Ghulam Ayesha's Journey from Daphia Bai: How did the girl who was separated from her family during the partition meet her relatives after 73 years?
Ghulam Ayesha remembers her childhood somewhat, the childhood when her name was Daphia Bai. While playing with her siblings in the sand dunes in the Cholistan area, she used to see her parents working nearby. This is before the partition of India.
She also remembers a trip several miles away to attend her uncle's wedding in the Morkhana area of Bikaner.
Shortly afterwards, Daphia Bai's parents married her. He was about 12 years old at the time of his departure.
When her parents gave her a dowry from Ganjianwala Khochar Chak in Ahmadpur area of Bahawalpur district and sent her away with her husband Hamla Ram to Khairpur Tamiwali, they did not know that they were seeing her for the last time.
Khairpur reached his father-in-law. Only three or four days had passed since the partition of India was formally announced.
She says that with this announcement, a stampede broke out. When the looting started, the women of her family took off their jewelery and hid it so that they could not be identified and no one would loot them.
"There were killings and massacres everywhere and people started fleeing for their lives," she said.
Like many other Hindu families, their in-laws decided to emigrate. On the day they were to leave, a local landlord named Bakhshande Khan Kanju stopped Daphiya Bai, saying that she would finish her work at home by evening.
"I was little, playing with the girls and jumping from evening to night," she says. My in-laws left. God knows where they went, I don't know. I was later told by some women that they had been evacuated.
In this situation, she was now at the mercy of Bakhshande Khan.
Bai claims that the landlord sold them to the family of a man named Ghulam Rasool for two oxen. Daphia Bai's life had changed completely. He had no idea what had happened to his parents and siblings in Ganjianwala Kho.
Would their parents have found them?
For the next several years, Daphia Bai did not receive any news of his family. Over the years, she blended into her new Muslim family. She also went to read the Qur'an with her children. She had now converted to Islam and was named Ghulam Ayesha.
In these circumstances, they could not find their real family for fear of "whether they should talk about it or not and if so, with whom."
But in Ghulam Ayesha's heart the desire to meet her father Nola Ram, mother Sonia Bai, sister Meera Bai and brothers Also Ram and Chautho Ram again was intensifying with the passage of time. Did they also try to find Daphia? "It simply came to our notice then.
She was soon married to Ghulam Rasool's son Ahmad Bakhsh. Ghulam Ayesha says her new family raised her with great love. She was given her own separate room. "No one has ever ruled over me," she says. No one has ever asked us to fill a glass of water. "
"I would give money to the searchers, I would give desi ghee."
After marrying Ahmed Bakhsh, she had seven children, including three sons. When they had two children, they started looking for their real family. Her husband Ahmed Bakhsh also helped her in this work.
He (Ahmad Bakhsh) used to see me crying so he helped me too. He would look for people who were going to Ahmadpur and then we would ask them to try to find my parents.
"Anyone who was going to Ahmadpur, I would give him money or ghee and tell him that my parents also live there, to find out. No one came back. "
Shortly afterwards, Ghulam Ayesha moved with her husband from Khairpur to Melsi Tehsil of Vehari District. This is where she lives today with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and their children. She is now about 86 years old, her husband has died and only two of her children are alive.
"I feel like my brother came to me."
Now, after 73 years of searching, they have finally found the calf's family address at the time of the partition.
He recently spoke to a nephew, Khajari Lal, and a nephew living in India on a video call. Sitting in the shade of a mulberry tree amidst lush green fields, his eyes widened when he first spoke to his nephew.
He kissed the screen of his mobile phone and cried and told his nephew, "I feel like my brother has come to me. I've been crying all my life waiting to see you guys. '
The problem, however, was that her eyesight was impaired and she could not see her nephews on the screen. She could not even understand their language because she spoke Marwari and could only speak and understand Seraiki.
"When I call very close, I see a glimpse of her," she says. Just a few days ago I talked to him and my nephew laughed and I thought he was fair-skinned and had white teeth. ”However, one of his grandsons, Naseer Khan, acted as his translator and facilitator. Are
How to reach the family of slave Ayesha Daphia Bai?
It was Naseer Khan who helped him find his family.
His family lived and farmed in the Morkhana area of Bikaner, an area of the Indian Punjab. This is the same historian where Daphia Bai went to her uncle's wedding before the partition. It was more than 200 kilometers from Melsi.
The story, hidden in Ghulam Ayesha's memory, helped her reach her nephews. However, many people hidden in his memory will only be remembered. She will not be able to meet them.
"They are saying that my brother has died. There are nephews, I want to meet them. And my sister is also alive, I want to meet her too. 'She has not been able to talk to her younger sister Meera Bai yet because she lives in another village.
However, his nephews have promised to talk to him soon. They are desperate for now.
How did social media work for them?
After failing on all sides, he decided to seek the help of the media.
One year on August 14, he published the story of Ghulam Ayesha's separation from his family in a local newspaper. After reading this, the matter reached the TV, but did not move forward.
Once again this year, on August 14, he published the news, which reached the social media and from there reached a journalist named Muhammad Zahid based in Delhi, India. He contacted Naseer Khan.
"I told him all the details about Aman and he said he would get the information and tell me soon. Then the next day his call came that Aman's family has been found out.
According to Naseer Khan, Ghulam Ayesha was then asked to talk about her nephews. The address of his family was found in the signs mentioned by Ghulam Ayesha and it was confirmed by the match between the government records and the circumstances.
"Meet me once in my life."
Slave Ayesha can no longer walk without support. Sitting on the bed, she keeps looking at pictures of her family on the phone and now she is waiting to see when she will meet them. She appeals to the governments of India and Pakistan to issue visas to their nephews so that they can visit them.
"I want to meet them once in my life. Give them a visa so that they can come and meet me. ”However, the tense situation in Pakistan and India is an obstacle to making this wish a reality.
Ghulam Ayesha, 86, is satisfied that her decades-long search has finally come to an end, but her 12-year-old Daphia Bai is still waiting.
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