Pakistan Archives - Page 4 of 6 - INDIAN MEMORY PROJECT

A sportswoman who managed teams during the Asian Games 1982

My mother, Parveen Kaur. Patiala, Punjab. 1975

My mother, Parveen Kaur. Patiala, Punjab. 1975 Image and Narrative contributed by Manmeet Sahni, Maryland, USA This picture of my mother Parveen Kaur was taken at a photo studio in Patiala, Punjab after she successfully attained a first division in M.P.ed (Masters in Physical Education) at the Government college of Physical Education in Patiala. Parveen Kaur (Arora) was born in the small hill town of Mussoorie, India in 1952. The 'Arora' family originally belonged to Rawalpindi, (now Pakistan), and moved to Mussourie during the Indo-Pak partition. My grandfather S. Chet Singh was a cloth merchant and he, as was with many others, had to abandon his business and assets when they moved to India. My grandfather tried to re-establish his business in Mussoorie but it was difficult. He then decided to move to Delhi for better prospects. The family settled in the western parts of the city. He bought a small piece of land and set up a Deli shop. The business couldn't pick up the way it had in Rawalpindi, but they did manage to do reasonably well. When the family moved to Delhi, Parveen Kaur was just 11. She was the youngest in a family of five sisters and two brothers. At the time, the family norm was that women should get married as soon as they turns 18 or younger if an appropriate groom was found. So all my aunts (mother's sisters) got married early and none of them completed their graduation. My mother, being the youngest managed to claim her right to education. An avid sportswoman at the age of 13, she went on to represent her school for Nationals in Basketball. At the Nationals she became an…

He designed motorbikes, served the British Army and worked in a circus with his wife.

My grandfather, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary, fondly known as Mike. Location - Probably Sibi (Now Pakistan). 1941

My grandfather, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary, fondly known as Mike. Location - Probably Sibi (Now Pakistan). 1941 Image and Narrative contributed by Shaun Waller & Oonagh Waller, UK These are the memories of my mother, Oonagh who was born in India to my grandparents, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary (Mike) and Sheilagh Anges Mary Maguire. - Shaun "My father, Glyndon Ralph O'Leary was fondly known as Mike. He was born in 1902 in Toronto, Canada to Winifred and Ralph O'Leary, who were of Irish descent. At the age of Twelve, he left Canada and began his military career in the Boys service, Indian Subcontinent from 1914 - 1919 and continued in various regiments serving the British Empire on and off until 1946. Mike was also a Practical Motor Engineer: his brothers and he owned and worked in a motorcycle workshop and showroom called the O’Leary Brothers in Dehradun, Uttar Pradesh. They also designed and built a motorcycle called the White Streak. However, it never made it to production. At one point, they bought an old motorcycle, a Brough Superior from T. E. Lawrence (The very original Lawrence of Arabia) and exhibited it in their showroom. While in the army in Lahore, Mike manufactured scale models for Forest Research, Rural upliftment, P.W.D. and Irrigation departments and also tactical models for training of mechanised fighting vehicles. 12 such gold medal standard models manufactured by him were on display in the Forestry Department of Lahore Central Museum. I wonder if they are still there. Mike married Sheilagh Anges Mary Maguire in October 1928 in Lahore and subsequently had three children - Michael, Oonagh and Larry. Later the children went to boarding school in Mussoorie: Wynberg…

