My grandmother Pishni Khiatani happened to be in India during the 1947 Partition of India. She belonged to a Sindhi family and like many other Sindhis she was caught up in the events of 1947. The only difference between her and most other Sindhis was that for most of her life she lived in Jamaica. She was born in Jamaica on January 26th 1937, and was ten years old when the Partition happened. She was in Hyderabad-Sindh on a family trip, just hoping that she may be able to connect with her natal land. Pishni was with her parents, five other siblings, and many other relatives on August 14th when Jawaharlal Nehru announced that India had finally broken from the British Raj and become its own independent country. From that day on, thirty-five or so Hindus in the family were forced to hunker down in their house as the region of Hyderabad-Sindh suddenly was declared to be a part of Pakistan.  

Pishni’s troubles began from that day. Although she was not located in the Punjab or Bengal regions where the violence of the Partition was at its highest, they were still living in fear as violence roared outside their homes. My grandmother was never permitted to look outside to see what was going on, but the sounds of screams, gunfire, and beatings still permeated into the home. Many people who were swept up in the violence were simply looking for something to eat or drink for survival, which was an overarching issue that hung heavy over every household. The saving grace of my family was centered around one man, Pishni’s father and my great grandfather Khiantomal Chandiram Chatani. 

Khiantomal was an entrepreneur alongside his two brothers, and he was remembered as one of the renowned merchants of the Sindhi community during the time. Through his work he had accumulated a large amount of wealth and influence, and his influence was also built primarily through his philanthropic endeavors within the Sindhi community. His reputation also transcended the barriers between the Hindu and Muslim communities in Sindh. Through his connections Khiantomal secured food for all thirty five people and was able to smuggle food into the household. This was enabled by one Muslim woman who Pishni recalled coming to the house nearly every day. Eventually the family, as a Hindu minority in Sindh, had to flee to India as violence in neighboring regions precipitated.  

As a man of certain stature, Khiantomal contacted the local government and pulled some strings to secure a train car for his entire family. Pishni and the rest of her family needed to flee the house with the bare necessities in tow, leaving a large house to the aforementioned Muslim woman. The Muslim woman promised them that she would prevent any looting that was going on in the city. My grandmother’s family eventually received reparations for their lost house and goods, but it was sold for a pittance from what it was actually worth. Upon reaching the train station, Pishni would bear witness to some of the vitriol that was being spewed out from people that were once united. Many Muslim Sindhis taunted and insulted the Hindus trying to leave, a few would also steal things from fleeing Hindus and threaten violence to those who didn’t concede their belongings. The vitriol was returned from the Hindu side too. One particular man walked up to one of Pishni’s uncles and tried to take his pen from his front pocket. He was going to let it go, but another man walked up to the aggressor and stopped him saying, “You don’t touch these people... You will not touch these people.” This man had traveled from Bombay to secure safe passage for my family. In retrospect, my family that had been living in Hyderabad-Sindh were one of the incredibly luckiest families to have made it out of Sindh amid violence. My grandmother confessed to me that if her father was not there they could not imagine how they would have made it out of the newly created Pakistan. 

The thirty five Hindus packed themselves into the train car, sometimes sleeping in between and on top of luggage. Pishni was forced to endure the terribly difficult and hot conditions for around eight hours. This was, however,  preferable to the many hundreds of people who were clinging on to the sides and roof of the train as it traveled toward Ahmedabad and eventually Bombay. When Pishni got off the train, she was met by the frantic cheers of many thousands of Hindus that had fleed into India. Khiantomal was also met by another mutual friend. His friend was the owner of a hotel, and they needed to figure out how they were going to secure hotel rooms for thirty-five people during a colossal human migration taking place. Nonetheless they were extremely lucky to be able to find two halls in the hotel. At the very least they had escaped the violence before it had gotten too terrible, which was fortunate compared to the untold tragedies of millions of people who lost their lives during this time.  

India was not home for Pishni and her siblings, and it was no longer home for the rest of her family either. Jamaica was home for the Chandirams, and although Bombay was safe for the time being, they had to eventually get home from the tumultuous, fledgling nation. Khiantomal, using all resources he had at his disposal, was able to secure a spot on a cargo ship that was leaving from Bombay to London. This boat ride was mostly uneventful, but the arrival to London was anything but that. Pishni would hear the screams and cheers of the British people as they pulled into port, not because they were concerned about any atrocity going on in India, but because something else was going on that took the British people’s eyes away from the colossal tragedy they had created. 

On November 20th, 1947, Queen Elizabeth II was married to Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. This was also the exact time when Pishni Khiatani (then Chandiram) would arrive in London as she fled for her life from a war torn Indian subcontinent. Not a single soul in the entire city even spoke of the Partition, as they instead reveled in drink and fanfare and watched the royal wedding from their television screens. In my grandmother’s words, “They didn’t help in any way.” 

