As a four-year-old in 1947, Amir Singh Virk held on to a tender memory — that of his older cousin bandaging his toe after he’d slipped and fallen. What Amir didn’t realise was that the cousin, Dalbir Singh, would slip away from his life for the next seven decades.
The extended family lived in a haveli in village Ghadiya Kalan in Pakistan’s Gujranwala province. One day, Amir was dragged out of the house by his mother and found himself in a caravan that was making its way to India.
Dalbir Singh had been visiting his maternal grandparents and he was separately making his journey to a new homeland.
Both have vivid memories of the riots that erupted after Independence and partition. And the brothers had to deal with the pain of living without each other.
When the two finally met on Tuesday, Amir was emotional as ever. His eyes kept welling up. Dalbir, who has stayed focused on a spiritual journey, was happy.
Read more of this heart touching story by Harinder Baweja published in Hindustan Times...
