I cannot ever forget the shock to my sensibilities when I read an email from my friend Geeta in Lucknow in 2006 to help get visas for three elderly ladies to visit Quetta! Geeta’s friend Rajan had shared this outrageous request about his mother and aunts. I was clearly disgusted; how can someone even have the audacity to suggest such a whim especially at a time when insurgency and violence was at its peak in Pakistan and above all in Quetta. No one in their sanity would want to be anywhere near that beautiful city now so desolate, where the next moment was an existential crisis! Why me, why this audacious email from Geeta? Who does she think I am, a jadoogarni (a magician) to pull off such a whim? Why do I give the wrong impression to people about my capabilities- bass hadd hee hoti hai.. ! Yes, I was offended by the email and also with myself for giving such perceptions about my jinn like capabilities! I read the email request again and again until my contorted facials and brain signals became normalized. I thought “Baela, just read this again – it is about separation, healing and closure, how can I not help; just think out of the box yaar!”
Yes three sisters all above 75 years of age – hailing originally from Quetta, born and brought up as little girls wanted to come home one more time for closure, relief and possibilities of meeting their maker more reconciled. I thought to myself, ‘How can I get so upset with such a profoundly human request?. How can I not play a role in the ‘quest for partition’s healing?” I was born 9 years after Partition in 1956; I always felt that I was partition’s child too, so embedded in that transition as were my families, paternal and maternal who moved from Lucknow and Ferozepur, respectively to Lahore. My paternal grandfather’s home in Lahore behind the High Court was a staging space for many relatives and friends who would pass by from India to Lahore to Karachi as muhajirs. In those courtyards, for some years after partition, holi was celebrated as it was in Lucknow and purbi (local dialect) was spoken at our home. This was as concrete as was my mother’s hankering for her ‘sikh’ friends Vimla behanji and Pooja behanji with whom tonga rides were shared to school and dupattas were exchanged; sadly the innocence was to explode in a bloodbath of separations. It was no different for the Suri sisters. There was no question of my looking the other way to such a profoundly humane request. This was my time to play a role in making amends for the riveting pains of partition; the collective guilt remains strong on both sides; sadly it is in our DNA and shall remain so until we confront and become humane once again. I wish!
I gathered courage and called my friend the only one who could possibly pull off this bold request; she hails from Balochistan and has clout in Quetta being highly connected for such a tall order. Of course, it was none other than Zobaida Jalal, then with the portfolio of the Federal Minister for Social Welfare and Special Education. I called her and shared this crazy request from Lucknow. I pleaded that, ‘the only person who can do it is you and will you oblige?” Without wasting a second she said ’absolutely’, and the rest became history.

Zobaida asked for their family name, their maiden names and details about the street where they lived in Quetta. She guaranteed their place of stay as her home, personal support and safe presence in Pakistan! This level of large hearted generous hospitality is our trademark in Pakistan!
I immediately called my friend to positively respond that ‘we are in the advanced stages of welcoming our unusual guests’ . Having gone so far in this commitment to heal partition’s wounds, I confess that I was a bit mean, instead of putting them up as guests in my own home and giving my soul at all costs, I suggested that they stay at a hotel as I thought they could not climb up to the first floor guest rooms. However, I cannot ever forgive myself for falling short on my hospitality, it was indeed a foreign and mean strain that I discovered intruding in my being; why did I do it? I feel so sad that I did a disservice to my being, a minus that cannot turn to a plus for as long as I live. So a million apologies to my beautiful friends from India for this exclusion, that will blemish me all my life and beyond.
Zobaida Jalal had said clearly that “in these times they will only stay with me at my home, I shall ensure that during their visit I am in Quetta personally, so that their safety and purpose can be fully ensured”. Yes, both of us were committed; we had planned that this visit will happen successfully at all costs, and that we would stand by it.
