Life after the 1947 Partition: A girl’s life changes

It is hard to imagine, living lives as we do today, what it would have been like for a 10 year old girl to see dilapidated houses and dead bodies, when she first arrived in Amritsar. Satish Chauhan’s family initially made its way there, after being uprooted from the Jaranwala district of Punjab, in undivided India, after the partition of India. Her childhood, till then, had been full of joy and play. Her father owned the largest wholesale store in the whole district. But the partition brought with it, struggle for the family.  


******

What Satish Chauhan misses the most from her childhood in Jaranwala is the feeling of a house full of people and the chatter of family gossip and joint meals.

Satish Chauhan was born in the Jaranwala District of Punjab in 1937. Her father owned the largest wholesale store in perhaps the whole district, she recalls. She was the fourth child of five, and the second daughter to be born in the family. She remembers the joyous pastimes of childhood. She spent most of her time at the temple and areas nearby, playing with other children. She describes her fondness for dolls made of cloth, some which she made herself. While her mother did send her to school, she and her siblings would often wander off on their way there and spend endless hours sitting around and playing. Before they realized it was time to go home, it would be dark and then the fear of punishment would further delay their return home in the evenings.

Mrs. Chauhan crossed the border in 1947 at the age of 10, with her mother and her three siblings: one elder brother, an elder sister, and a younger brother. Her father and brother managed to put them on trucks and transport them to India but they were themselves unable to join them for at least a month, only after which they were united with their family. Their first destination was Amritsar, where they lived at the gurudwara. Children had fallen ill because of the prevailing conditions of the journey. On arriving at Amritsar, they saw possessions strewn across the ground, dilapidated houses, and dead bodies.

While there were a lot of empty houses, her mother chose to stay at the gurudwara. Here she bought a small vessel worth four rupees and would prepare a small fire and make food for the children. She and her family lived at the gurudwara for over a month, and she says that they had never thought of themselves as refugees and never asked for a favor. They lived on the little money they had and by eating at the frequent community lunches at the gurudwara. It was only after a month or two that they were joined by her father and eldest brother. From Amritsar they traveled to Ambala and from there, they moved to Panipat where they lived for two years in a house that had been vacated. At Panipat, her father had difficulty finding a job, which led them to move to Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. At Rampur, her father restarted the business they had back in Jaranwala of selling barley.

Her entire family soon relocated to Lucknow after her father went there to receive a claim from the government. She lived there for 10-12 years. It was in Lucknow that she learned to sing, play the tabla, and paint. Her father had a shop of cattle fodder, which he ran in a small garage he had taken on rent. Mrs. Satish would take care of the shop and says she had in fact taken to being the “son” of the family.

After doing this work in Lucknow, her father changed his occupation and moved the family to Nagdwar, Madhya Pradesh. Tragedy struck when one of Mrs. Chauhan’s brothers ran away with the family’s money, and not soon after, her mother and father passed away. Her sister had already gotten married. Later, Mrs. Chauhan met her husband while making attempts to enter the film industry. Her husband was a migrant from Lahore and worked in the film industry.

Satish Chauhan shares her reflections on her life after Partition, saying that she has had a happy and comfortable life. What she misses the most from her childhood is the feeling of a house full of people and the chatter of family gossip and joint meals.

The article was initially published in The 1947 Partition Archive. 

To know more about 1947 Partition Archive, visit their website here