A Survivor’s Account (with Shanti Tangri)

Up until this point I had only communicated via email with his song and the only thing I knew, besides him being a survivor, is that he used to be a professor in the Economics Department at Rutgers University. I took the Coltrain from San Francisco to mountain view. My mind was racing during the entire journey. I have never spoken to my relatives who survived face to face about their experiences, and here I was about to meet a stranger and have him divulge painful parts of his past.

I met Shanty Tongrey and his son Neil at the mountain view public library on a Friday afternoon. I got there early to set up our meeting room and I was constantly rearranging everything as if I was staging a house about to be put on the market. Once the equipment was set up to my liking, I sat down, took a breath and looked over my questions, and a minute later there was a knock at the door. They

greeted me with a joyful and kind energy. We introduced ourselves, I explained how the process of recording would work and I went over some topics of discussion. After that, I pressed record and for two and a half hours I just listened to shanty, hanging onto every word of his story. YEA, each episode of this show has been difficult to put together, but my time with shanty posts a lot more discourse on how I should present his story to you all.

This episode could be hours long. I would have loved to include everything shanty told me. Each sentence, each memory, had so much significance. I hardly spoke during our conversation. It didn't feel right to interrupt his stream of consciousness as he recounted a number of memories for me, each one more nerve racking than the last. From I heart radio. I'm Nahasie's and this is partition a podcast that will take a closer look into this often forgotten part of history.

We know that many attacks and crimes took place before Independence Day. Shanty described some of the moments he witnessed the weeks leading up to partition. Partition offessially took place in make July. It was in the air. Matter had been politically decided by all of the parties. They were going to accept the compromising we sat me at the radio for an hours. I heard there were a fire in the inner Lahore and it wasn't being put out.

He told me that he climbed on the rooftop of their home and realized the fire was only a few miles away. We could tell from the direction how it come from, that this was the old city and most likely it said either, we didn't know for in the beginning, with the hint them what must number, or bolt. Sometime during that night the words started coming that it reached the hint of version of the town. Picture right. We were all up and beginning to what to do. For

a while everybody was totally confused. Think maybe next morning. Think told calmed down and stiff. I kept listening to the idea now, how two more police heavy now and then coming through with all of the news shanty had knowledge about. He began to think about what would happen when the formation of a new country was quickly approaching. So I would listen to the radio or read the newspaper and there were articles about getting fired and down,

down Lahr and on. We started wadding about what's going to happen when Pakistan our lives. A decision about the family's future had to be made. Well, he had all arguments and we had generatives. Had cousin who had gotten matted recently and he had come as wife, new wife and staying with us for a while. They were on the way to cash media and that's check to him, and so was my order brother, who was at Paris in the university and Engineering School and probably India's prestor

that time. And we had a family session, all of us as through what to do, because I think we're getting worse. For some reason I found myself in agreement, which some of them not an agreement retus, and one of them happened to be my oldest brother's father in law, who was very part of me. For some reason. I had stayed with him and karage once and interrupted me to stay with him for two months. So he kept coming back and saying, listen to this young man. Listening.

He were probably more for two ways that me and my father going along with he wanted to get back to Karachi and he was saying no, you shouldn't do what he's saying. What I was saying is send this young man, my younger brother. He's gone up strong, bigger than me. It looks like if the police it's coming into any trouble, he will be picked up and card knows what they would do to him. Get him out of town, send him to Eastman job, we had relatives and that would be a safe area because every largely

into secretion area. My father was a reluctantly want to get back to work. He thought he'd went through so many crisis before. But he agreed to that. And Christian Party and his wife, who was sick. They said we're going to crash me and we're going to take his two brothers. There's witness and shut her down. Christian can go to Nis in the university. If we don't, he can go there now, but don't stay in town. And finally that so it worked. As time began to pass,

Shanty's family went their respective ways. It was my turn and I had an older brother who was in nontown. He was living in a town callisle for about D and fifty miles west. He was married. His wife was with him. I had visited them two weeks before. She was not too well and she had a child, which is one reason my mother had sent me there to help out. So I had to get her out so that range had her out. Also sent her to some relatives on her mother's side. So it was me and

Christian Parta and his wife's new wife and my mother. Well, the vicar time to go mother like, and then we had it serveant like many families who had been with a sint Chad and he didn't have any family anymore. Team boy. They sort of pressured me to go with the Christian Parta and wife and that we should all get together at the same time be easier, and we did. That was someone harrowing because we gotten out in time,

but we left our mother and father behind. Father he was still and Denny, he was saying you get out down. He mentions one particular memory that is imprinted in his brain. For the second of July, he and I was sitting in the outer room of our house and I heard kind of buzzing sound. I know it was after the fires that were watched from a roof and I couldn't stand the noise after a while and nowise get out

and outer. So I opened the window, get shutters and inside there were screens and glass paints, so there was some filtering out. It's the kind of noise I never heard before, like you have a swarm of bees buzzing around. This is tired and the love the day. It was hard. Day may have been a hundred or hundred five degree. I opened the window my hair rounds and I saw a crowd milling you now, maybe thirty, forty or fifty people. I couldn't tell, except that some of them were wearing turbans.

