Updated: September 24, 2020 8:38:32 am
Daphia Bai’s 73-year-old search for her family in India ended on September 13 with a video call. Quick
Earlier this month, sitting on a cot in the town of Mailsi in Pakistan’s Punjab province, 86-year-old Daphia Bai, aka Aisha, plugged in a headset, with some help, and focused on the screen of the mobile, eyes already moist with anticipation. When she finally saw her nephews and grandchildren on the video call, she couldn’t stop kissing the screen or holding back tears – it was the first time since Partition that she had seen a long-lost family member.
On the other side, in the town of Morkhana de Bikaner, 266 km away, were Khoju Ram and Kalu Ram, grandchildren of Daphia’s brothers, among others. More tears than words were exchanged as Daphia spoke in Saraiki and the Bikaner family in Marwari, while one person tried to translate. “I spent my whole life crying, I offered money, ghee to people to help locate my family,” she said between sobs.
In the seven decades apart, there were some words that Daphia had held close to her heart: the names of her brothers and a place with many “mor (peacocks)” where her family had land. It was these who finally ended the search that began more than a year ago, in August 2019, when Pakistani YouTuber Muhammad Alamgir shared a video of Daphia, asking if anyone knew of the family of a 13-year-old girl who had stayed. behind. when they moved to India in 1947.
Before the partition, the family belonging to the Meghwal caste used to move freely between Bikaner and the part of Punjab now in Pakistan. When the border came, they chose Bikaner, right next to the line. In the confusion of the move, Daphia was allegedly kidnapped and later converted to Islam, married and had seven children. However, she kept looking for the other part of her family.
Speaking on the phone from Pakistan, Daphia’s grandson Naseer Khan, 40, says: “She would remember her brothers Alsu, Chothu and Mira; how Alsu had an eye wound and couldn’t see with it. She used to tell us about a place in India that had a lot of peacocks … She used to talk about attending her mamu’s (uncle’s) wedding in that city. “
Alamgir found out about her through his friend Munawwar Ali Shaikh, who knew Naseer.
It was Zaid Muhammad Khan, 34, based in Delhi, who first noticed the video Alamgir put up. Interested in the Partition stories, he decided to search for Daphia’s family, based on the things she had talked about in the clip.
Khan went on Facebook and shared Daphia’s story with some people in Bikaner, especially Morkhana (he assumed that was the place she was talking about). Khan also examined publicly available income records for the siblings Daphia mentioned: Alsu Ram, Chothu Ram, relatives Mesa Ram, Budla Ram, Gangu Ram, Moti Ram, and his sister Mira Bai. However, the names were too common for him to go far.
One of the people Khan contacted was Bharat Singh, 20, who has a shop in Morkhana. Singh began searching for families from Meghwal whose family members may have been lost during the Partition. In the second week of September, he met a family in Morkhana whose elders used to talk about a sister who had been left behind. They had searched for her for years.
On September 13, days after Singh knocked on their doors, the call came from Pakistan. Twenty family members huddled around the phone of Khoju Ram, 30, a farmer and grandson of Chothu aka Sheela Ram. “First they called and then I made a WhatsApp video call,” says Khoju Ram.
Kalu Ram, 23, Alsu’s grandson, says: “It was so good to finally see her.” The families exchanged photos.
Mira Bai’s family could not be part of the phone call as they live about 50 km away. “Soon we will go and tell her about her sister,” says Kalu, adding that they had lost contact with Mira Bai.
It was the deaths of his sons (only two of his daughters remain) and the passing of his own years that made his search all the more desperate, says Naseer. “She kept repeating ‘Morkhana’, she didn’t know anything about Bikaner. About 15-20 years ago, we took her to Yazman Tehsil in Bahawalpur district (in Pakistan), which still has some Meghwal families. Some elders, moved by her search, would tell her that they are her brothers. They also visited us in Mailsi ”, says Naseer.
Around the same time as the YouTube video came out, on Pakistan’s Independence Day, Daphia ran an advertisement in local Urdu newspapers, along with her photo, which read: “I belonged to a Hindu family. At the age of 13, during the independence of Pakistan, I was separated from my family … (and later) Bakshinda Khan ke hathhe chadh gayi, jisne ek bayl lekar mujhe Ahmad Baksh wald Ghulam Rasool ko farokht kar diya (I was sentenced to Bakshinda Khan, who sold me to Ahmad Baksh, son of Ghulam Rasool, for an ox) ”. Baksh and she finally got married.
The ad added: “They made me recite the word of the Prophet and I became a Muslim: Aisha Bibi. I had three sons and four daughters and now I live happily. But every year for [Pakistan’s] Independence Day… I remember my separated family so much that my heart cries. I want to meet with my family so that before I die I can meet my loved ones ”.
Now Daphia only has one more wish, as do both sides of her family: a visa, to be able to travel to India.
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