 We're going to make a start now. So just to say a very warm welcome to all thank you so much for coming to our 10th Hidden History event. My name is for Zana Koreshi. And I along with two of my colleagues that are here, Ludie and Emma, who are seated here as well they're part of the Hidden Histories team, my other colleague isn't here, but we run these events to it's I suppose our aim is to to decolonize knowledge production to reveal those sort of stories that you don't see in the mainstream media, and it's really representing Asian African and Caribbean narratives. So today we are very happy to. I've been told to use this one which makes more sense. And today we have we're very excited to have SARS Agrawal with us, who's going to be telling us more about the Cindy, Cindy narrative. And just going to do a bit of housekeeping. This is a hybrid event. So we have got people logged in on zoom. So we're going to start with, obviously, I will hand over to the chair, and then SARS is going to present. Then after that, we will, you're having a conversation and then after that we will open the floor to questions. And also, anyone home, please put your questions in the chat. So we will be making sure that all the questions get answered. And also please, if you have stories to share. So we are very keen to hear your narrative as well. So please use this forum as a as a chance to share your stories with us. So I'm going to now hand over to Noftage for a while, who will be chairing the event and SARS thank you. Thank you for his honor. And thank you everyone for coming it's so wonderful to see so many people who clearly I can see feel the kind of energy interest and passion here today to come for for this event. Welcome SARS to so us. And also just to congratulate you on the beautiful book, which you can see in there. It's an honor to have SARS here today to present this work and to introduce us to the idea and the inspiration behind the writing and the creation of the book. SARS is based in Pune, and has has published a number of books and actually has is a mathematician by training and has jumped over to the art side. Luckily for for the world I guess to be able to to see. Of course you can do a lot of very useful things in the world of mathematics as well but to use the kind of creativity around storytelling and the production of books that are out there in the sphere is a really impactful way to contribute to the ideas here. SARS is earlier work, one of which is the stories of a vanished homeland which was published in 2012, and also then reprinted in 2013 with Oxford University Press, I believe was also presented at the Karachi Literature Fest as well. Kind of is the precursor in many ways as opposed to this book, which has also been published by black and white fountain which is as his own publishing house. So many ways that you'll tell us the story around the, the production of this book. So us is a place really where we like to say that we're not only just doing the kind of decolonization work that's happening for us through our colleagues and library doing this important work through the series. We're also just thinking across the borders in the region which is also an activity colonization. I just came back from Karachi, Pakistan and I constantly am going like to go back and forth across the India Pakistan border which is not an easy one to cross, whether we try and do it conceptually or physically to cross the physical but able to even to think across the border and to make those connections is some something that we really pride ourselves on here at SOAS, especially in terms of the region of South Asia, my own work. I'm involved in a project called border crossings I don't know if anyone had heard about it but we had the virtual reality which for Zana was involved in here with project that's done last year. We still are actually going to be doing a couple of one offs as well, which is using virtual reality technology as a way of crossing the border and thinking intergenerationally, and also thinking through time travel really around the elders experiences and how we can think about building a more progressive future which allows us to think through ideas around empathy, connecting through these stories as well. So that's enough about me. I'm a professor here in the Department of Development Studies. I was formerly the Deputy Director of the South Asia Institute, and I my own work crosses the India Pakistan border on a regular basis so it's a real honor for me to be able to be part of this here today. So what I'd like to do now is to invite Saaz to present on about the book and to tell basically the story around and there's multiple stories around the creation of the book. And the format is actually speaking anywhere between 30 and 40 minutes, and then we'll then have a bit of a conversation and we'll open the floor to any questions that you may have or any stories that you may wish to share. So, hi, hi everyone. Thank you so much. Barzana. Thank you, Navtej. It's such a pleasure for me to be here and thank you all of you for coming here to listen. I hope you'll enjoy the stories that I'm going to tell you today. It is going to be based around this book but I think, you know, I'll take you into I'll take you through the journey that I have been. So we'll start this. So, I'm just going to give you a quick summary of what I'll be speaking about. So these are what today's talk is going to be about. When I say that Cindy's didn't speak. I'm also asking. Is that any better just closer to the mic might be what I need to thank you. So, when we talk about partition, we never hear. I reach. It's usually the Punjab story that's what's in the mainstream. And it's really surprising to me, even 75 years later, there was this big article in the New York Times in December last year about the when in terms of the Indian partition who owns the narrative and it was an excellent piece of writing it was really good it talked about the literature around partition. But since was not mentioned even once. Again, just a few weeks later there was a seminar at so as about partition and I stayed up late to, to, you know, attend it. No sin, nothing about sin. And I find that really odd because sin was not partitioned that's for sure. But it, there was such a huge story and I'm going to try and share a little bit of that with you today. Even the Cindy's didn't speak and that might be part of it because if the Cindy's had been talking about their story that might have helped to bring it into the mainstream but there you know I think at least people were just busy, adapting to the changes getting along with the getting on with their lives and you know nothing was recorded very very little. I'll tell you what got me interested and some of the things that I learned this is going to be the bulk of what I'll be speaking about which I find very exciting, very interesting. And along the way I'll tell you about the things that I've done to try and spread the story. And this is what actually got me interested this is me and my mom and this was in January 2011. And this, the picture was taken 2011 I think we started on this project a few months after this. Basically, I'm a writer, and I, over the years I've specialized in working with people to help them write their memoirs. And at some point I said to my mom, tell me what it was like and since because none of us know. And what happened, my mother was 13 years old and partition took place. None of us had ever been the least bit interested, and none of them had ever said anything, it didn't seem like, you know, something that we wanted to know. It didn't seem like anything that they wanted to speak about. And she said yes and she was actually very sporting she would come and sit in front of me and I would interview her. And we did that and on the second day, or maybe the third day, I realized that this is a huge story, and it's never been done so I better do it. And what really astonished me was that she retained so much. She had, she was telling me things that happened 65 years ago that she had not spoken about for 65 years, and yet the images were so clear in her mind. And I had actually planned to do something for the family, which would have just been, you know, her story we'd have got some photos from her cousins because she didn't have any. She probably had some. And that's my mom's cousin, and I then knew that that wasn't enough so I interviewed a lot of people I had help from a very kind person who gave me lots of books to read, and that helped me to put this together. And why I chose the date I have to tell you this I chose to do it to put this book out on the 14th of November. Because she remembered the date on which her ship arrived in Bombay so she told me about how they had why they had to leave, how they left. What the ship journey was like they traveled they lived in Hyderabad so