocking chair from old Lahore, a table carved by woodworkers in Bombay (now known as Mumbai) several decades ago. Shireen rested her hands, etched with fine lines, in her lap and I noticed her fingers. I could visualise a young version of her joyfully playing the piano, a career abruptly halted by the partition of British India in 1947.

“We really belong to both places,” she began. “We belong to the undivided subcontinent. When I was required here, I was here. When I was required there, I was there and I would keep coming and going.”

“Although it wasn’t ever easy to come and go,” Amy*, added from beside her.

“No, it has never been,” Shireen agreed softly.

It was November 2012 and I was sitting with Shireen and Amy, two sisters, in their home nestled in an affluent neighbourhood in the city of Lahore. I was researching for my first book, The Footprints of Partition. Ever since I had first heard about Shireen and Amy’s story, I had wanted to learn more about their experiences in 1947 and the subsequent decades. Shireen, then in her early 80s, and Amy, 12 years younger, were from the Zoroastrian community, commonly also referred to as the Parsi community (a title specific to South Asian Zoroastrians).