After securing all details from them, and personal guarantees in Lahore and Quetta, I pushed our very generous, humane and kind High Commissioner in Delhi to give the visas for this unusual visit; the HC visa office, upon hearing the visit place as “Quetta’ in those days were horrified; but then looking at Zobaida Jalal’s name, gaurantee and support, they relented and the visas were stamped to come by foot from Wagah. I received them and could not believe the three beautiful women -almost child like in their old age as they wore the same expression as they must have when they were liitle girls in Quetta – anxious to relive that experience of ‘coming home”; yes it was going to be an unusual home coming after so many decades! This was their unique encounter so that they could meet their maker in peace and happiness; it was almost that they had been pulled from their roots and had never quite re-rooted /routed! What a journey they had undertaken
The three sisters named: Inder Kaur Suri (housewife), Harbans Kaur Suri (Govt. Officer in Agriculture) and Nardendra Kaur Suri (doctor) were born to Sardar Chunni Singh Suri and Sardarni Veer Kaur Suri in Quetta. Their parents originally hailed from Rawalpindi but had moved to Quetta a few generations back. The father/family were traders in bullion across India, Iran, Iraq, Oman and other areas of the Middle East. The family lived on Mitha Mal Street in Quetta, a name still retained there. The sisters born at Mission Hospital in Quetta went to Khalsa school (now called Islamia School) and remembered vividly their picnics to Hanna Lake on Quetta’s outskirts, visits to Chaman as well as to Jacobabad and Sukkur in Sindh. Marriages between Sikhs and Hindus were common.
The sisters now stood on Mitha Mal street and walked down to see their home their "mitti", the space that gave them their coordinates and identity. As they walked in their clothes, looking clearly not from Quetta, along with Zobaida Jalal, the crowds started to gather and also walk with them in curiosity “who was the Minister accompanying in Quetta and for what purpose”. The sisters as they recollected their pathway, and kept moving with excitement and tears rolling down towards their childhood home, not knowing if it was still there or not, finally just stopped in front of a building! This was their house! Not a brick had been moved -it was as if they were transported back to 1947, the little Suri girls saw their home intact!
The caretaker came and shared that the house had been bought by a well-known local, whose instructions were never to touch anything in the house and leave it as it was. He just bought it as investment and did not even move the furniture in the house! How unusal; Was it karma? This was an unimaginable home coming, so emotionally charged for the Suri Sisters! They went inside and the crowd gathered all around the home – watching tears full of joy and trauma.. many cried with them as they found out the purpose of their visit, as recalled by Zobaida Jalal, the accompanying host. Once inside their home they were back in time, as if they were little children once again. One sister let out a scream when she found her desk and chair, another one knelt on the ground to see the deity and puja space intact; they even found their beds lying the same way they had left! Who was this local angel who had decided to become an integral part of the story of their healing? They were shocked to see the humanity across borders! The Suri Sisters had finally redeemed their separation, they had been taken to their home, they had been greeted so warmly with smiles and tears by a community they thought were their ‘enemies’, but found that humanity is about being made in the image of ‘God, Allah, Avaatar”! Yes, they had found Allah and Avaatar in the people of Pakistan! The mission was accomplished finally! They returned to Lahore and then left back for their respective homes but as new fulfilled human beings.

The eldest sister lived in Lucknow. She was insistent that we (my husband and myself) must come to visit my ancestral city and also their home as well. The following year we reached Lucknow; this time I was rediscovering the paradise that my father and paternal grandparents use to reminisce about so much; the streets, schools, sauhbats, home, imambargahs etc.!
We were invited by her son for a family meal. It was a strange dinner. There were clear divides within the home. The father, a patriarch was told that the meal was being hosted on behalf of another common friend who could not host at her own home. The father who clearly did not see eye to eye with “Pakistanis” was so taken up by my charming husband that the two never separated throughout the evening! Upon our arrival, the real host whispered, ‘please be aware that my father does not know that my mother actually went to Pakistan and Quetta, so please can you not talk about it as it was a clandestine operation’! My lips were sealed! I saw that my husband and ‘pitaji’ had clearly struck a great chemistry. Tariq got him to promise a visit to Pakistan very soon; the elder Mr. Shukla showered great accolades of love, and enthusiasm for his upcoming visit, but without knowing that his better half had already been to Pakistan and Quetta. The eldest of the Suri sisters, his wife had successfully completed her insurgency yatra, of love and closure along with her sisters! That evening, Mrs. Shukla, our little Ms. Inder Kaur Suri looked so much at peace with herself carrying her childhood intact; after all, she still had her home on the same street, her desk and even some small endearing objects occupying the same place as she had left on August 12, 1947! The tears had finally turned sweet now, shedding their bitter harshness. Yes, she and her sisters were ready to meet their maker any time; a bitter file had been finally disposed!
Rajan, Geeta, Zobaida and myself had performed our obligations to heal partition’s pain; we had all participated in 1947 as its midnight’s children of another kind, from another world, where borders were never a deterrence.