they traveled from Hyderabad to to Karachi by road, and it was of course a very stressful journey because they didn't know what was going to happen to them on the road and they didn't know what was going to happen to them after that. They've given away most of their things they packed a little, a few things and they were traveling by ship they got onto the ship. And there was a bit of culture shock there because the food was different from what they were used to. And it was two nights on the boat. And then they saw the next morning they saw that they could see Bombay. And we were not allowed to dock they didn't we didn't we didn't get permission to dock. So it was scary because they didn't know what was going to happen next. They didn't know whether they were going to be sent back which would have been really or horrible they just left everything that you know they had they left the back they would they would they'd left. Or were they going to even worse were they going to be sent somewhere else which, you know, where they wouldn't know anyone some strange place, two nights, they were on the ship. And then she says to me, we arrived in Bombay and it was the 14th of November. And that really was so I found it really moving I felt, I honestly felt really guilty that none of us had ever bothered to ask anything before, because it was such a big thing that it happened to them we never respected the kind of, you know, losses they've made and just took it all for granted. So this book happened, and I was really very lucky because Oxford University Press in Pakistan published the book. They bought the rights from me for Pakistan. Being a university press, that's how it got into the university libraries, you know, because as Farzana to, sorry, now they told you when we started. I did the book myself I actually didn't have the time I wanted it out on the 14th of November, I could do things like I registered an imprint I got ISP and numbers from the government I learned how to use in design so that I could make my own pages. And I got the book, I mean my daughter designed the book and she did a really good job she's not a professional designer but she has some talent and I always say that people took the book seriously because it has such a fat cover. The press chain did change just one word the book was completely intact they took out one chapter, which was the story of somebody who left sinned in the 1970s a Hindu family who left sinned in the 1970s and they actually migrated to my city, which is fun. They didn't change a single word of what I'd written which gave me some validation for the work I'd done, but they changed a word in the title. And they said, we can't call it a vanished homeland because the Cindy's of sin will not like that. They will tell us that our land has not vanished we are here. So that also told me a little about how the Cindy's of sin felt which I really did not know till then I had no idea. That was my first. The inkling that I had that there is something going on, not just with the Hindu Cindy's but also the Cindy's, the majority community who sinned belong to. After that, it was amazing because I started getting stories and people started sharing with me their stories, their photos, and you can see if you look at them you know the way people dressed. I think it tells you about, you know, a different era, the different kind of head girls and, you know, the embroidered caps and what they're wearing around their necks and here this and then you know, apart from the clothes which are kind of different to what I was just telling, you know, the age about somebody a writer in Hong Kong who's writing about. She's trying she's doing a Cindy story for children and she asked me at some point was did Cindy women wear Salwar comey's and I said no they had something a bit different she said but you know online. She says that Cindy's war Salwar comey's. So then I just thought I need to get out some more, you know better quality information out there, because if this isn't a Salwar comey's they were. We're going to get tan cholo and a scarf, which is called raw and apart from that also a little bit of the furniture and you know the kind of architecture. This is my mom's cousin largely at a refugee camp New Lund camp. so many lovely stories, people sitting on the Khatta and doing crochet this young woman doing crochet. So that was a big thing, of course. And this is Nehru visiting the Sakhar Baraj. That's this book is this image is actually in the book. This was given to me by Nalini Adwani, who is in the center. She was probably 19 years old. And she was in this camp, the Mulund camp again. And they started a school there. And she in Hyderabad, she had done extremely well. She finished her school leaving exams and she wanted to study. She wanted to study at the National College in Hyderabad. And she told me, you know, I wanted to study and study as much as anyone could study. But of course, because partition to place, she couldn't. Now, she was she volunteered as a teacher at the school. And it's an amazing story because the school came out of the refugee camp. And of course, Nalini, she told us how the in for the first month, the children sat on the floor and the teachers, you know, taught them that way. And then at the end of the month, they collected fees from the students. And in the third month, they could buy furniture. And then they got recognized by the government. And then there were other educationists from Sindh who had also lost their home who joined and who taught and then she herself studied education, she eventually retired as a school teacher, school principal in Delhi. And the Jai Hind School, which started that way now has 8000 students or maybe more. When I last checked it was 8000 probably more by now. So here this is okay, let me just play this little clip from an interview that I did. Because they did it the opposite. I still remember this. No, I paid no attention to it. I remember Manju, the young man telling me once, they are going to get that house of yours. So eventually, a time came when they knew they had to leave. And I, of course, had these other things happening along the way more books happened. This one I will tell you about a little later. Because last year in February, I decided that I put together a lot of stuff. And I decided I want to do something for the new generation and make it as concise as possible, put in all the stories put in a range of representative stories, but make it simple and pass on the messages that I want to pass on. So that's why I did this book. And one of the things that happened is that I had a difficult time finding a map. One of the people I interviewed will see Moinani, I'll tell you more about him later. He told me he was actually born in Indonesia, where his father was a businessman. But then the family moved back to live in Hyderabad. And he was one year old when partition, when partition took place. And he told me that, you know, nobody told us what partition was. No, our parents didn't tell us. We went through the whole thing, but we had no idea. So when you do this book, explain what partition was. So for that, I needed wasn't going to be just the stories, it had to be an actual few lines of explanation about what partition was. And it was, it was not easy. But I thought we need a map. And it was so interesting that I couldn't find a map that did justice to it. You know, the thing is that the border kept changing. I think as we know, the actual border was only announced after independence took place. And that time before people knew where the border was was crazy, because they did not know, you know, you're celebrating independence, but you don't know which country you live in. And another thing that a lot of people I found a lot of people aren't really aware of that it wasn't all British India, there was this huge, you know, there were so many princely states, 565 states, which were autonomous. Anyway, this, this is a map we chose, which seemed the less controversial border kept changing. That's another thing I realized border kept changing till today, you know, we don't really have a border that is recognized by everybody. But I picked this because it didn't it had the least questions to it. And I think we need to move back. Should I just use this? So then I knew I had to start with this, which is the story I was again, I was told by first by my mom, and then by a number of people, which is that in sin, you could fly a kite any day you want it because it's hardly ever rained in sin. And the thing to remember is that people often think of sin as this inhospitable place desert with, you know, difficult language, difficult living conditions, but for children who lost their home, it was a place that you could go out and fly your kite. And you know, that tells you a little bit what what it means to lose your home. And then we came, of