My mother's side belongs to West Bengal. They came over to East Pakistan after 1947 when two new states were born. When I was growing up these issues never concerned me and I took it all as normal. My father too had come away but his case was odd. He was from Noakhali but was largely raised in Kolkata by his older sister from his teen years on. It meant that Kolkata figured in everyone's mind.

This switch from one land to another had a deeply poignant side as my maternal aunt - khala - was married to her cousin before 1947, whose family was very established there and so she never migrated. For my Nani her family was therefore rent asunder with one daughter - my mother - in Dhaka while the other in Kolkata.

I remember her infrequent trunk calls or cross country telephone calls on ancient black phones, as she would loudly call out her daughter's name on the phone in a terribly shaky and desperate voice hoping to hear and be heard in another land.

Clan migration

She alone hadn't come from India after 1947 but several of her cousins also had and even her immediate older brother too. A doctor by profession he was later the head of the Mitford Hospital. I remember their lovely hone that lay on the bank of the Buriganga of the late 50s and 60s, watching the boats play from their netted veranda in a much cleaner, uncluttered beautiful river and the wonderful snacks and meals made by his wife, my grand aunt.

There were of course who also came with the family, the retainers. Our male nanny was Kaloo Chahcha, a teenager in 1946, working as a jewelry polisher who was knifed on his head and left for dead in a nearby drain. He didn't die, was rescued by the police and survived. He too came over, a man traumatized beyond comprehension by that near brush with death who would rub his fingers across the long ridge and lump on his heads where the knife had met the skull many years ago.

My family history project

Many many years later, I decided to do a memorialization project of my family members who had come away from India to East Pakistan and gather their memories for preservation and if possible produce a documentary someday. So I decided to video record as many of them as possible. I found around 10 of my relatives still around and willing to talk and so it began.

The memories were sometimes similar and sometimes different. What I found out was that while they were talking about a common past they had differences. More

My dad's memories were different because he was not from West Bengal but present Bangladesh and had mixed memories of both places. He had studied there from school to the University to his first job as a policeman, his marriage, first two kids and switch to his lifelong career as a banker.

He had a wide range of memories - of hostels, canteen and most importantly friends, most of whom had never migrated as they were Hindus. But they were his closest friends. He didn't just remember people and places; he remembered the city of Kolkata with all its shine and decay. I could sense that feeling of belonging. It wasn't nostalgia; it was about his growing up amongst a crowd of his own kind.

My mother's memories

When I talked to my mother, her expressions were very different. She hated Kolkata because she had seen the bloody violence of the riots of 1946 and saw that fear and anxiety after all these years. It wasn't about the people who killed or got killed, the city was itself to blame for all the gore. She had seen it all happen like other housewives of that time in front of their eyes, saw the mayhem and worried about their children. To her Dhaka was a relief, sanctuary and the city remained a sanctuary to her all her life.

The gender difference

It was my Teaching Assistant (TA) Nusrat Tasnim Arna who, while listening to my recollection of such memories made an insightful observation that made so much clear. She said it's true that the world of men and women are very different and so are their memories. That I had found my female and male relatives relate differently to their past made more sense after that. To the males, the place, friends, places and many other memory triggers existed. However, my female relatives responded to the same question about where their home was the same way. It was always their family, their home, their sangsar.

Arna' was clear: "the male is allowed the outside, the external space and so memories grow in many spaces but for the females, their life is limited , not even much school if you see and in those days much much less. They get married and then it's all about raising a family. The memories are therefore internal not external. Their world can't grow or aren't allowed to so home and belonging becomes the same. The males have more memory options, women don't."

Which is exactly my point too. History is not monolithic and there are many histories that live together. It's not a monolith but a river with many streams. It applies to the history of 1971 as well.