How my Mother Savitri Devi got injured during 1947 Partition Times

​

The scar on her nose tip and severed first finger on her right hand is a witness when she along side my Dad, is ready to put a ritual garland on newly weds me and Harvinder after our Anand Karan Sep 9,1972

Remembering My Mother on Her Fortieth ‘Punya Tithi’ - A Tribute

Today, on the fortieth death anniversary, her ‘Punya Tithi’, I remember my beautiful mother Savitri Devi who left us far too young when I was just 41. Her life, like those of millions, was scarred by the unimaginable turmoil of the Partition of 1947.

During those dark days, my father and uncle, only adult men in the family, decided to move to this part of India in search of safety. They decided to come earlier on pilgrimages ahead of schedule partition date and in what can only be called a tragic misjudgment born of chaos and fear, they chose to settle in Faridkot Punjab. They rented a small place, just one room and in that one room my mother and my Chachi ji used to sleep together in a corner, my grandmother also Shared that room. My mother had two small children beside her, while my Chachi ji had one toddler and was pregnant with another. The nights were tense and sleepless, law and order had collapsed, and fear ruled after dark.

One horrifying night, a cruel woman entered the room carrying a ‘toka’ (a sharp cutting weapon). She attacked my mother without mercy.😭. My mother instinctively raised her right hand to protect herself. Her index finger was chopped off in that very first blow. The attacker then struck her face, severely injuring her nose.

The assailant then turned on my Chachi ji PremKaur. By then, Chachi ji had alerted and gathered the courage that only terror can force upon a person in turmoil. She managed to seize the toka from her hands and threw it away. Realizing she had been overpowered, the woman fled into the darkness.

Later, it was strongly suspected that the very woman from whom we had rented the room was the culprit. Chachi ji confirmed this doubt.

In a 1946 Karachi photograph, with my Dad and Grandmother, my Mom poses with my sister Bhagwant in her lap. It is very clear that her right hand fingers are completely visible with no scar on nose.

However, my mother lived on, but the wounds never truly healed. Her severed finger and the scars on nose tip she carried became lifelong, silent witnesses to the savagery of those times, brutal reminders of the price innocent people paid during the madness of 1947.

What  makes this tragedy even more painful is the irony that this brutality was inflicted not by Muslim rioters, as we had feared in those days, but by our own people, those with whom we meant to share a new land and a new begining and for whom we left everything behind which we had amassed for

In this 1940 photograph, taken just before her wedding, her Index finger is whole and unbroken, a sight I was never destined to see in my conscious life time.

On this ‘Punya Tithi’, I bow my head in remembrance! My mother’s suffering was immense, her courage quiet, and her endurance extraordinary. May her soul rest in eternal peace! 

A valuable comment of my first cousin Narinder Butta makes it more interesting.

“Horrible Incident! 

But I never saw sadness in your mother’s  face because of this cruel attack. 

She was the happiest, ever laughing sisters of the family. 

My mother and your mother were the best friends being younger of four.

She always liked me since she saw my resemblance with one Indian famous film actor of those days.

When I came from

Russia on short college holidays, she came to Rajendra Nagar to see me.

You son Shiv’s  voice reminds me of her.“

—Narinder