course, to the point of departure. This is quite a common experience. Many of the people I've interviewed, they remembered what happened as they were leaving. Many of them remember the name of the ship they traveled on. And of course, there was so many who traveled by train. And we've seen the pictures, but of course pictures don't always tell you the story. I was lucky to interview people who gave me an insight into how things were actually happened. This young boy with the pen in his hand is my friend, Roshna's father, Rusi Damanya. And I interviewed him when he was in his mid 80s. And he was in a boarding school near Nasik. And four boys from the school who had very good handwriting were picked to go and live in the Asali camp. And their their job was to write down the names of the refugees coming in. And Rusi remembered his time there so much clarity. He talked about the trains coming in filled with people sitting on the tops and they were all wearing white. I didn't actually understand why they were all wearing white. And later I realized it's because that white is unbleached cloth which is, you know, easiest to procure. So a lot of people wore that. And he told us that he was they were taught a few sentences of Sindhi, Tunger Naalo Chai, Tunger P, Tunger Naalo Chai, what's your name, your father's name. So they had to write down, you know, they were documenting the people who are coming in. So you know, that gives you a picture of what it was like that children were recording the entry of people. And he also told me about how horrible the food was and you know, the conditions in the camp were really terrible. But he also told me that they were given an Alsatian dog to God knows why. You know, you just think of the way camps were set up and what it meant to be in a camp and dogs were a part of that. Then I had this Nari Shani who also told me his family story. Nari was a child, he gave me these photos and this is the illustration that the book has, which is derived from these two. And this is in a place in Bombay, the biggest camp, the biggest refugee camp in India, which is the Kalyan camp. And the place was later named Ulhasnagar, which means the city of joy. Now for Nari, it was a happy time. He didn't I mean, he was living with his family was a child, he was very happy, his he was living in a joint family with his parents and his siblings that across the road were his mother's parents. So you know, for him, it was a joy it actually was Ulhasnagar. Then I had this other story from this lady who you can see at the window and her name is Susheela Rao. And her husband was a camp commander. And she when I interviewed her, she would have been in her late 80s or maybe early 90s. And she also remembered it in great detail. Now she's not a Cindy. And she her husband was a camp commander. And so she you know, she was living in a camp, but completely separate from the their lives were separate. They led a normal middle class life. She had a baby. She was newly married and you know, so then the baby was born. And you can see you will read the story in the book. But what she told me is that if I ever woke up in the early hours, I would look out of the window. And I would see them walking to the railway station. And she described to me what she saw them, you know, you can see in the picture, of course, what she told me the point she was trying to make is they were so hard working. They didn't want to live in the camp. They wanted to get out of the camp as soon as they could. So they were selling they were going to work in Bombay or they were selling things from door to door that you can see young people going to college. I'll tell you about the picture. I've been showing you the picture. So I want to tell you a little bit about it. I said I did say that I got the idea for the book in February. And I was actually in a Vipassana course when that's a 10 day retreat, silence retreat. And it's a time when you're supposed to be meditating. And of course, you you know, spend your time thinking about various things and I got this fabulous idea. So it was quite distracting. But when I came out, I immediately looked for somebody I asked someone I know, can you do these kind of illustrations? And she said no. So anyway, I found somebody and I was so lucky because he was this he did this amazing job. All I wanted was and that's not asking for much. All I wanted was that the illustrations should be historically authentic and that people should be recognizable. So whether it's Nehru or Gandhi or whether it's somebody's grandfather, whoever if anyone knew that person, they should recognize. And he did it. And you can see here that from the clothes people are wearing, we did a lot of work to make sure we didn't make any mistake on the footwear and on the packaging of the goods and the containers and stuff. And he was really on this picture, you can see Kalyan station, it's actually, I found a reference for him, which is a picture of Kalyan station. And on the internet, it said 1945. But I don't think it was 1945, which tells you that you can't really trust the internet because if you look at it, it says, it says Kalyan in three languages. And one of those languages is Cindy. And it's impossible. I mean, it may be, it may not be impossible, but unlikely that there was a Cindy sign on that railway station before it became a Cindy settlement. And I showed you this before, but since I was telling you about the illustrations, I thought I'd just mentioned this one. The story next to this is just a few lines, it doesn't really tell you about the picture. Now the picture is actually Hyderabad in the 1940s. And we made a lot of effort to include all the architectural flourishes that you could see in Hyderabad at that time. And Hyderabad was actually did have a lot of very fancy buildings, because there was money coming into Hyderabad, which I'm going to tell you about a little later how that happened. They had had something called a mug, which you can see on the roofs, which was a wind catcher, which is quite unusual. You see it in some Arab countries, but there were a lot of them in Hyderabad. And you even can you see the pointer on this pointing at the car? So that's an actual car, which belonged to somebody called by Pratap. And, you know, this was his home, my three of them. So there's a lot of actual Hyderabad in here. And by Pratap is very much there in the book. The other thing that happened is when we actually had proof copies of the book out when somebody was looking at this picture and said, Oh, this looks like a Rajasthani fort. And I was like, Oh my God, what a big blooper. And we went back and looked at the fort of Hyderabad, the Pakko Kilo. And we fixed that. So this is actually the Pakko Kilo. I have people here from Hyderabad. So I hope you'll agree. Thank you so much. Okay, so I told about the camps, but of course, there was so many people who just landed up, you know, in some place they'd never been to before. And this story was told to me by somebody who I was working with to help him write his memoirs. And he had nothing to do with Synth. But because he knew I'm interested in Synth's stories, he told me about the time when he was a student at Bitspilani, which was an engineering college in Rajasthan. I think he was probably in the first or second year of the Bitspilani. And he went home to Agra, where his parents lived for the holidays and the city was filled with refugees. And his father was a social worker that was very much part of his memoirs. So, you know, I'd been listening to him telling me about his father's life. And the kind of things that he'd done, they lived in a village in Uttar Pradesh. And after he retired after independence, they settled in Agra. Now, people that's refugees are coming in by train. Agra is not a port, but as you know, so refugees are coming by train and by surface. And there were camps, but this family, he, Mr. Dubey's father met them at the railway station and he brought them to his home. So there was this man and his mother and his wife and two children and a baby. And so he brought them home and they had nothing. They had carried stuff with them and they left, but they lost everything on the way. So they came to, you know, Mr. Dubey gave them, you know, the veranda and said, you be comfortable here. They had a bath. And after the bath, they had to wear the same clothes again, because you know, they wash clothes and wore them again, because they didn't have anything else to wear. And in the morning, this man went to the wholesale market. Now, you can see like he's quite, you know, well off person. But he went to, he may have had some kind of retail store in Sindh and Hyderabad or wherever he came from, but he went to the wholesale market and he bought a huge sack of grain and he carried it to the retail section and he sat on the pavement. And this is actually an agra pavement, which