‘Sindh Bani: An Anthology’ narrates the Sindhi experience of Partition

At a time when public discourse on the Sindhi experience of Partition in India was negligible, a few people who had suffered its terrible effects ensured it would never be forgotten. Sarla Kripalani was one such stalwart, quietly recording her recollections for posterity — how, at 15, she was sent to Indore to safely live with her grandmother; returned to Pakistan as a newlywed, and then rebuilt her life in India in 1963.

Sarla wrote about the gracious lifestyle in pre-Partition Sindh; of the Karachi she knew as a “clean city of gardens and beaches”; the architectural systems that offered natural air-conditioning; of furniture in mahogany and teakwood, and four-poster beds with cleverly built-in boxes at the top of each leg for ladies to store buttons, bows and other small items.

The author also recalled the more horrifying aspects of Partition, even as she saw rare flashes of humour in these grim circumstances. For instance, when villagers from across the border occupied palatial homes that the Sindhis had left behind, they were terrified of the electric lights and fans, which they accidentally switched on. Some even believed the spirit of the Hindus had come to haunt them!

Sarla preserved these memories on scraps of paper, but her zeal to reclaim her disappearing heritage took more intentional forms as well. She was aware that in post-Partition India, Sindhi proverbs were in danger of being forgotten. So, she painstakingly collected them over 17 years, verifying their meanings, finding English equivalents and adding the Devanagari script.

Sarla’s work also encompassed translations from Sindhi, notably Tekchand Karamchand Mirchandani’s book, which offers an unvarnished account of the Sindhworki system.

‘Sindh Bani: An Anthology’ brings together these varied facets of Sarla Kripalani’s work. Lovingly compiled by her daughter Manjeet Kripalani, it is categorised into three sections, tied together with a map of Sindh and elegant black and white photographs.

‘Short Stories of Sindh’, the first section, offers glimpses of life both in pre- and post-Partition Sindh. The chapters are short, and the language simple, but the richness of detail makes the writing evocative.

Interspersed between the main narratives are unexpected asides. The tale of Kunwar Bhagat, who would help make ends meet by selling kohira (kabuli chana) before going to school, is accompanied by a ‘Recipe for Kunwar’s kohira made by his mother’. These digressions evoke a sense of intimacy, of one’s grandmother sitting by your bedside, telling you tales of a bygone era.

Sarla speaks of some terrible things, such as “babies being nailed to walls and fences and young girls kidnapped and raped”; the matter-of-fact style makes these narratives hard-hitting, a stark reminder of the cost of Independence.

The section on proverbs is comprehensive, with some going as far back as the 1600s. While there have been other collections, such as ‘Sindhi Proverbs’ by Shakun Narain Kimatrai, published for private circulation in 2006, ‘Sindh Bani’ will take this precious heritage to new generations.

Section 3, Sarla Kripalani’s translation of Tekchand Karamchand Mirchandani’s book on Sindhworkis (‘Sindhwork and Sindhworkis’, 1920), left me with mixed feelings, as he paints them in an unequivocally negative light. As Shyamdas Naraindas Chulani’s Foreword in 1919 remarks: “One can say the writer has mentioned many shortcomings of the Sethias that may or may not apply to the community as a whole.”

‘Sindh Bani’ offers a glimpse of the rich legacy of the Sindhi community through the eyes of someone who has seen it first-hand. The cutout cover featuring a map of Sindh gives it a distinctive identity. This tribute by Manjeet Kripalani to her parents is a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on the Sindhi community in post-Partition India.

— The reviewer is a poet and the author of ‘The Seven Queens: Sindhi Folktales Retold in English Verse’