Kunal Jhawar
History has always been a fascinating subject to study . The way the stories unfold the different shades of the past , makes you go into a complete world of imagination.
August has always been special as it’s the month when our nation achieved long awaited independence. But the independence came with lots of cost in return.Our nation may have achieved the independence and same did our neighbor nation Pakistan , but what happened with it was the biggest pain our history unfolds , Partition.
The big India, the United India within a single day became two different nations, India and Pakistan. Many of the books have depicted what all happened during the partition and also highlighted many hidden stories related to the partition, but still, there are many aspects of the partition that hardly any of us know.
When you get to attend an event that will unfold not one but much more thought provoking aspects of the partition, you will never want to miss out.
R4REVIEW team was lucky to be invited for one of its kind event “Remembering the partition”.
Godrej one building was full of the enthusiastic crowd who were willing to know much lesser known facts and stories related to Partition.
As soon as we walked in, the first thing we saw was the Giant installation of the well of remembrance, that depicted the part of the history when women were forced to jump into the well to survive from Rape and molestation during partition.
Next was the set of different short stories of the survivors of the partition and depicted how partition changed their life.
Here are some of the stories that we got to see :
The exhibition next to that was the collection of antiques related to pre independence era.
We were amazed to see how people have saved them as a legacy for the future generations. Each object had a deep story to go with it.
The currency was on display that was provided to Pakistan from India when India helped Pakistan after the partition.
After going through all this, we walked into the seminar hall to witness some of the amazing speakers, many of which have a deep rooted connection with the partition era.
Nandita Das, Saaz Aggarwal, Lalita Ramdas and Chintan Girish Modi were joined by Salima Hashmi on video conference for a panel discussing the legacies of Partition.
All the speakers expressed their feelings and thoughts about the partition and how it changed the fate of two nations.
One of the main highlights was that speakers from both the nation highlighted how history books have expressed the independence in different ways for both the nation.
We witnessed some amazing short films that took us to different stories and memories of the survivors of the partition.
Nandita das emphasized in the way that we should be taking the efforts forward for reuniting the thought process of both the nations, in spite of all the bitterness going around the border.
The event totally changed our mindset of the facts and information we had regarding the pre independence and the post independence era.
After a day full of the treasure of information, we returned back with a mind full of new information and a heart with lots more love for the neighbors.