is from an illustration that used as a reference. So he sat in the retail section and people who came to buy obviously bought from him because he was selling at a lower rate. So he sold everything in the sack. And then he sold the sack as well. And that's a metaphor again for the ways in these dealt with partition. They sold everything and then they sold the sack. And what he told me is that on the third day, we didn't have to feed them anymore. And within a few years, they had their own factory making shoes. So I showed you some of the other books that I did. Yeah, so this was one particular community of Sindh. And this I did during the lockdown. It's a collection of essays. I didn't write it myself. I put outward to people I knew who were interested in the subject and some of them are senior academics. Some of them were business people, artists, photographer, various people actually got 59 contributions and I wrote one as well. So there's 60 essays, fabulous essays in this book, which talk about the Sindhi identity. Now, one of the things which I will tell you a little bit about later is that many of them spoke about the prejudice that Sindhi's face. And that's, that's something which a lot of Sindhi's, you know, I told you about the man sitting on the pavement selling things at a price lower than what you can buy in the shops. So obviously, people selling in the shops felt they were being cheated in a way. They didn't like it. So we don't know where the roots of the prejudice are, but it could be from there. Then I also found when I started writing back from the earliest, like right after my first book, I started getting messages from people, you know, people would send me emails. And from, it was very exciting for me because I was getting messages from all around the world. I got a message from someone in Santiago, Chile, I got a message from Trinidad, then, you know, people in Indonesia, people in the Philippines, I didn't understand it at first. I just thought that you ask them these, you know, after partition, they went to all these cases. But because I was meeting people and talking to them, because I'd started traveling to document the diaspora, I had the opportunity to do this, I was really lucky. And I also had the opportunity to meet other people in the field so I could hear, you know, listen to them read their books and get their insights. And that's when I realized that there is a global diaspora and it's not something that started after partition was something that started way before. And there is this is a map which was made by Professor Claude Markowitz, who's a French historian and researcher. And he documented two trade networks coming out of sin. And these are the places that there were simply businesses way before 100 years. It started 100 years before, nearly 100 years before independence. And so that's, you know, I'll tell you quickly how this happened. It was when the British conquered sin. And the British came into sin in 1843. And I'm sorry, most of you here are British. So I'm not actually talking about you, you know that. So they came in and in gross violation of the treaties they've made with the princes of sin. There was a terrible thing they did. So it was not that easy for the traders because a they lost their biggest customers, the mirrors and you know, all the rulers were deposed and sent away to exile in Calcutta or whatever. They were horrible. They separated them from their children. And they didn't kill them, but they did terrible things to them. So for the traders, they lost their best customers. And there was this new company in with they come in with their own products, their own suppliers, and they even introduced the company rupee. And you know, so those who were trading in with, you know, lending money for a living, it was a difficult time. But they realized that the British love Cindy handicrafts and Cindy, Cindy handicrafts are really something special. So they started hooking them from door to door. And, you know, they go in with a pile of things and they'd say, the main sub would say, oh, is that Sindwark? And then the guy says, huh, yes, madam, Sindwark. So that they became called Sindwarkies. And very soon, they would see them, you know, pushing up on their steamer trunks with big, big bags full of Sindwark. So they started a bunch of young boys that did this. They got on board and they got off at, I don't know, Wade and Cairo Gibraltar, whatever. And they were selling, they started selling, they started doing well. And once you start selling, you have those skills of knowing how to sell. You don't have to stick to Sindwark, you can sell anything. Then they then you set up a shop and then you have a shop and then you call your brother or your neighbor's son or whoever. And then you establish a presence and then more and more of those annoying competitors come from Hyderabad. So then you have to move on to the next pot. And soon enough, this is what happens, you're all over the world. So this is where we were. And I'm going to tell you the story that I picked for this book, which is about Mooli. And there are many reasons because Mooli's story is, first of all, you had this phenomenon where you had the men, many of the men were going away on Sindwark. And the boys, they would leave when they were 16 years old. And then they'd go and live in these far off countries with a different language and a different climate. And they would be living there for two or three years at a time. And their families would be without them. Many of them, they'd go, as I said, they'd go at the age of 16. After the first term of safari, they'd come back home and the family would have arranged a good match for them. So they would get married. And then they'd go again. And then three years later, they'd come back. It was very, I mean, that's where the money was coming in from. I told you this, right? They were building mansions. They had, I mean, some of them even had flush toilets, which was really a big deal. And all kinds of fancy furniture and things like that, which you can see part of here. And they weren't obviously, everybody wasn't rigid. It was the, you know, they had the capitalist and they had their workers. So for the workers, it was a difficult life because they lived in the, in a room above the shop. And they had to do their own housework. And they had to, they didn't see their families for years at a time. Sometimes the bosses didn't pay them, you know, because they actually, the arrangement was that they would give the money to their families. So here's Mooli who's sitting in the center. She is, I think 16 years or 17 years old at the time. And her parents on either side of her. And her father was actually working. He was not, it's a big thing in among the Cindy business community, whether you have your own business or you have, or you are working for someone else. Because I know, I know that because when I say, oh, so your father was working in Dublin. And they'd be like, no, no, my father had his own business. And I say that because I work, right? So I'm saying, oh, your father, no, my father business. So anyway, Mooli's father was working for, but he was so well off that he could afford to live like this. And they've, these people, this is Rami who is Mooli. She's come to see Mooli for her, for her son, for her stepson, actually. This is the elder boy, Ramchand. And this, this is their cousin. And they've come to see Mooli, to see whether she's, they like her for this, for their son. Now, what I was told is, and there was a little bit of debate about this, but when they had, they were so wealthy that when they had a special visitor, as these people are, they would give them a gold guinea in the, in their drink, which they could keep when they finished drinking what was in it. And you can actually see the gold guinea if you look, that's Shubhodeep. I should, I didn't, I told you that I found this really amazing artist. I did tell you this, right? And his name is Shubhodeep Mukherjee. And it was such a pleasure to work with him. He was amazing. I showed you the Hyderabad photo where we found the fort and he just didn't have any, you know, I mean, I don't like it when people tell me, oh, can you just rewrite this bit? He said, okay, fine, I want to get it right. And he just, so anyway, that's Shubhodeep for you. Then what happened to Mooli when partitioned a place? So the men were all away, right? She actually, so actually this one, the little one in her who she's carrying, she's in the centre here. He was actually born in Indonesia where, because she went after they got married, she went to Indonesia and they had children, she spent the war, they had the war years in Indonesia, very, very difficult time. And at some point they decided that, you know, she missed home and life was hard. So they decided to come and live in Hyderabad. And when partitioned a