uh people in in different sectors journalists and so on so huge huge kudos to you to be honest no but yeah now on the screen really actually the last few days has been um it's been really cool like it's been really cool i mean i kind of had a sense of like okay we'll get folks from you know different perspectives to tell stories but i don't think i've processed how different they would be and like how much light would shine on different elements of partition everyone's got their own story to tell and um yeah and that's something i learned i thought that i mean to be honest i didn't learn about partition in school whatsoever so i was oblivious to what even happened so when i first even heard about it i thought oh it's only punjab and pakistan that's affected and it obviously couldn't have been millions of people i was so naive to the whole concept of partition and it was only recently to be honest when i had to do my own research and i found out so much about it no absolutely absolutely i was i was actually also in a british school and i was narrating this to someone the other one of the other folks um the other day i was saying you know i heard so much about it at home like it was just mentioned often because it was so formative for my whole family um and then we got to like i think it was year nine and we were learning about world war ii for like the 105th time and it was like this little paragraph on the inseam of the page of the textbook so like it was going into the scene so you kind of have to like flatten the book out to read it properly and it must have been about eight six to eight lines about gandhi and churchill and that was that was all of partition just some and i was like i remember reading my history teacher was irish and i went to her and i was like what is this my family talks about all the time there has to have been more and she was like well you're right you know like this is um uh we just don't know enough about it and also the teachers as well there's just not enough teachers who are responsible to teach such um such topic because they don't really know much about it enough to teach to their kids it's a really tricky one and it's just such a shame when i look back in terms of what i learnt on history and obviously yeah world war ii tudors but nothing about what our ancestors went through nothing about what nani went through i mean it's it's such a shame it really is yeah hi everyone who's joined us sorry we've been we've been chatting on uh the last couple of minutes without saying hello but hi and welcome and uh drop us a hello let us know that you're here we'll start in just a couple of seconds and you know text as always text that friend you might be interested um and grab yourself a cup of water or tea whatever you'd like and we'll get started hello everybody and good evening thank you for being with us once again um we are on day 11 of our 16 days of partition 73 and we are fast approaching the independence days of india and pakistan on the 14th 15th of this month respectively as i mentioned to you yesterday as we get closer to the independence days we are going to move into the realm of personal storytelling in order to bring these two days to life yesterday before we get there yesterday anubhav took us on an absolutely delicious journey through all the by lanes of purani delhi new delhi and the shahir or shah jahanabad there were lots of comments that i read and it appears that he unsurprisingly made many of us quite hungry with his absolutely delectable descriptions of chole badure seek kebabs butter chicken and also introduced many of us to new foods we've never heard of like gola kebab and gile which i looked at a photo of by the way on the deli food walks page afterwards and it looks it looks as delicious as it sounds so hopefully we can all head to delhi soon to try that and today now we are shifting gears as i mentioned for the next few days leading up to the anniversary of partition looking at personal stories from people of different experiences we've thus far framed partition as something that happened between india and the newly formed pakistan something between the muslim league and the indian national congress but it it is also a british story partition not only were you know atlee mountbatten radcliffe and the likes responsible for the split and and where that split occurred it was also the end of empire and the empire though vast was centered around the subcontinent in many ways what with it being the largest single land that britain colonized but a funny an ironic thing perhaps happened as the colonizers left and left great suffering in their wake their nation continued to provide refuge to many from the subcontinent thereafter and there is today an entirely unique british south asian culture that is in its third generation for many between 1948 and 61 under the british nationality act britain provided citizenship to many as they needed labor in the post-war period and then again when indians were persecuted in east africa some decades later it was britain and canada to some extent that provided a refuge for these people so there remains an unspoken but undeniable connection between the history of these three countries britain india and pakistan and each of them exists in their current forum today because of the other two not in spite of the story therefore of british indians is one that lost home and made home among the same people if you left lahore and you could never go back was there a home for you in india or is your home in the country where you've been able to raise your children and your grandchildren so today we're going to speak with bbc presenter and i think third generation english is that right their generation yes third generation english monica plaha who is based in england and she has a very interesting and keen interest also in her family's history of partition as well as the stories of the english diaspora and just before i introduced monica i just want to acknowledge this book by gavita puri which is called partition voices and it's stories particularly of the indian and pakistani diaspora that moved in the years following partition and i have