The Queen’s wedding was also another logistical nightmare for Khiantomal who had to now secure more impossible hotel rooms during a royal wedding. He did succeed, however, and got them into two hotels that were able to house all of his family. This did cost him an arm and a leg, and his next stunt was also an expensive one as well. To leave London, Khiantomal had to bribe his way into chartering a World War II era military plane from America. They used this plane to travel from London to New York, after which they flew back on a commercial airline back to Jamaica. My grandma described it as a four engine military aircraft, which makes me think it may have been a four engine transport aircraft such as the Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Apparently at the time it was the easiest thing to charter as they had gone out of use as the war was over. They eventually made it home to Jamaica where they now had to deal with the ramifications of the Partition. A large part of the family that had returned home needed to be housed and given work so that they could integrate into Jamaican society. The endeavor had also cost Khiantomal a great deal of money and unfortunately a lot of his businesses in Jamaica came under a large amount of pressure that stunted the income of the Chandirams. 

My grandfather, Narain Khiatani passed away at the beginning of 2020. This happened before the pandemic, so we were able to hold a proper funeral in Jamaica. Every day I regret not being able to talk to him directly about his time in India, not just to find out exactly what happened to him during the Partition, but just to have a chance to talk to him again and listen to the stories that create the family’s past. Due to my grandpa’s passing, I was not able to get a detailed account of what happened to him as he escaped out of his home. A lot of details are missing, but here is an account of how he escaped the Partition to finally meet Pishni in the West Indies. 

My grandfather, Narain Khiatani was thirteen when the Partition occurred. He was a Hindu Sindhi who had lived his entire life in Hyderabad-Sindh (now in Pakistan). This means that his encounter with the Independence of India was unavoidable. Both of his parents died right before the Partition. His mother died of muscular dystrophy when he was twelve years old, and a year later his father died of a heart attack. This affected my grandfather greatly as he had epileptic fits due to the sudden death of his parents. The sudden tragedy would quickly be sidelined by the violence that was to come, but he was at least supported by his older siblings, two sisters and two brothers, who took up the mantle of parental figures for the household. They were able to live off their parent’s inheritance which was a substantial amount of money as they were also merchants in the same vein as Khiantomal. This was their saving grace when the sun dawned on the morning of August 14th 1947. 

Like many Hindus at the time, Narain and his siblings hunkered down in their house while the violence and riots razed the streets outside. During this time, the two eldest brothers Gobind and Kishore were around sixteen and twenty years old. The two sisters Padu and Menghi were a bit younger, but also contributed toward the survival of the group. The main memory that I recall my grandfather telling me about this time was that he would go onto the roof of their house with his brothers to make sure that nobody came close. The three of them would gaze out into the streets, armed with firearms and molotov cocktails. I cannot imagine that my grandfather ever armed himself, nor do I think that Gobind or Kishore could ever shoot anyone. My grandfather also made it a point to tell me that he used to sleep on the roof of his house every night. Sleeping on the terrace was something my grandmother her family also did during the time, as she would tell me later. The exact reason why Narain and his siblings decided to flee their house is a bit unknown, but it can be inferred that the rising tensions in and out of Hyderabad-Sindh were enough to get the household to flee. 

Like Pishni, Narain and his family were able to secure a train car with the money their parents left behind. They tried to take a few more things than the bare necessities as they knew they would perhaps never see their home again. Unfortunately, Narain’s siblings didn’t have the same protection or connections that Khiantomal had boarding the train car; he was stopped by a soldier who took notice of his watch. The soldier threatened him, saying that he would not be able to board that train car unless he gave up that watch. That watch had belonged to Narain’s father. It was the last item that Narain had to remember him by. He reluctantly removed the watch from his wrist and gave it to the soldier before boarding the train with his siblings. Every connection that Narain had to his homeland was left in that train car that day, and everything else was left behind forever in the house of their childhood in Sindh.  

The train left the station along with a tidal wave of other Hindus. Narain managed to ride in the car on top of furniture and other belongings. They fled from Pakistan by traveling first to Jodhpur, which was a key base of operations for the Indian army, and eventually to Bangalore. He lived there with his siblings for about five to six years before eventually traveling to Jamaica following his sister Menghi. She had married a man in the Caribbean who had hired Gobind already, and was looking for more business partners. Thus, Narain traveled to the island to work for their brother in law. From there he would meet Pishni and they would marry in 1961.  

The trauma of the Partition never truly left my grandfather. Before I was born, he was considered a very angry person in the family. One with a short temper that was barely tempered by my grandmother’s efforts. The trauma of losing his parents and immediately needing to flee his homeland shattered him inside. But that does a disservice to the person Narain was overall. He truly loved Jamaica and its people. He eventually became a freemason and the master of his lodge (the highest rank available), and he would use his influence and wealth to help build up the infrastructure of Montego Bay and its Sindhi community, as well as contributing a large portion of his wealth towards the charity of Jamaica’s people.  

I never knew my grandfather as an angry man. By the time I was able to speak to him he had already suffered two strokes. His speech was understandable, but slurred, and he needed a cane to walk around. Narain was always gentle with me, soft spoken, and kind. I still sometimes imagine him lying on the roof of his house as the world came crashing down on him. He may have thought that he was alone under the stars, but little did he know that he was gazing at the same night sky as Pishni who he would meet in a post-Partitioned world, in the Caribbean.