place, she was alone. That's her sister on the side with her two children. Luckily, some of her children, you can see her, you know, their daughter and her son, Jivat and her elder daughter, Mohini, they were bigger. So they could help her, but they didn't know where they were going. You know, they were alone. And the, I mean, this is there in the book, you can read about it. It's about how they had to, they were just wandering from one station to the other. And they were talking to other people who were also in the same situation, getting ideas from each other. Eventually, they were reunited, you know, her husband sent her money and they eventually he arranged for them to come back to Indonesia. Now, I found that it was, you know, you have this huge diaspora, they had, it was just trade out posts. And they evolved into communities. Now, when I traveled, you know, in the diaspora to an extent, thing is that it's so big. I was in Ikeke, Chile, with some Sindhis and they did not know Satguru is obviously a Sindhi name. I mean, it's a Sindhi warehouse. Nobody knew who it belonged to. So you know, even in that small community, it's such a huge thing. I did find out eventually, because I put it on it's there in one of my YouTube videos and somebody said, Satguru belongs to XXX. So we do know it's not an anonymous person, but at that point, I found it told me how big the spread is. This is one of the books I published, which again is completely by chance. Sorry, I thought I had my phone here. Can someone tell me? I just want to know the time. We don't want to go on too long. So this collection of stories somebody sent to me and he said, would you read my stories? And I was like, Sindhi businessman has written a book. No, no, no, I don't think so. So I just was lying on my, you know, the side of my table and thinking, oh, God, now what's going to get sent next. And at some point, I was presenting a paper at a conference at Jamia Media and the theme was related to this. So I said, OK, I have to do research. Let me read this book. And I started reading it and I only realized when the doorbell rang and I didn't feel like opening the door that I was in the fourth story and I was really enjoying it. So I was very impressed. And then I connected with Murli and we obviously became good friends because he's such a lovely, amazing person. And I got him to write a few more. And we published this book, which is set in the diaspora. So it's all around the world. And it's an amazing book because a and Murli, as it turns out, he's not just a Sindhi business when he grew up in Shalong loves to read. He loves to read so much that one day when he was a child, he got locked in the Shalong Public Library, you know, the security locked it and he was like, oops, what do I do now? And he had crawled out, you know, in the morning so that you know. And then he studied English. Of course, he was helping in his father's business. Of course, when he got married, he started a Coca Cola distributorship. But he kept writing and he did his PhD in English literature and even taught at Thakur Dev College in Shalong. And he wrote these lovely, lovely stories. So I, and he called it a gift of my travels. Now, I also have a gift of my travels, which is that I saw religion in the diaspora. And it's really quite, it's quite interesting because, you know, when you look at partition, you're looking at religion. If you're a certain religion, then you can't stay on this side of the border. But if you look at the Cindy's, you take a closer look, you really don't know what religion you are, they are. And here, this is Punta Renas, which is in Chile in the near the South Pole. And I don't know how clearly you can see it, but there are so many different religions represented here. And this is a Malaga. It's the same in on the right, you have the Hindu gods and you also on the left, you have various divine. And here, this is interesting. This is a church of the Black Cross in Panama. And this person, it's a very it's a bit of a blurred picture, but he climbed up. And, you know, he took me to see it as a tourist, but he wanted to pay his respect. So he took off his shoes and climbed up to the altar, which I thought was lovely. You only see people doing that in the subcontinent, taking off shoes is not something people do in most countries. I mean, I don't think anyone else in this church took off their shoes, but Lakshman Kriplani, he did that. And this is in sinned, where some people took us to this Dargah, it's clearly a Dargah, but is it a Dargah? Is it a temple? Is it a, you know, good that I can see Guru Nanak is there as well. So it's all this so much of so many choices, so much flexibility and, you know, more striving towards good thoughts and peace and life and things like that. And apparently it was like that in sin that this picture is the painting by main Rajasthal Redra, who was 1924. He lives in Tane. He actually did this in his when he was in his 80s. He he was a teacher, an art teacher, but then he has his own body of work and he's done all kinds of things. And of course, the ones that I love the best are his Cindy pictures, his paintings. And I didn't know I wouldn't have guessed he told me this is a family celebrating the valley, which you know, if you look at how they're dressed, you can't really see that. And yeah, even today, if you look at this on the left is actually say one Sharif where you have a Hindu in charge of the procession. And on the right is a shrine of Sufi saint in Ulasnagar. So to an extent, it's still there. But of course, I can't pretend that it's still the same story because as we all know, there's a lot of other stuff that goes on. Let me just quickly show you this. So Ganesh actually, of course, was part of the pantheon in sin. But the procession, which you take the idol down to a body of water at the end of 11 days. It was actually done in Karachi, but it was done by the Maharashtrians because it was more of a Maharashtrian festival then. But when the Sindhis left sin, then they lived in Pune and Mumbai. They also started doing it. And I know many, many, many Sindhi families who do it. And they don't just do it in Pune and Mumbai, but they do it in Las Palmas and they do it. They do it everywhere, you know, all around the world. And you saw it in Kampala as well. So quickly about Julelal. I actually have had people I've interviewed telling me, Oh, in sin, there was no Julelal, which is, of course, it's not true. It's just what they mean is that in, in sin, our family was Nanakpanthi. And many of the people that's unfortunately, that's been my demographic. I haven't obviously covered everything because here again, Mengraj Talreja showing us that in sin, Julelal was very much, you know, this is the kind of recession that they had. And, you know, I love this because you can, I think he might have actually got LK Advani in there. Does that look like LK Advani by any chance? But yeah, it's, you know, lots of different kinds of people again, the headgear and, you know, the kind of, yeah, I mean, you can see so many like here, look at him. I mean, you don't think this man with this with a hat like this is a Hindu, do you? Here, what I wanted to say, this is in the book, it's about how Julelal became an icon of the simbis, because after partition, when people were in the camps, they were really like distraught. They were so, you know, they were so lost and they were wretched actually and very bitter, very disillusioned. This person in the middle, a lot of people, a lot of the better off sindhis did their best to help them. Now, this gentleman who you can see on the stage in the middle on the matka is Dr. Ram Panjwani. He was a professor of Sindhi at Jenin College and I've been told that he would travel at his own expense to the camps just to sing and, you know, cheer up people. And I was told by Anel Ali Sindhi that he would always end his performance by singing Julelal, Julelal. And that's how, you know, that's why we had Julelal rising from the river behind them. Coming back, so yeah, what I wanted, why I'm showing you this again is just basically just because we have, I told you about this huge, a lot of homogeneity, heterogeneity in this community, a lot of heterogeneity. But when it came to this point of crisis, they behaved like one and everybody and not just individuals, but families, the community at large, moved on and didn't look back, settled in a new place, adapted and began contributing. And I've always felt that this is what nobody really understands and appreciates. For me, this is the biggest part of it. And that's why I wanted to write this book, which gave this message. Unfortunately, what happened is that they lost so much. And this is one of the things they lost, which was their mother tongue. People stopped speaking in Sindhi to their children. When they left Sindh, they stopped speaking in Sindhi. And