taken much of my knowledge of the diaspora from the stories in this book so just to acknowledge that as well and without further ado monica welcome thank you so much for being with me this evening thank you so much for having me and that book you just held up is actually brilliant um and so in in terms of my connection with partition it was my nani who is a partition survivor to this day she is the most fearless woman i know she is my ultimate role model and i only recently found out about her partition story because it's really hard for nani to talk about it but just to give you a bit of a background on my nanny and what she went through so my nanny was born in india punjab in a village called zara and my nanny her dad was a carpenter so what they did was that they traveled quite a bit they went to shimla and they traveled in india for nani's dad's work really um he had his own little business and then they ended up in in blochistan pakistan and nani was around 14 years old and nanny can't remember the village that she was in because they moved around a lot but nani loved living in pakistan nani was so happy her neighbors were hindus muslims christians she had the most amazing childhood and they embraced all cultures they embraced all religions but specifically when nani did speak to me about partition nani would say how love turned into hate so quickly how family and friends had murder on their mind within the space of days so nani was 14 at the time of uh partition nani isik nani's dad wore a turban and there were punjabis obviously living in pakistan and nani was a bit oblivious to all she didn't know what partition was or what this announcement was nani lived in pakistan with her mom her dad and there were 10 siblings so it was a really big family huge family and all they wanted to do was go out and play and only one time said oh to my dad i really want to go to the cinema there's this new film out and i really want to watch it and nani's dad obviously knew what was going on and he said no no there's just a feeling that we can't go to the cinema something's happening and i can feel change happening we need to stay inside and we need to stay safe and it just so happened whilst nani was really sad about not going to the cinema the next day they found out every sikh that went to the cinema in that evening died there were uh muslim mobs and obviously this happened in india with indians attacking muslims as well but nani's dad recalled they found out from a friend that muslims mobs were attacking people that weren't their own and literally from that moment onwards they were had to plan their journey from pakistan back to india and neighbors just turned on neighbors and nanny as a 14 year old saw things she didn't want to see so that night when after nanny find out about what happened in the cinema you know nani's mom said we have to be safe children were getting abducted you know women were being raped and men were off fighting protecting their own there were mobs everywhere nani slept and went to bed with red chili in her hand as protection self-defense uh red chili bricks just in case in the middle of the night someone attacked the house and also attacked nani nani was ready for self defense um and you know fortunately that night they were safe they were safe that night and then the next day you had muslim mobs knocking on their doors saying where are the sikhs we need to kill the sikhs and then nani's mum put nani in their next-door neighbor's chimney and none of this day is so thankful for her muslim neighbors for hiding nani in that in the chimney when nani was home because you had mobs knocking on the door they had swords in their hand they were ready to kill anyone who weren't their own nanny prepared herself for death but nani was hiding in a chimney and she managed to escape but it's terrifying you know you're in a chimney you're any noise you know they could smell you if nanny slipped that's it manny was gone but then the day came where they had to get on that train back to punjab but they all knew that the chances of survival were so slim people they knew were dying people around them neighbors were dying and every single day whilst you know partition was announced following on from when partition was announced and nanny remembers that week so clearly friends family food you know messages were being spread that nani's relatives and his blood and his friends people that nanny loved were dying so then in the middle of the night nani half of nani's family stayed because nani's dad had to stay behind to look after the business and then half of nani's family went with nani's mom my bg and also nani's auntie and they got in a lorry and they traveled and they hid in a truck and they went to i think it's a city called in pakistan and it was in the middle of the night so hopefully no one would see them although my nani's dad wasn't there he initially wore a turban a bug he had to take his bug off because it will give away his sikh identity obviously a gutter they had to remove that so no one could tell that they were sick but nani's quite fair-skinned anyway and then he looks pakistani so nani was lucky in that sense but they went in a truck they hid in a truck they couldn't take any belongings you can't take anything everything was left behind they just had the clothes that they were wearing and um they got in that truck and they went to the train station and trains were renowned for carrying dead bodies massacred bodies going in and out of pakistan in and out of punjab and nani remembers seeing yeah dead bodies dead bodies at this train station and then nani had a little baby sister next to her nanny was holding her sister's hand so tight nanny's mom was trying to protect her baby her baby girls thinking what am i doing i want to get them to safety but where am i look at where i am they they were prepared to die any moment then and fortunately they managed to get on a train whilst they got on the train and the door shut there was mobs mobs of pakistani men and nanny specifically remembers this they were armed with swords anything that could kill wood fire and they were banging on the carriage and nanny was