So I figured, and most likely even to some Muslims, road carboants something. But it seems like, of coursely, as crowder six, we had been speculating that there will be troubled because of the fires in downtown and some people are going to do it rightful and do something terrible. That's exactly what it would happen. So what I see in the few minutes, some people not only were just milling around, but they had all kinds of rude weapons.

Some had souls, some had actors, somehow thinks made of would anything they can use strike and they were meaning around and for a couple of minutes I couldn't tell what was happening. In spred they were also a link around and shouting. Then before my eyes or I could really get a vation hard. I didn't have glasses in those days. I may have kneeled them by. I see the crowd spreading up into three different clusters and surrounded each one there was somebody in the center, a human being.

I saw at least two of them put a sheet over their head and people striking down with the weapons and shouting. And from the sound I could tell that they were mostly six and handles. That couldn't be Muslim in this avenue. And in five minutes, unless the crowd started disappearing, before my heart came in. Some of them fell. I saw some of them half dead and their body jumping.

I've never seen person die. Seeing all this through a window in his home shanty, felt compelled to act, so I rushed to the front of my house, Vent Gate, was picked up a bucket. I started putting water in the bucket to take it out and my mother came rushing out from her because she had she had not seen the whole thing. When she saw it, she grabbed me and cut back. Don't go out, you'll get carried, you won't get ready for are you can't do anything. So I stayed and should I don't know if I'm

going to do all. My family want to hang onto it again stay. That's where I am here. This date also sticks with shanty because he was to take a final the next day and heard on the radio all exams have been postponed. Soon after that incident, he left Lahore to travel Takshmir. We wanted to get out quickly. MHM Shanty was told by another family member that he could only bring one suitcase with him. In the bus that we took, Christian part rods en wife and me

and my project Christians. There were two Christians, and we were going up along the dividing line that became the dividing gune between India and Pakistan. We were on the Pakistan side because that's where the road was. So we were going north to the town at Yambo, which was the southernmost town in the state of Yambo and Casa, which was a different political entity, and on the radio with sometimes the driver, who was a sick versus afraid also he to turn it off and keep it on.

We want to hear and every now and then we beduced come there was travel, a bus got stopped and certain starts down, people got murdered and so on. There are fires have started in sentences down. So they were trouble popping up here and there and we didn't know where we were heading, into it or into safety, where they were dash to get away and be moving. And Luckily,

by the I forget how late it was. My impression was six or seven p him or something, and we got to Gumban where you were able to rent rooms for the night and they were going to take us across to cashmere in the morning. Chaunty was in the Hindu majority area, so for the time being he felt safe if there were anybody endangered or Muslims. Next morning, after a few hours drive, the road goes over the dollars areas in the country. Company Hall Pass About Twelve

Thousand Feet above sea level. Once she crossed that there's a tunnel and you get a view of Kashmir valley. It's beautiful and it's all mostly Muslim or Buddhist minority hind so these are two different countries almost, but they were all under the rule of one Hindu Maharada, so it was safe at the time. He shared another encounter that caused intention but said the suit a sho end up being okay. Mostly didn't lack. I could feel that.

But a there were people with guns and weapons within thirty ft of me and I was walking through, walking on the road parallel to the published Sund border, and there was most of the places it was one mile apart from Indian territory. I had to walk from an area west of them, probably not a long time, but by the time when that road came very close to the border, but it was not visible because there was

a sugar cane crop. It had not been harvested and across the sugar cane you couldn't see but you could hear, and I heard. No, it's just and a few guns going golf and some people yelling lags. So going to treat to a generally who are Chris and then we know that we was troubled. So already you could do us to just lie quietly, not make any noise and hope that nobody will stumble your way. Shanty son, Neil was in the room with us and I had to ask if you grew up hearing any of the stories

from his father. Yeah, he would tell me these stories of partition. We met Gandhine. Yeah, I would hear about this. I think one of the things that made the greatest impression on me is, you know, like he's telling the story of when there was rioting and there were people who would go out in the streets to call on

the crowds to disperse the riot with their words. You know, much later I came across start with the King Juniors phrase of talking to madness out of young men, and that just struck me as such a such an incredibly brave and selfless thing to do. Um and incredible to have that capacity of speech, that you can reach people who are in a nonreasoning state of mind. With this next question, I wasn't sure what to expect. I had

asked how he coped with all of these experiences. It seems almost silly in a way, but also vital at the same time. How did I quote? I don't know if I have an answer to that is you know a tank which something to happen and you can analyze him and analyze him and and and no guarantee that that analysis leads you to something which you can repeat and benefit from. I find myself in the last year or so again, for some reason, a bad night's sleeping.