unfortunately, the stage had its role to play in this because in 1950, when the constitution was published, Sindhi was not a national language. So, you know, there was absolutely no point in learning Sindhi or, you know, designing your children to a Sindhi media school. Sindhi was still running Sindhi media schools. The government wasn't supporting it. But that was the writers and the thinkers. Normal people, they just want to get on with their lives, right? So, people stopped. Then, something else happened. They said, why are we using this script? Our script is Dev Nagri. So, they introduced Sindhi and Dev Nagri. And, you know, I ask people, how can you say that this script is difficult in Sindh children who are learning it? But they say, no, no, we can't do it. And they move with Dev Nagri. And that meant that there's a wealth of literature in this script. And even those who learn Sindhi and Dev Nagri, don't they? They don't have any access to it. People don't know. Now, today, there's a lot of efforts being made to revive Sindhi. But, yeah, and I do believe that it'll come back. It's hopefully. I learnt this, which I didn't know. This is not a book I published. And the interesting thing here is Shakuntila. She's talking about my Sindh. She's never been to Sindh. Hardly ever likely to go to Sindh. But, you know, that feeling, the nostalgia for places you've never seen. That's something I've seen with many people. And she writes about the Pahakas. Now, Pahakas are there in many languages. But, you know, she remembered stuff that was what she heard when she was a child. And she also told me about the vocabulary where just for one thing, which in English, you have one word, you have like seven words in Sindhi. Bad luck. Nobody knows any of those anymore. And here we have Sabdu Latif who you might have heard of. I had not heard of until I started, you know, talking to my mom. In fact, my mom said, oh, our Shahjo Rasalo, I don't, I, it didn't make any sense to me and I didn't feel attracted to it at all. But I did realize now, I do realize now that the kind of influence those thoughts of secularism and of, you know, having not being compartmental in your thoughts about how to lead a good life. I think they come from him. And a lot of the vocabulary is what I've heard, what I've learned that they, it does come from Sabdu Latif. The other thing other than the language is that the history of Sindh, a lot of history got diluted and it just disappeared here. This is something we came across when we visited Hyderabad. It's very, very sweet because it says sacred memory. And there's this list of people who were associated with the Theosophy Hall. They were all thinkers and nobody remembers them anymore. And here this is Sate Harchand Rai Vishnadas. And this actually I got from Shakuntila whose book Kava I just showed you. She married into, she married his great grandson. Oh, was it his grandson? Sorry. He was a father of the Karachi municipality. And after partition, all the statues were desecrated. So this I saw in Dawn where the piece was called the Beheaded Benefactor. And Akhtar Balooch, unfortunately we lost him. He died a few months ago, but he was somebody who went around Karachi, ferreting out stories of its history, which was was suppressed. This is Shubh and me. The first time we met, we'd already done quite a bit of work on the book. And he said to me, you know, a book like this, you need to have a center spread. And that really freaked me out because I was like, oh my God, what am I going to do? But right there, I remembered this image, which is again from Shakuntala Varvani's book. It's in one of, it's in a book about her family called Ratanjut. And this picture is of Gandhi's 1916 visit to Sindh. So I said, let's take this and let's parody it. Most of the images are very historic. I mean, they are historically authentic, but I said, let's take this. Let's put Gandhi in the middle. And let's have a lot of interesting people all around. And it became the symbol of Gandhi at the center of things and Gandhi himself partitioned and Gandhi on both sides. So that's our center spread. And you can see, you can see a lot of people. There are a lot of freedom fighters who I, of course, LK Advani is there. I got this picture from the BJP website. But you can also see, I had to obviously put my grandfather in and all his brothers. This is Bhai Pratap, who you learn more about when you read the book. And various people, very interesting people, Anand Hingorani. Let me not tell you about Anand Hingorani because I just started this podcast a few weeks ago. And this is today's episode, which is about the freedom movement and send, which was huge. People don't really know how much Cindy's fought for freedom and how extensive it was across the gender, you know, men, women and children. Subash Vigliani was, is the guest on this, was a guest on this episode. And he talked about his, I hope you're going to listen to it. He talks about his family's contribution. And so I'm going to tell you this story before I end. And so this actually happened in London. My friend, Dr. Gullmetlow, who's here. Thank you so much all of you for coming. It really means a lot to me that you're here. So he, and he introduced me to Dr. Malkani, Dr. Meer Hassan Malkani and his wife, Parzana. So they came. He's actually a hair transplant. He has a practice on Mali street and he's London's foremost hair transplant specialist. So they brought this rug and they told me the history. So his mom was from the village of Malkani in Sindh. And when partition came, his grandfather's best friend was Moolo. And Moolo came to him and said, I'm leaving. And he said, no, no, why are you leaving? And Moolo said, look, everybody's going and I have to go. And he wasn't able to convince him. So Moolo left. But before he left, he gave him various things from the house which they couldn't take along. And Meer Hassan told me that there was this fancy tray they had when they had guests in the house. They would tell him Moolo Varutre Khaani Acha. So they had things that they were still using. And they had this rug which had the name Valle Cha Kodumal woven into it. If you can see, it's right across the middle. And his mom gave it to him and he said, now you have to find the owner so that you can tell you can give them the rug and tell them how much your family, your grandfather, how much your family meant to our family. So we're still looking if any of you know where Kodumal, Valle Cha Kodumal is, please get in touch. And that's it for me for now. Thank you so much for being so attentive. Thank you so much, Sars, for just such an illuminating talk and visually and the stories. I'm not going to take up too much time, but I wanted to just I have a few of my own questions and I'd like then I'll be inviting some questions as well from the audience. You've spoken a lot about and if you're personal. Yeah, thank you, Son. And then you can join in as well. Thank you. So much of this project is about Sindh, about this shared community, which is dispersed and scattered and yet sort of also exists within Sindh, which is now in Pakistan, but also there's global diasporas. It's quite a complex history. And we might say even the social tapestry you've published a book on tapestry. There's a tapestry there around Sindh. I'm just wondering what you you know, what does it mean for you in terms of your personal history and also the histories of these people? You know, how do you understand the idea of Sindh, even the idea of homeland through this project? I know you've been doing it for a long time now, but in a nutshell. Yeah, thank you so much for that lovely questions. Very, very complicated. I don't know where to start. I think I should start by saying that I never really thought of myself as a Sindhi. And partly that's because I grew up in my father was not a Sindhi. We grew up in a third part of India, which was very remote from Sindh. And then we lived in Bombay where everybody is just a person. You know, you don't really think about where they are from or anything like that. And as I said about, as I told you about when I was telling what tapestry, there's a certain like, you know, people think about Sindhis is just being very money-minded and, you know, they'll try and cheat you and tasteless. And actually when, you know, there's that public perception. But when I think about my family and I think about my grandparents, they're just the opposite of that. I mean, exact opposite of that. But somehow, you know, when there's a public perception like that, that just overrides everything. So when I'm to answer your question, it became my project to put out a lot of good quality information, authentic and meaningful and with a lot of detail about the Sindhis basically to dissipate that erroneous notion. That's what got, I mean, that's what I do. You know, so that, I mean, this is kind of