screaming then he was screaming and he was saying we need to go we need to go come on why are we not moving this train needs to move because if we don't move now i will die and nanny shut her eyes tight and bg was there she was protecting her babies my nanny's mum and the auntie and they were praying praying to babaji they were praying so hard that the train will move and praying that they will be able to make it alive to the other side and i don't know what happened and it was a miracle and then he opened her eyes and the train was moving and then she could see the mob just there angry moving trying to get onto this moving train but fortunately they didn't and the train left and nanny just narrowly escaped death that day but as a 14 year old nanny saw things that she shouldn't have seen it was devastating so when nani got to the other side it was hashad i think the train arrived there but they hadn't eaten for days they it was a horrible journey it was tiring nani had baby sisters with her and nani's sister unfortunately didn't survive the journey nani's sister died from exhaustion and that journey so they got to the other side and she died but nani remembers the first thing when she came in not only did she have to deal with the loss of her sister there were refugee camps everywhere people lost people injured people that had no family people that were just walking around asking for help needing help and it was chaos like no one has ever seen before nani didn't know where she was nani said this is not india nani alongside millions of others became a refugee in her own country and they were physically sick they just lost bg lost her daughter nanny lost her sister nanny didn't even know if her dad would make it back alive with the rest of her siblings and when they got to a chart but obviously you want to help you want to make sure that you're there for each other but you out you've also got to make sure that you are safe and you get to the destination where you need to go to so fortunately they went to my uh nani's nannies and nanaji's house and it wasn't a big house it was a small house back in dutton's area and there was quite a few of them and they got to safety and nani was just so lucky so blessed so lucky that she still had her mom and she still had the family members that she had with her who are alive and it was devastating about her sister but they had no money they had no money food wasn't really an option they didn't really eat every day they couldn't afford food they had luxuries back in pakistan they they had nani's dad who was working they had money they had a business but that just got taken away from them and all of a sudden it was just a completely different way of living and to that day you know nani's mom my bg protected nani so much they'd be didn't let her kids at the house when you see that when you see what you saw on that journey it was just so traumatic beijing didn't want my nunny going anywhere she wanted to keep her kids safe and you know it's such a tragic tragic dark moment in history that my nanny and that generation don't really talk about but it but it's still there and they lived through it and the memories still haunt them so much and it's just when nani told me this story because i didn't know anything about it i was in tears i was crying and i thought to myself you saw that you lived through that why did i not know about this how come i wasn't educated in this and nani lost fortunately her her dad came back safe and alive but they had to live practically in poverty but nanny lost family members nanny lost cousins money lost friends nanny lost neighbors her life changed forever as a 14 year old it was devastating for nani so so hard but nani is just grateful and thanks babaji every single day that she is alive and she is safe it's such an incredible story sad sad very sad story and i'm so happy and i'm so thankful and i'm so blessed that nani is such a fighter and she got through us obviously we wouldn't be here today but it's through nani's amazing courage you know which is just so inspiring that's made her the woman that she is today she is nani bimla she is queen punjabi warrior and she's got a fan club of people behind her because she is fearless she is so inspiring and she's active and she's brilliant and she's got that punjabi mentality that nothing phrases her life goes on we must carry on and she is one hell of a woman she absolutely is she absolutely is i mean i've i obviously haven't met her but from you know first just to seeing all of her really positive messages that she puts out so regularly and listening to that incredibly powerfully told story thank you thank you for sharing that with us that's thank you for trusting us with that story hey thank you for giving me a platform to share my niece story on it's just for me and i was saying this to you beforehand as well i didn't even know about nanny's story and i think that for me is the most upsetting thing because i didn't know my history i wasn't taught about it at school but even for nanny's generation and i don't know if that's the case with your grandparents as well that they find it really hard to talk about so that's something i wanted to ask you actually how because it maybe you can share with everybody listening also how it came about that you heard the story because that's a story in itself but so maybe you can share that and then share with us what did it do to your family when nani opened up and shared the story with you and then presumably you know other folks as well in the family of course so i actually so it was in 2017 i got this new job at bbc breakfast um and i worked as a producer there and just on the story of prospects i saw oh okay partition it's 70 years since partition in 2017 i knew my nunny had some affiliations with it but i didn't really know nanny's story um and one of the items we covered at work as a journalist it was grinder charter so she's the film director who did bender like beckham and she released a film called viceroy's house and and i produced that item and i learned so much about my history and i thought to myself gosh i'd love to have a word with not only about it so