It's not because I was very interesting those dangers again, it's just that those memories coming back and they led me and took other people to otherwise which I can't explain easily. He describes one memory in particular to me one night where we were walking in a Jimmu road. He had walked about over a two day period, fifty

miles high. Had Two other people who were villagers from local village whom I had met in snag and then it turned out to be working for a distant relative of mine and deadly and the relative who my dad never met, uh ans opens. They said, you can come with us. They yet come to pick up their son, or not their son but their employers son, and come with us and we have a village and will break their journey on the village. The rest of the time we may have to walk or we may be able

to find some transportation. So I left with them and it's all right. Sleeping in the village was enough problem. But when I got the village and soon after we couldn't go any farther because, oh he hired in the radio that there was flooding and Rabbi River. Rabbi River fogged the boundary between focus son and India at that time. Going north south, shanty recalls seeing numerous boats filled with refugees mushrooms going west. Who Are you? Going East? They

had been washed away during the night. The three boats were lost and with them a lot of people. So we didn't go. We decided we're going to wait to see what the situation is. Record from the hills water can come down any time quickly and they can be flooding without much warning. Shanty and his group are trying to figure out their next course of action. There were camels and donkeys, but neither could really make it across the river. They were blazing hard during the day and

we were totally ill equipped. No water bottles down and walking Chad is getting into our shoes. You take the shoe off and hardly walk ten feet when sand gets in too. So walking one mile in that hard sand, if it's like you've been walking half a day. So we weren't not we are not confidented for you being able to do the thirty miles or so before we reached the river. Meanwhile, India Pakistan travel and escalated into

it Malatary flight. The road they were taking wasn't in good shape, so the group had to figure out what did do next. They won't be any even halfway decent road for a while. There's questionable whether to stay in that village and well, everyone an option were very well accepted. These people are cool and they wouldn't. I didn't want to take money from US and anyway we're sifted. So we walked. We decided to go and see as far as we can get and if we have to, was

they would sleep in the forest. When I head out, I did not want to sleep in the forest drive. We did walk months and I saw that the forest chat some old buildings from a temple complex and there's not being used, had not been used for a long time. So I started asking these people about what some of these holes wires somewhere found outside this it's a wilderness, and there were snakes of tinds, so modeling afraid of stakes. So I said I'm not sleeping here. So you have

a choice. We can go down to the Riverside, which is Sandy, but there is also the risk of being washed down in the middle of the night if it starts raining in the mountains, or go back to your village. I was a tough decision. In the end a compromise is made. What if we walk back until we don't have to go all the way back to the village? But it's sandy and there's no no big flotest around in the world. So we found such an area and walked back several miles, and I'm glad we did, because

it very key. Shaunty said he became better in terms of religion. He details in exchange he had with Gandhi. I accused him of not acting on its own faith and answer it. You're a legocity and adhering to it's contributing to it, and he couldn't, of course, understand that. Thought it unfair. I wanted to know. So what do you suggest I do? What? So you should speak against religion? You know history as well as I do. Maybe better tell me all the time when Christians, Muslims, Hindus have

not fought each other and not carried each other. And Tell me, why do you believe in God? Couldn't he do any better than produce people like us, so he says. And what would you do if I've talked like you? How long did you said, it's not helping people that hate each other. So, if your God is there, and God is all powerful, what's the excuse for his being

such a lousy engineer? He was taken aback by my sharpness and Gandhi repeatedly asked shanty what he should do, and shanty responded to denounce religion, he says, if I do what you tell me, how long will it take for people to agree with me? I said you got the winning argument. Probably if would never be no, he's just so. What can we do? You have to do what you can that. I have to do it I can. The last thing I asked was how he felt after

seventy five years. I've been much of the life in my life in order to keep going and do change, rich I found difficult to do. Not kept changing. Well, thanks can change, and there is a Hilosophy, especially an American education, of emphasizing the positive, emphasizing a better time. It came to come. I can't see I am believe in them anymore. It's maybe it's just my age. I've become very festivestic. I listened to the news, I get depressed. He mentioned Putin and the war in Ukraine as a

current example of greed. How can you be optimistic? If I a teacher, I who could? I'm be telling you so many good people working in so many different countries, and yet for each one of them there's somebody out here. You turned the TV on and see how many people are trying to give you. Next time you'll hear from two brothers who lost each other during partition and finally met in person seventy four years later. It was through social media and community they were able to find one another.

NACIA DELO is a real estate agent in Pakistan and in charge of the Youtube Channel Punjabi Lahare. He was a vital component to Saddiq and Sika reuniting. It used to take a long time to find people because whenever someone used to contact us about a missing relative or kidnapping, we used to do everything. Before that we didn't have a community to assist with finding people. Now, as soon as we upload a new video we get a clue because we have quite a few subscribers and people contact

us or leave notes in the comments. It usually takes eight to ten days to find an idea. Around two people have met not only their blood relatives but old friends and neighbors through the channel. Until next week, an haze's and this is partition. Partition was developed as a part of the next up initiative created by Anna Hosnia, Joel Monique and your Sinia. Median partition is produced by

Anna Hosni, a, Tricia mccagee and back Oramas. It is added it by Rory Gagan, with the original score composed by Mark Hadley M