(Front) Jameela, Harbajan/Shahnaz, Zubeida; (back) Khursheed, Rizwaan, Iqbal:Reunited after 50 years; (Below) Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed

The amazing real-life story of an Indian mother reuniting with her Pakistani children after over 50 years, thanks to her Indian step-son and a Pakistani historian

While researching his book, The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed (Oxford University Press, Karachi, 2012), the eminent historian and scholar Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed came across many experiences "that continue to generate pain, hurt and anguish".
In his award-winning book (Best Non-Fiction Book of 2012, Karachi Literature Festival 2013, and the UBL-Jang Group Prize for the Best Non-Fiction Book of 2012), Dr Ahmed documents the story of his friend Nasim Hassan, who escaped with his family from Simla to Lahore as a small child in 1947, and his feelings on returning to Simla decades later (page 475-77)

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The story touched a chord in a reader named Romy Singh, whose stepmother, then 82 years old, lived with him in Baltimore, USA. He contacted Dr Ahmed, asking for help for his stepmother. They wanted to find her five children in Pakistan. In a subsequent column in Daily Times (Dec 16, 2012), Dr Ahmed narrates her extraordinary story.

Her name was Harbajan Kaur, daughter of Sher Singh, a landlord of Raja Sansi, a town near Amritsar. Married to Harbil Singh, she moved to Lahore in 1946. In 1947, while migrating from Lahore to Amritsar, their truck was attacked. All the men were killed. The girls were carried off.

Eventually, one Afzal Khan, 16 years older than Harbajan Kaur, married her. Renamed Shahnaz Begum she moved to Karachi with him. They lived in the Koela Godaam (Coal Storage) area; Afzal Khan manufactured face cream. They had five children, Khurshid, Zubeda, Jamila, Bala and Rizwan.

In 1962, after visa restrictions between India and Pakistan were relaxed, Harbajan/Shahnaz visited Raja Sansi along with her husband and children. The youngest, Rizwan, was a baby born in 1960.

She then became a "victim of partition a second time," as she put it. Her parents forced her to remain behind and sent her husband and children back to Pakistan. One can only imagine what she went through

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In 1969, her family married her to Sardar Gurbachan Singh Bacchan, a widower whose son Romy was then five years old. In 1989, Romy Singh migrated to the USA and established a business. He invited his father and stepmother to live with him and they moved there in 1997. The father died ten years later.

"Although I never revealed my past to Romy, he found out from other sources and asked me if I wanted to contact my children in Pakistan. Now they must be grown up and God knows where they live at this time," Harbajan Kaur told Dr Ahmed.

Romy Singh's father, Gurbachan Singh Bacchan, had been a poet and educationist originally from Peshawar. A great admirer of Sufism, he named his son Romy, after Jalaluddin Rumi. "Obviously, the father had deeply influenced his son who now wanted to help his stepmother connect with her Muslim children," wrote Dr Ahmed in his column.

Meanwhile, Nasim Hassan from Simla whose story had sparked this narration, now an engineer living in Delaware, USA, related this story to Tufail Uppal, a 92-year old man. It turned out that Uppal, who lived in Baltimore with his children, had lived in Raja Sansi. He knew Harbajan Kaur and had even attended her marriage in 1946. The two spoke on the phone, and then met, recognising each other after 65 years.

Uppal's son-in-law Waseem Sheikh sent the story to Jang, where it was published in Urdu along with Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed's email address. That is how, on the morning of Feb 15, 2013, Dr Ahmed received an email from Jameela Begum, a 63-year old woman in Karachi who had read the Jang article. She was Shahnaz Begum's (Harbhajan Kaur's) daughter.

Dr Ahmed, who was then in Mumbai, recounts this second part of the story in his Daily Times column of Jun13, 2013. They spoke on the phone. "She was desperate to talk to her mother," he writes, but had to wait due to the time difference between Pakistan and the USA. "Those few hours seemed longer than the 50 years that had passed; this is the feeling I got as I talked to Jameela Begum,"

It was early afternoon Pakistani time when mother and daughter finally spoke to each other. Jameela Begum felt it was a miracle - she and her siblings had thought their mother was dead. Her elder sister, Khurshid Begum, then in Canada visiting her son, flew to meet Harbajan/Shahnaz in Baltimore.

Meanwhile, a family friend of the Uppals', Khalid, located the shop in Karachi from where Afzal Khan used to supply his facial cream. The shop owner's son remembered his father talking about Khan who had died long ago. He knew Rizwan, the youngest son, only two when he was separated from his mother.

"Just then the story was published in Jang. The shop owner's son contacted Rizwan who did not believe it. He thought it was a hoax. However, modern technology worked a wonder: Kaur and her children saw each other on Skype and talked," writes Dr Ahmed.
Romy Singh and Harbajan Kaur obtained a visa for Pakistan. They went first to India, then crossed over at Wagah border from Amritsar in April 2013. Khurshid, the eldest daughter, was waiting for them. Together they visited Nankana Sahib. The mother was reunited with all her Pakistani children in Karachi the following day.

"The family had grown and Kaur had many grandchildren. On April 30, 2013, Singh and his mom returned to Baltimore," writes Dr Ahmed.

"Sadly, Mr Uppal died soon after Kaur and her children had made the initial contact. However, he and his children and family friends, Singh and Mr Hassan, all had participated in the healing and uniting process the Punjab book had set in motion. The ubiquitous Internet had made this possible."
-- Beena Sarwar 

Wednesday, June 25, 2014