i did but nanny was a bit like yeah it was hard and i i was just nanny you know please let's let's talk about it some more and it was just one of those where it wasn't the right time for non-need to speak about it and i could tell it was i've lived with nani my whole life you know my nanny is my everything can i read her like a book me and my nanny are like that but i've never seen nanny get so upset ever um and i could tell something was niggling on me and i said okay i need to know what if you don't want to talk about it now that's fine but i went to take nani to the vice voice house in cinema and throughout that movie they showed clips of partition and they showed it was a love story between two people from different religions and they showed the conflict between religions and the history about how it all happened and nani didn't have to the film was in english now you didn't have to understand the film all she could do was see it and it was so real for her she was seeing images of the train journeys the massacres the people dying the mobs and all of a sudden it brought tears into nanny's eyes and i remember sitting next to nani and i was just holding her and he was holding my hand so tight so tight and nanny cried and i never see my nunny crying ever she is so strong and um i said nanny are you okay and it obviously brought back so much more emotion and it just so happened that year in 2017 in december we were going to india we booked a ticket to india and then i did some research and i thought um okay you've got the world's first partition museum open in amritsar so we've got to take nanny here and at this point i still didn't know nani's full story i was slowly getting out of nani bit by bit and then we went to the museum itself and wow it was just the most unforgettable day because we went round nani listened to people's accounts of partition she we looked at people's journeys where they had to travel nani all of a sudden just became immersed in a moment of history she has never spoken about but she had felt so connected to and she for the first time spoke and opened up about her story it was an emotional journey going through each section of that partition museum because nani could relate to everything absolutely everything and i just held nani's hand and together we walked around and at each and every station after we would listen to someone's story listen watching on the tv and listening to listening to the accounts nani then told me a bit about her story and when nani was in pakistan and why nani was in pakistan and you know what nani's family would what was saying to her and what she saw and none his journey from pakistan to punjab and bit by bit it slowly it slowly came out and i learned so much that day that day was a complete the most life-changing experience for me it was so life-changing because i can't believe that i am hearing this from my nanny who survived partition you see it on the tv and you you would never think that oh my god this woman that i have lived with my whole entire life has seen that she has experienced that she has gone through that my nanny has been keeping that inside and hasn't even spoken about it for how old was i then 26 years 26 years and i'm only learning about this now 26 years and i never even learned about this in school 26 years and i didn't even hear about it on the tv 26 years and this is the first time nani is breaking that silence and my mom was with me and even my mom was shocked and it was just the most life-changing experience but actually when nani finished her story and we were in the bind we were at my um nani's brother's house nani felt a relief and then he cried and then he held my hand and he told her story nani was in shock nanny was shaking but this weight nani was i think 85 at the time this weight just came off nani's shoulders because everything that nani was holding in and keeping inside trapped inside just came out and it was just on the table it was raw it was everything that nunny experienced during that horrific time and it was we learned so much we learned so much and it's incredible and it just goes to show we know why nanny's a queen we know why nanny's fearless because she's gone through all of that so when nani came to the uk in the 1950s it was a walk in the park because nani's experienced all of that so setting up a new life with no money with no job with two kids had leaving your family behind it was a walk in the park and nanny just did it nani absolutely did it but for nani it's still hard to talk about and she doesn't talk to strangers about it um but it's why it happened nani feels like you know nanny doesn't actually still know why it happened has nanny received none of it almost feels as if she needs justice but she hasn't received that she lost her sister and she's angry she's angry that she lost family and friends she's upset that as a 14 year old she had to see things that she didn't want to see but nani got through it nani is a survivor nani fought through it and it's made nani the woman who she is today honestly brought her to the uk well well there was nothing in india for nani anymore she got married two years after partition when she was 16. they didn't have much money back in india they there was nothing really there although nani's dad's business picked up and it was good there had to be life elsewhere there had to be opportunities elsewhere and nanny my grandfather my nanaji he he wasn't he didn't go through partition but it was almost as if his parents saved so hard saved so hard they worked hours to just afford one ticket for my nanaji to go to england and to work and so he did that he he worked and he followed his friends they were just following one after the other one after the other because there was hope of a better life in britain because punjab wasn't the same how it used to be punjab it was poor um people were living in poverty it was they were still healing with partition they were trying to heal following on from partition but it's almost as if they wanted to forget those horrible memories and just start a new life somewhere else because not only wanted to raise her children with a good life not only