Post independence, they travelled to several countries looking for a better life

My paternal grandparents, Shehr Bano & Syed Ali Naqvi. Bihar. 1947

My paternal grandparents, Shehr Bano & Syed Ali Naqvi. Bihar. 1947 Image and Narrative contributed by Zinnia Naqvi, Toronto, Canada This is an image of my paternal grandparents. My grandfather, or Dada as we called him, Syed Ali Naqvi was born in Khujwa, a village located in the Siwan District, Province of Bihar, India, on May 13, 1916. He was the sixth child of his parents. His father passed away when he was about eight years old and his upbringing and education became the responsibility of his mother and his eldest brother. Dada was educated at the well known TK Ghose School, in Patna. The school has since seen alumni like the first President of India, Dr Rajendra Prasad, and the first chief minister of Bengal, Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy. Later, Dada attended at the Patna College.In 1942 he married Shehr Bano Naqvi, my grandmother. She was born in Khujwa too, on January 25, 1925. She was the last of seven children of her parents. Her father was a prominent police officer of the Siwan District. Dadi never attended school but was educated by private tutors at home. After their marriage, Dada started working for the Government of Bihar. At the time of partition in 1947, he was working in the town of Midnapur, West Bengal. On August 14, 1947, when Pakistan was born, he and his family had to migrate to Dhaka (now Bangladesh) which was declared East Pakistan at the time. In Dhaka, Dada started his own transportation business. They lived in the Lakhi Bazar neighbourhood of Dhaka and bought a big house abandoned by a Hindu family who had left for India. On May 9, 1949, my…

The mythical Uncle Bunnu.

The Cordeiro Siblings. Alec, May and Beatrice. Karachi (now Pakistan). Circa 1910

The Cordeiro Siblings. Alec, May and Beatrice. Karachi (now Pakistan). Circa 1910 Image and Narrative contributed by Naresh Fernandes, Author, Bombay The picture, photographed sometime around 1910, is the childhood image of my grand-uncle Alec Cordeiro, fondly called Bunnu. Next to him is my Grand-aunt May and my Grandmother Beatrice. It isn’t clear when and how exactly my ancestors got to Karachi, but it seems that they’d been there for four generations. Like most Goans, they left looking for work: the Portuguese didn’t establish any industry in Goa, so hundreds and thousands had to seek work in other places. There were sharp discussions in the family about whether our ancestor Santan Vaz had made his money running a liquor distributorship or a booze joint. My paternal great-grandfather, Xavier Cordeiro, was a postmaster general in Karachi. His son-in-law, my grandfather, Alfred Fernandes, moved to Karachi from Burma during World War II. He’d been working for the Burma Railways and had to leave when the Japanese invaded in 1941. So he and his wife, my grandmother, Beatrice (standing right), decided to return to their family’s home in Karachi. In only a few years, the entire family pulled up their roots from the city in which they’d lived for four generations to take their chances in India, a few months before Partition in 1947. Though my father was only nine when the family left Karachi, his elder siblings had more vivid memories : trips between Bombay and Karachi were made on ferries named the Saraswati and the Sabarmati (“they were like little tubs, we all got seasick”) ; relatives having leisurely evenings at the Karachi Goan Association (KGA), “gin and lime was the favourite drink”, and the enterprising…

Leaving everything behind in Scotland to an unknown future in India

My Gradndmother, Sydney Gorrie, on her wedding day. Lahore (now Pakistan). December 1923

My Grandmother, Sydney Gorrie, on her wedding day. Lahore (now Pakistan). December 1923 Image and Narrative contributed by Janet MacLeod Trotter, UK This is a photo of my Scottish maternal grandmother, Sydney Gorrie (nee Easterbrook) on her wedding day in December 1923. She and my grandfather, Robert Gorrie, were married in a cathedral in Lahore (now Pakistan). She looks beautiful but perhaps to me, also slightly apprehensive. This may be because she hadn’t seen her fiancé in over a year and had just travelled out by ship with her parents from Edinburgh, Scotland to get married. For some time their home was in Lahore (now Pakistan) which my grandmother enjoyed. Robert Gorrie fondly called Bob, a veteran of the World War I and survivor of trench warfare, had secured a job with the Indian Forestry Service, as a conservator of forests. Sydney was an only child and had left behind home and extended family in Edinburgh, Scotland for an unknown future trekking around the Himalayan foothills with her new husband. Bob was enthusiastic about trees and conservation and became an expert on soil erosion. He worked all over Punjab and the remote foothills of the Himalayas, and my grandmother would have to plan and organise camping trips for a month or so at a time. When my mother was born, she was taken along too; her pram hoisted onto poles and carried along jungle paths. According to his Work Records, Scottish Bob was “a tiger for work” but was impatient with the bureaucracy and criticised for being outspoken. My granny would sigh that she was constantly having to ‘smooth the ruffled feathers’ of the administrators. He was also based at…

All translations are machine generated, hence they are not 100% accurate.