And that got the student, Sandeep Dutt, thinking about all the stories that the Partition of India was yet to tell. He then embarked on a quest to find others who shared the itch. Through a Facebook group, Aman-Ki-Asha, he met the young journalism student, Faisal Hayat, from Rawalpindi. The duo joined hands with Ritika, a teacher by profession and storyteller by passion.

During an interview with Hindustan Times, Sandeep says they were able to find 200 survivors, spanning across Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Assam, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and conduct 100 interviews.

Of these, 47 stories made their book, The Speaking Window, which was released last month with a stamp from the Oxford University Press.

The book’s title, also the name of the Facebook page that the trio initially used to share some of these stories, is a metaphor of sorts. Just as neighbours converse after throwing open their windows, these subjects speak to each other through their stories.

Stories from all walks

The number of stories in the final edit holds significance as it equates with the year of the Partition. The final cut of stories unites 52 cities from across five countries. It has people from all walks of life — a retired justice, a shahi imam, a ragpicker, a former diplomat, homemakers — recall their tales.

Chapter 19, The Salvation Story, for instance, Sandeep says is about his meeting 107-year-old Sai Ramte Shah Chisti, born as Malkeet Singh only to later presume the role of Comrade Dukhiya in the struggle for freedom.

Chisti, who passed away at 109 before the book could be released, is one of the most colourful characters Sandeep has ever met. His whole interview is in the form of poems and ghazals.

The writer recalls, “Born in Malerkotla, he was imprisoned in Multan jail at the time of Partition. He said he was close to Teja Singh Sutantar, and had attended a secret conference of revolutionaries in Maharashtra, one also attended by Bhagat Singh and Chandra Shekhar Azad. He spent most of his pre-Partition life underground and on the run as his job was to decimate the British or traitors on order. He got caught and was imprisoned in Multan.”

“Later, he got involved in labour politics and was imprisoned again in 1960. His charm worked magic again as then Punjab chief minister Lachhman Singh Gill would pardon him after watching one of his performances in a play, Qatil Kaun, on August 15, 1968,” Sandeep says.

Tales of survival

Sharing another snippet, one recounting the madness and carnage on both sides, Sandeep says, “In Chapter 9, City of Saints, Swaran Nagpal, remembers how one of his younger brothers, while waiting for their father on the Indian side, got involved in killings on a train headed to Pakistan.”

“Through all my interviews, this is the only account where a survivor was brave enough to even hint at complicity,” he says.

In the chapter, Abandoned Virtue, Fatimah Noreen of Sialkot and later Delhi, all pre-Partition, recalls leaving her home in the latter city when a local imam was murdered. The family was in a camp at Lal Quila when it was attacked. Fatimah lost her younger brother in the violence.

Fatimah got married in 1960 and had six children, all of them left her and the husband in old age. Faisal met them in a street of Rawalpindi where they were selling clothes on a hand cart. The battle-hardened Fatimah said, “Beta, upar wale se ek hi dua hai ki marney se pahle kisi ka mohtaj na karey (Son, all I can ask of God was to not make me dependent on someone else).”

Strength from subjects

Just like the lives their subjects led, the writer trio saw highs and lows, battling financial constraints, geographical distance and a pandemic-induced pause.

But then came along a story of a persistent princess from Lahore who lost all her wealth only to rebuild herself from ground up to earn a post office job or the shared songs across borders and they would rediscover their strength and start over.