wanted to give them opportunities that nani never had and whether that meant nani going to a completely different country having no money trying to find a job then sober yet nani needed to do something to escape and that's what nani did so my uh nanaji he worked in england i think he worked there for around seven years he worked in a town called lemington spa and it's quite a big seat community in lemington spa it's quite small it's in the west midlands but it was uh they followed the leader it's near birmingham uh and they found work in factories so it was factory work that they got and they rented various rooms and there was lots of lots of them sleeping in in one room and in tiny houses and that's how it really worked and nonnie didn't see her husband for seven years because nani was in india looking after the child that they had and living with the indoors and all of a sudden nani just said okay it's my time now i'm coming over and um yeah so she got a ticket she surprised my nanaji and then to the uk they went to lemington's bar they went with nani and her her child and and and then met my my nanaji and that's when they rented a room in a house and they started a life together from nothing and nanny got a job as um she worked as a cleaner in the hospital and she was also a shop stewardess but it wasn't easy because in the 50s there was racism nani and nanaji after one problem you know leaving partition recovering from that trying to make something of themselves in punjab trying to earn enough money you know fearing for their lives all of a sudden coming to the uk having to deal with racism on a daily basis when they went to work people didn't know who these indians were they didn't know the language they couldn't speak english the food the culture was completely different it was a culture shock and nani didn't know any different so even when they were racist nanny was like okay and it's almost as if they had to accept it they didn't have any money they didn't really have feet to stand on when they first came to lemmington spa they didn't know anything but honestly they are the most amazing people i feel very emotional saying this because honestly if it wasn't for them they wouldn't have given us the opportunity to be the people that we are today and i'm so thankful for nani and they did amazingly they managed to get their own house um and they saved and they worked really hard you know seven days a week they used to get paid like one pound a day one pound a day for doing the most awful jobs and when i say awful i mean it was absolutely awful um but i look at nani and the sacrifices that she had to make and they brought my mum up and they had their five kids in the house and they worked so hard and my mom has this most amazing mentality of a safe safe save and work work work because we didn't have a lot we didn't have hardly anything but i think that's with most indian families really you have to come to another country and you've just got to make the most of the situation but they worked so hard all of them and i'm just so grateful really because they've given me and my cousins and my sister the best possible start in life um because it wasn't easy it really wasn't easy um and nani did all of that while still you know living with the aftermath of partition um so kudos absolute kudos to the amazing grandparents for just giving us the best start in life and making that journey because when i went back to india for the first time in 2017 actually it was for the second time i was shocked i was shocked how life is so different in india where i'm from in the punjab how life is so different there to what it is now because you know education nani didn't go to school nani didn't go to school at all nani so badly to this day craves and education and my family members back in india they're not all educated they don't have the opportunity to go back to school and i feel sorry for the females there because they don't have that privilege of learning they don't have that privilege of learning english maths and science or going to university and i think to myself oh my gosh that could have been me what if that was me so i am so grateful for nani so grateful for making that journey for taking that risk for being with my nanaji for for being in the uk and for working so hard for working seven days a week raising five children working night shifts for her children and then for my mum to obviously provide for me because my mom is just a phenomenal woman who has nani's values instilled in her she is the most hard-working woman ever so absolute hats off to them so i just hope one day that if i can be anything like my mum or my nanny or my nanaji i'm i'm so happy i'll be so happy because because they are just incredible incredible absolutely it's it's really um i don't know we feel so privileged as one way to put it but also when you think about what that generation withstood in their lives to reach where they were and how we reaping the benefits so plentifully today um and how different life could very well could have been for all of us it's just it's very um i don't know just makes you stop and think a lot um yeah uh while you were talking one of the things that struck me is you know you you obviously the story is of your nanny and you spoke a lot about her mother and they made the journey alone as women uh women and girl children they made that journey alone over partition uh your nani surprised your nanajin england which i'm sure was very very um you know unlikely in that generation for a woman to make that decision and just go as well uh and that's so empowering and so beautiful and it just really made me smile when you said she surprised him i was like in all of this there was a nice surprise like in all this surprise honestly my nanny when she tells that story when she went to england um i think so my knowledge he found out that nani was coming by telegram and then nanaji of my mom told me the story you know she my nanaji ran to the airport and um literally said oh my wife's coming my wife's coming but she speak no english you speak no english and you know nonnie had no idea where she was going she's never been on a