Sindhi Exodus Dada Manik. S. Bhavnani  
       "Well here I am and I will try my utmost to be as brief as possible and also try to control my emotions because for me personally it was the one single event which had such a great impact on me. Then. Now, and will carry this witness till the end of my life's journey. I was just eight years old and my two sisters were seven and four years respectively. I went to a good school called St. Lawrence, and had a beautiful childhood full of fun, frolic and prayer, because my grandfather from my fathers side, and grandmother from Mums side were very religious indeed. We enjoyed a very affluent life style of houses, land, cars (and there were not many of those then), school, imported English and Japanese toys, and the rest. It did not daunt me immediately but I would overhear talk amongst the elders of  the family that due to the deteriorating safety for Hindus we would maybe have to leave, but nothing untoward because Dads business meant that he had a lot of Sindhi Muslim friends who would back him. My Mums first brother was a doctor and knew many loyal Muslims and the other three were professors at the D.J. Sindh college, and also had Muslims to back them.
        Every evening the family would crouch around a Phillips radio and hear the bulletins of All India Radio describing the mayhem, carnage and loss of human life in inter communal riots in different parts of the Indian Subcontinent. Sometimes they would describe the gory details as to how men, women and children on both sides of the divide met their sad end, and the exaggeration too which went with each news coverage, like the streets being rivers of blood, and peoples limbs being dismembered and the one which used to hit me most was murders committed on trains, and these trains arriving at their destinations full of dead bodies.
        The event which sticks in my mind to this day is the murders of both a Brahmin priest, and a priestess called Guvyani who used to visit our house at Karachi. By the hour the safety of Hindus was deteriorating fast. On a typical dew laden Karachi morning elements of the Pakistan army knocked at our door looking for suspect members of the Jan Sangh (a military martial right wing Hindu group). We finally opened the door and a major or the Pakistan Army fell at my grandfathers feet who being a herbalist had once treated him. The major assured him no harm would come to any of us, but that we would have to quit Karachi very soon. In the next couple of days my dear Father dispatched his unmarried Sister and Mother safely to Calcutta. In the next couple of days my Father told us children that very soon we will be sitting in an aeroplane, and this was done deliberately to make us happy because flying was a novelty then, and in any case being children we did not fully realize the gravity of the situation. On the same evening he told our Mother and us that we would be going to Bombay in the morning.
My Mother hastily packed a few clothes. I clearly remember her secretively taking her jewellery on her person. Next morning we were up very early indeed and I remember none of us ate anything. My Father drove the black Austin as fast as he could to Dirge Road which was Karachi's main Airport, but for me it was the slowest ride of a lifetime for I knew in my little child heart that this would be the last car drive in Karachi and because of the finality of the situation we would not be coming back for good. Overnight it was a journey in to the unknown. Waiting at the Airport to join us was my Mothers Sister and her two daughters and two Brothers in the neighbourhood accompanied by their Grandmother. We never got a chance to wish good-bye to our School and other Friends, our Teachers, our neighbours and indeed our very large extended family members residing in different parts of Karachi City. This sudden departure brought tears in to our eyes and the shock and pain was impossible to bear overnight we were refugees.
        On the way to the Airport I saw the local Gurmandir not far from our house for the very last time and did a pranaram. We also passed Sadhi Vaswani center. So I guess at least we were blessed into our new life awaiting us at Bombay. My memories of Karachi as an eight year old are evergreen and even my dear Mother till late used to ask me as to how I remembered so much; my answer to that was because I loved Karachi so much; it is not just the wealthy life-style, but the beautiful sights, sounds and smells. The food, the very large gatherings of Family and friends, sometimes totalling well over one hundred. The closeness. The bond. The love. The hospitality. The charity for the poor. The functions and auspicious days like Guru Nanaks' Birthday. Dussehra. Devalue. Holly. The many temples and the Sadhus and Brahmins. Naga Fakirs. The Seasons. The peculiar House- plants; every house had its own Tulsi plant. The Town crier, who in Sindhi would herald a birth in a certain family or regret a death. The lovely birds, crows, Dabbadi and sparrows called jhirkees in Sindh. When it rained lots of red silky worms would be found on the ground called Meerah meaning rain in Sindhi. Jaa vasara which we used to collect in match boxes. The local Zoo was called Gandhi gardens where a sweet thin fruit used to be sold called a "toot-a" and they were simply delicious. Food and vegetable vendors would visit the house and everything was cheap, delicious and wholesome. Law, order, respect for elders and all the lovely things one read about in the holy scriptures were actually being witnessed in everyday dealings between community members. We lost everything save the clothes we were in. Absolutely everything dear to Father had worked for was gone. Houses. Cars. Property. Land. Moneys. Savings. Absolutely all. But above all, we left for a very hostile and cold environment in Bombay where we were not warmly received. We were uprooted  and homeless. Everything was so alien from the green beautiful poetic caring and sharing clean and non corrupt land of Sindh we had left behind. There was a feeling of despair hopelessness. Anger. Loneliness and the list is endless as to what our feelings were. No more famous haunts like Oyster rocks. Maliv. Jamshed Quarter. Hyderabad for the Weekends. That to visit Baba Lackmandas davbar, Quemari to see the ships. Mitho Dar, Kharo Dar for its lovely temples. Saddar, Bolton Market. Gidu Bundar and tales of its houses for madmen. Kotri for the lovely Pala fish. Frere Hall and its Museum. I envy as I write all this. Maybe in a little jar I should have taken some dust or sand from there.
        We came back from nowhere at Bombay and now for nearly forty years at London and we all did very well financially but the thoughts of dear Sindh haunt us each and everyday of our lives. In fact for every breathable moment I exist I think of the land of my birth. Whenever there is a refugee of a migration of a group of people or even ethnic cleansing like in Bosnia, Kosovo, The East African Rwanda the persecution of the East Timoreans' in Indonesia and many such examples my feelings immediately reach out to those people, and specially to that historic day when we had to leave and leave behind our dear and sacred motherland Sindh.  If only the clock could be turned back together with the time bomb of politics and history."
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