hinting to what I was going to ask next, which is, I mean, this moment last year and this carrying on the kind of commemorations of 75 years of the partition and actually Sindh being really missed out from a lot of the discussions and the public narratives, the public discourse. But there's that silence. And I just want, actually, I've been following that myself as thinking, why now? Why now? And, you know, you see very hegemonic forces trying to own the narrative as well. You know, nationalism is huge in South Asia. Religion, religious nationalism is huge and it actually owns the narrative. I mean, for some of us who were looking and you could hear it in your talk, you know, Sindh is a region that really does actually represent the antithesis of the kind of religious chauvinism, which says it's for the majority and therefore it's either, you know, Hindu majoritarianism on the one side or, you know, Islamization on the other. And in between you have regions like Sindh, which are articulating something very different, which is from the bottom up, it's syncretic culture, it's a shared common composite culture. There's the music, there's the language, there's the fact that it exists on the ground in Pakistan, but the global diasporas. How do we now understand this silence? And so my question is, sorry, I had to add that in there in my own take, is how do, how can we take the inspiration from Sindh, Sindh the identity, the kind of global diasporas we're sitting here also, right? As a way of saying, actually, this isn't silence. How can we respond to the hegemonic ownership of the narrative through this kind of idea of diversity? I mean, Sindh represents diversity and the pluralism that many people hang on to. And actually, we're not saying we, it's lost or vanished. It's actually the pluralism which has been lost. And maybe that is the longing that many of us have. So I'm going to give it to you now to respond. What I agree with you completely, but there's no way that you can argue with something that is senseless, right? So you just have to keep doing what you're good at, and putting it out. And I think that's what a lot of people here do. I have this thing where sometimes on social media posts I have young people saying, oh, I didn't know my grandparents suffered so much. And my thing is, look, it's not about suffering. I mean, suffering, that's silly. Suffering is commonplace. Suffering is banal. Everybody has some issue that they're dealing with, let's not talk about suffering. Let's look at what they did. You know, how did they face their misfortunes? What did they do? Let's just focus on the good things. That's what I feel we need to do. You know, focus on the good things. Thank you. Let me, I'm going to now stop my questions because we could probably carry on all night. I'll take a few. And I think we have a roving mic that will come around. So we've got one here. Just wait for the mic to come. I think the sound doesn't travel so well in this room. And we've got the recording going on too. So we've got one. I'm going to, I've seen one back there. Two, three. Then I'll take the next. Well, since this, I mean, book has the background, the Sunday background, I mean, related with the suffering and whatever. The officer, those who migrated. But to me, it's a very, I mean, part of the thing that you chose losing home, losing home is understandable. But finding home, what do you want to see ask and suggest? You've asked me a really difficult question because I, I mean, we spent a lot of time struggling with that. As you know, such a so I had, I didn't want it, you know, because when you see finding, it's like you're just walking along and you found something. It shouldn't be like that. But I think that for the, you know, we tried to explain it. And then we just left it as it is assuming that because, you know, when you look at Sindhi's around the world and especially in India, you never think of them as having come from somewhere else. You never think of them as having come from somewhere else because wherever they are, they found home. Who is asking this question? You are. It's not a question. It's just a description. And that's what the book is about. Thank you for your question. We've got another question coming from here. Yes, you have it. Oh, thank you so much for bringing our history to us because I'm a father of two young daughters and they often ask about what's our history, what we believe in and so on. And I try to fill in as much as possible. But the diversity and the pluralism that we, I think, have also sometimes works to our disadvantage because our girls always say, you know, look at our patriarchy friends and look at the Punjabi friends. They've got such a strong community and they've, you know, they've got some something that they are actually going to like the Godwara or the Mandir, whereas we are sort of believing in both and that itself. I think sometimes loosens the ties and the communities don't have that sort of hold and bind. I'm not I'm not propagating that, but I'm just saying that it is a product of that diversity that maybe we lost the language or are losing the language. And to try to bring it back together again, I think it's quite an uphill task. Yeah, but I think it's not the plurality that's a problem. I think it's having been scattered so widely not having home ground. You know, that's actually where this feeling of being lost and the lack of secure identity comes from. It's not really the plurality. Yeah, I think you're right. It's also numbers, isn't it? It's numbers, very few. And I think in what's really important, why there's no voice in India, because it's just not enough to be a vote bank. So actually, but I must also say that, you know, I started off by I talked about how the language is lost and partly it was the government that did it. Today, the Indian government supports the Sindhi language tremendously. There's this body called the National Council for the Preservation of Sindhi Language, which is part of the HRD ministry. And they're well funded. Yeah, but you know, it's a little bit artificial because you don't really have a space where the language is spoken on the streets. And, you know, again, I told you about the conflict between the scripts. And so but still it's happening. And the fact is language is well and alive in Sindh. So there's no reason why there won't be a resurgence. Let's see. Yeah. I think we're trying here as well at the Sindhi Munder and so on. Yeah. But I tried it myself. But as you said, the language is not spoken, is not used. So it's difficult to keep it alive. Yeah, it's like this artificial thing. You know, yeah. Thank you very much. So there's one question all the way in the back. And then I'm going to take the next three in a minute. And also just to say that we have got questions online that we'd like to address as well. Hello, Anki. I would like to ask a question, but it might seem a little bit controversial, but it is just out of my curiosity. Anki, if it's controversial, then I'm going to ask someone else to answer. No, no, it's okay. Anki, I'll guarantee fathers and grandfathers left all their property in Sindh and migrated to the rest of the world. So what happened to that property in Sindh? Very, very long answer. There's something called the, what's it called? The... Rudha Kilim. Kilim. There is a huge, there's a body in Pakistan which deals with claims. I forget what it's called, but it's still very much alive and evacuee. Thank you property board. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a board of evacuee property and there are still properties which are have not been claimed. And of course, a lot of the properties were claimed by people who had the power even though they didn't really have the entitlement and they've been knocked down. New things have been built. There's a long, long, long story. Is Gurmandar disappeared? There's a place called Guru Mandir which is Hindi slash Urdu but Gurmandar, which is the Sindhi word, nobody knows where it is. Lots of... The house is under the authority of the Sindh government power these days. It's a museum now, it's a museum, a Mukhi house. So that's a very good example because the Mukhi house which was owned by the Mukhi family, the Mukhi family, they made this arrangement with the government that we will not claim it and you can have it but you have to make it a museum. So they did that. And there's a very good, a solid body called some endowment trust. Endowment trust. And the preservation of heritage. Yeah. And they do a lot of amazing work. So they have excellent, you know, they've developed some of the properties. Okay, we have a few more questions coming from online also. Okay, brief please. From the to Devanagiri script. So what was the reason for that? Is it that key? The Devanagiri script is easy and the earlier 52 alphabets in the is very difficult to comprehend