plane she was like yeah what's going on here like who are these people it was complete shock and when my nanaji saw my nani come through the gates my nanaji bypass security it's like something out of a film and saw nani and just grabbed her eve none of you didn't get he didn't even care if he'd get arrested that day i'm pretty sure he didn't care about security he was so happy to see my nanny he went he jumped over the barriers jumped over security and it was just like the queen and the king were reunited they hugged and it was the best day nani remembers that today so vividly and she will always say it's just one of the best days of her life because she felt safe she was with her husband and it was just the most amazing reunion and it's not often that you hear a woman make that journey by herself with her kids with her kid so it honestly it is such joy to talk about that's so beautiful that's so beautiful and the other thing that that struck me is that you know the the power of women and we often hear about obviously the woman's body was very much a political tool during partition and not only were many women abducted and so on but many of them were never returned and actually both governments india and pakistan had an act i think for seven or nine years after partition where they tried to bring bring these girls back and i mean i don't have any sense of how successful this was and i don't you know but still you hear the strength and the resilience of women in every story um and this is not to take anything away from men we're just focusing on the story that you've told us today and the stories that i know from my grandparents as well um what do you think it was that gave your bg that strength to get on this train with her children and and just do it oh wow do you know what women had it tough women had it's so tough back in the day and you i've heard so many horror stories even nanny told me horror stories about how unsafe it was to be a woman living throughout partition because of rape and obviously abduction and oh my god my nanny gets her strength from her bg she had no other choice she is fearless she is so fearless she is an absolute warrior it was either i protect my children and i make this journey by myself or what other what other hope do we have we stay behind with non-knees dad and we could potentially die so nanny my bg has raised nani and all of her daughters to be fearless to be strong to really not rely on a guy and if you want to do something you do it and i and mom has always told me this actually from a really young age like growing up with nonnie nanny has always said if there is something that you don't want to do in life do it uh so anything i'm scared about anything i am scared about my nunny would say to me monica she'll watch me and she'll be like do it absolutely do it and that's something that she has learned from a young age because of bg and because of that partition journey women had to hold they had a lot of responsibilities back in the day they had a lot of responsibilities you know they had big families they had you know my nanny had 10 siblings they had to not only protect the children they also had to go out and work they had to make money so whilst my whilst my nanny's dad was in pakistan and also my nani's dad came back to punjab safely you know and and sound nani's mom had to find work you know they were they were sewing she was brave she was looking off the children she was protecting the children she took she didn't want them leaving the house essentially but it's just they had no other option they had no other option at that time and looking back nani and i remember meeting my fiji in india and that was the first time i went to india i was about eight years old and i saw so much of my nanny in bg she was about 105 years old so she was 105. she was amazing she was still walking she had a little walking stick and she made she was still making me food she was making me rudy and she would just be absolutely fearless she would be walking around going to the bazaars she would be she'd be cooking she would be exercising she would be doing also should be feeding the dogs and i thought to myself oh my god bg bt like you're 105 years old but there was no stopping her her mental strength was just phenomenal she used to and this is where my nanny gets it from she they just wake up with a massive to-do list in their head they're not typical but they don't just see right okay i'm just gonna sit here and watch tv or i'm going to make some food that's not what they're about their mentality is right okay i'm going to get up this is what i'm going to do today i'm going to exercise i'm going to better myself i'm going to make i'm gonna my nanny's very protective she will always call everyone in the family to make sure we're okay what we're up to um she she always wants to know that we're safe she's got whatsapp she's got facetime she's got everything and she is just the most amazing soul who gets it from bg and i genuinely believe that it's the experience they went through that have made them so fearless and touchwood you know nothing happened to them but obviously they heard horror stories about their cousins about friends about neighbors and families and we're just blessed that they're safe but they are the true definition of punjabi female queen warriors because their mentality is just amazing i i just don't know where they get that strength from it's just phenomenal if i i don't have that i don't have that and i just feel like it's specifically that generation of that era they are made from something else they are made they are they are so strong they're made of steel nanny's mindset absolutely that's it is really incredible and so now kind of moving you know outside of your family you obviously learnt the story a few years ago and have been yeah it's been kind of learning more and more since that floodgate sort of opened what responsibility do you think this generator has in the uk to start talking about these stories because it hasn't really been a reckoning of any kind um to acknowledge this experience and you know while it affected obviously 15 million indians pakistanis it also affected a lot of english people who moved back as well so it's not as though it's a removed history from people as well or scottish people for that matter so so what responsibility do you think or what should be done now to share these stories more widely i think i mean for me i didn't really find out about partitioning until it was 70 years of partition i was working in a news organization and obviously i learned about it and that's what opened the door for me to ask nanny and then india but i feel like so much more could be done in this country not maybe you know what if other western countries as well for us to learn about partition we recently had south asian heritage month here in the uk which was um phenomenal we learned it really shone a light on partition um partition voices politicians stories and what more needs to be done here in the uk to really forget about what happened and one of the things that was discussed versatility to learn about it in schools because from a young age if you look at the history correct that is included at all whatsoever and i genuinely feel like if if if i learn about in school my knowledge and i earlier our knowledge would be so different and we would see things in a more enlightened way and obviously so much instead of 10 years later or like 20 years later where are we oh hello oh okay folks on facebook can you just let me know if you can if you can hear us now i just oh dear okay i'm sure she will be back in a moment but wow what a story i mean we've we've talked about the resilience of the generation but i think to hear somebody's story of it is is so powerful and um the diaspora to me is particularly interesting because i think on the subcontinent perhaps britain seems very far away but in actuality the history of the two nations is so intertwined and today british indians make up a very integral part of the fabric of that country um as do perhaps still a lot of the things they've left behind here for us as well um some good some bad and likewise some good some bad and we're moving forward from that and i think you know we touched on education but the idea that um that it's not in textbooks is really is really problematic and we've had this conversation a few times over in the um we've had this conversation a few times over that oral history needs to be recorded because it's not adequate in textbooks for our final 10 minutes today i have had i wanted to share something with all of you um you all heard the clip at the beginning now 11 times over and every day i get one two three questions at least saying whose voice is that in the video and many people have assumed that it's one of my grandmothers which i understand why but it's actually not the voice in the video is of an incredible lady named raj qatar who lives in new delhi today she is the grandmother of one of my cousins and she came from derailment eventually to delhi at the time of partition and so what i'm just going to do now is i'm going to play the longer clip from which you can see her i'm going to play the longer clip from which you can from which you can pull the little snippets that i've used in in the clips at the beginning um so monica sorry i was just saying to everyone i'm just go i'm going to play that clip but since you're back before i play that we did lose you at the end there so i'm not sure no that's all right that's all right i just um i'm just wondering if there's anything that you wanted to repeat for everybody before we um sum all up i think it was basically just shining a like keep that discussion keep that discourse going and obviously it would be amazing if it could be included in history curriculum just so from a young age we can learn what our ancestors went through because it's such a big moment in history like i was saying 15 million people displaced millions of people died this is huge and it happened in 1947 not even that long ago our grandparents have lived through it and it's so important to shine a light keep talking about it reflect we must learn we must educate and we must share experiences and i'm just so grateful that you've given me the opportunity today to share my nanny story um because it hasn't been shared before so that's what i'd like to say before hopefully it won't cut out again no thank you so much we've actually this this theme has come up a lot that you know folks like you and i we are now two generations removed from partition so we you know we don't carry as heavy emotional scars um as our parents or our grandparents and so we actually it's it's sort of the responsibility now of this generation to make the space for the stories make sure that the stories are recorded so that so that they stay alive so that they don't they don't leave us with the generation um so thank you so much for being with us this evening and sharing so openly it's been really really really beautiful so thank you bless you thank you thank you because i think it's great what you're doing that i think this is basically how what maura should be doing basically to shine a light on partition because it's through you and through these chats and and through sharing got online which get people talking to reflect and learn and to educate on this horrible time in history but also really important absolutely and once again everyone watching we did this with angel where she gave us all a very clear call to action but let's let's get these stories out and with that i'm just going to play this clip it is quite long but it is her story and i didn't feel right to edit it because i thought it should be heard in its entirety is foreign um foreign we came in september the foreign to foreign i hope you all enjoyed that it was recorded or was played to you exactly as it was recorded and it was beautiful so i don't think i'm going to say anymore and hopefully the beauty of the kindness and the generosity of spirit the resilience the stories the adaptation are things that you leave with this evening tomorrow we will be speaking with chef asmakhan who will again be sharing with us a story of her family but in this case a family that remains split between countries overnight thank you everybody and good night