and to read and write because I am a Cindy and I have started to learn, read and write Cindy from an app which is developed by Dada Baswani. But at this age, it's very difficult for me to go through all the 52 alphabets. So is that the reason? Keep trying. Congratulations for doing that and just keep going. And I don't think it's that hard. I think you could try learning Russian which has fewer alphabets and see whether you find it easier. I don't think so. So it's okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. There's this. Can we just take his question? Yes. He's so this young man on the. Okay, sure. We'll take one here and then we're going to go online for a few more. And then if you want to line then we'll come back and take another round. Just hearing. Hi. I just had a quick question about the religious iconography in the houses of Sindhi Hindus. So in a lot of the photos that I saw in the presentation, there was a picture of Nanakji in the houses. And my grandfather in his house in Sindhi also had a photo of Nanakji. And being someone who's grown up and being brought up here, I've always associated Nanakji with the Sikhism. So what is the connection that Sindhi Hindus have specifically with Nanakji? I think a lot of Sindhi Hindus were Nanakpanthis. And that the teachings may have been brought by those Hindus who migrated to Sindh from Punjab. I think that's what happened. And why today like many families still have Guru Granth Sahib in their homes and many still go to the Gurdwara for their worship. And that's all. I mean, that's what it is. A lot of it has changed because politically Sikhism belongs to the Punjabis. Thank you very much. Okay, so there is a question. There's two questions by the same actual person. So this is, let's try this one. Vikas Wadwani has said, So heartbroken to not be able to be hit there today. Your work and that of Nandita Bhavnani is so commendable. She was also at Sawas a few years ago launching her book The Making of Exile which I was lucky to attend. She's based in Mumbai and you in Pune. Have you met her? And is there any collaboration we Sindhis can expect? Have you read her book? What do you think of her work? And how just a few questions and how different or similar your book is to hers. And thank you for what you are doing. Yeah, hi Vikas. Thank you for asking me that. I love talking about Nandita because she's like my Guru. And I couldn't have written my first book without her. I mentioned to you that I got I read a lot of books when I was doing that first book when I knew nothing. I just talked to my mom then I interviewed a few other people. And all the books I read were from Nandita. She just opened her library. She told me read this, read this, read this. I staggered home with the load of the books she gave me. She came to Pune with another load of books for me. And that's how it was. So I could not have written my first book without Nandita. And even today I check with Nandita. Did I get this right before I put it out? I've read her book. I'm a great fan of her work. And in my podcast my first season has eight episodes in it which I've tried to cover kind of outline of history of just before partition during partition and after partition. So the episode on partition Nandita's a guest because she's an expert in that subject. Her book Making of Exile is it looks at every angle of the Sindhi experience of partition and I would totally recommend that book as well. And the other question is there are a lot of painful stories due to partition that us Sindhis went through. I know in my own family itself both my set of grandparents lost everything and overnight had to leave there Havelis, savings, etc. and moved to India. My mum's side built up their lives from scratch in Ahmedabad and dad's side in Ajmer. Have you touched on such difficult upsetting stories in your book? Yeah, I have and I most of the stories are stories of loss. Most of the stories are stories of devastated feelings of devastation feelings of betrayal. And I also feel that those are things that happen to many people in life in different situations. People die. Young people die. People fall ill. You know, people suffer from all kinds of terrible things happen. And I like to look at what happened after that, especially for the Sindhis. You know, they I think that what happened after that is the real story. And just to say Kamal has asked if you could share a link to your podcast. So the podcast is called Sindhi Tapestry and you'll find it on any on every podcast platform. Just Google. It's on YouTube. The YouTube channel is called Sindhi Dot Tapestry. I hope you'll enjoy it. I've really enjoyed putting that together and I really hope you will enjoy it too. Thanks. Okay, I'm going to take you just a few more questions. Yes. Any time is coming. We have one here. Can we just could we could use the mic because it's being we've got people who aren't in the room. Just wait one second. Thank you. Sorry, a couple of things I wanted to say. Regarding the Sindhi script being used, my father used to teach Sindhi many years ago here in the UK. And it was not popular. He's fought very hard but he was fought back when he was trying to say use the Sindhi script. He was told at that time if you're teaching the young children, use the Devanagiri script because it's easier for them to do Hindi afterwards as well. And that was that was a whole thing that was happening 30 years ago here in the UK when they were being taught. So we need to go back to he was very into doing that. And I'm just saying it's something that we've got to promote from here down so that it goes forward. It's very nice to hear somebody who calls himself elderly who might not be as old as he's saying he is but who is trying to learn the language. I think that's amazing. And there are apps. Asha Chand is a campaigner for the Devanagiri script and she's done amazing work. So you can look her up. She has an app through which you can learn the script and then the language after that. I have another point. The tapestry that you were trying to locate where it came from. Does the tapestry come from Manjan? I've been asked because I know somebody with a very similar surname and I messaged them. And they said their family came from Manjan. If that tapestry is from there, it belongs to their forefathers. Wow. The name of the village is Malkani. I'll ask her. Lovely. And that's very exciting. So I've been asked to send a picture. I'll write this down because I have to send it to the person who doesn't live in this country. I'm trying to sort of say because they call their company Kodanmal, not Kodumal. Okay. So I'm trying to see if it's the same thing. Wow. That would be great. Thank you so much. I should just be kind of one more and then that'll be our last two. Well, I have a little request to Vivek Ranjanji. He made Kashmir files. And now the book is there which you wrote. So that will help him. So I request from this performer, Mr Vivek Ranjan, that make Sindhi files. Sindhi files. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. One more. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very much demanding from you. Last time we made 10 years ago on the launching of your first book at Cricklewood at the city of London. Yeah. No, not before that in the East London. In a restaurant we arranged to get together. Right. So you were saying that the story is from the Venice homeland. So I say what about the stories behind you left? Now who's going to collect those? Yeah. The tapestry you have collected some of them and that is partially done. But as my friend said, finding home. So why you need to find a home? You are already in home. Yeah. Kaches of Sindh. That's true. Jaisalmer or some of the Sindhis they say Sindhi linguistic territory. So how about the indigenous people who did not migrate? They were living since ever. So would you focus on them and your next? I think I'm kind of done. This is my work. There are lots of young people who are doing that and they will continue to do it. So there is a lot of work happening. So I mean this is something an area where we can focus. There are people doing that. General perception is that the Sindh is just the province of Pakistan. Sindh is much more than that. So all the adjoining areas whether it is on the other side of the border or in other provinces of Pakistan. It's again a Sindh. So Sindh is not confined to that. It's true. Just the province. You're right. I mean there's a lot in the partition story that has just not been done. And people are doing that. Thank you. One more here. We've kind of run out of time. We're going to... Yeah. Just to say that after this please you're more than welcome to carry on the conversation outside the foyer. We're just putting out some drinks and nibbles. So give us about five minutes here afterwards. But please do carry on the conversation. Thank you.