Arjan’s Long Journey
Arjan’s Long Journey
In Sharjah, I came to know Uncle Arjan as more than a family friend — he became a quiet guide and a steady presence in my life. His stories hinted at a past shaped by the Indian Partition, when a young Arjan left Sialkot with his family and faced the upheaval of a divided homeland. Behind his calm dignity was a journey of loss, resilience, and renewal. This chapter follows that path, and the bond I formed with him over the years, revealing how history shaped the man I knew and admired.
When my uncle Arjan Dev Ralli, spoke of Sialkot, he spoke not of a place on a map but of a world that had once belonged to him.
He was nineteen years old in the summer of 1947.
At that age, a young man usually dreams of the future. Arjan’s future seemed certain enough. His family owned eighteen acres of farmland outside Sialkot. There were farming sheds, livestock, orchards, and a substantial six-bedroom brick house that had sheltered generations of the Ralli family. The rhythms of life were familiar and comforting. Seasons came and went. Crops were planted and harvested. Family members gathered under the same roof, sharing meals, celebrations, and stories.
No one imagined that within a few weeks, everything would be gone.
The British were preparing to leave India. Politicians debated borders and new nations. Far away, lines were being drawn across maps. Yet those lines would soon cut through villages, farms, friendships, and families.
As Partition approached, fear spread across Punjab. Rumours travelled faster than facts. Stories of violence arrived from neighbouring towns. Communities that had lived side by side for generations suddenly found themselves caught in forces beyond their control.
Then came the moment when the Ralli family realised they could no longer remain.
There was no opportunity to plan carefully. There was only time to leave.
Arjan departed Sialkot with a group of about twenty-one people. The family caravan included his parents, four elder brothers, two sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and a few close family friends. Together they gathered only what they could carry in their hands. Everything else — the land, the sheds, the house, the furniture, the tools, the memories attached to every room — was left behind.
When they walked away from their home, they believed they might one day return.
They never did.
The journey to the new India would take nearly three weeks.
Part of the journey was by overcrowded train. Part of it was on foot. Like countless others fleeing the violence, they moved through a landscape transformed by fear and uncertainty. Railway stations overflowed with desperate families. Roads were crowded with endless columns of people carrying bundles, children, and whatever remained of their former lives.
Arjan rarely spoke in detail about what he witnessed along the way.
Some memories were too painful.
He saw the aftermath of violence that no young man should ever have to see. He witnessed human beings reduced by fear, hatred, and desperation. The horrors of Partition left scars on an entire generation, and many survivors carried those memories silently for the rest of their lives.
Not everyone who began the journey reached its end.
Two members of their travelling group, the extended famly were lost along the way.
Whether through violence, illness, confusion, or separation amidst the chaos, they disappeared from the family circle. Their absence would be felt long after the journey was over. In later years, their names would still be spoken with sadness and remembrance.
The weeks stretched on.
There were days of hunger and exhaustion. Nights spent wherever shelter could be found. Moments of despair. Yet there was also resilience. Families shared food. Strangers helped one another. In the midst of immense suffering, small acts of kindness endured.
Eventually, after weeks of uncertainty, the surviving members of the family arrived in Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh.
They had escaped with their lives.
But they had arrived with almost nothing else.
The government allocated them a modest two-bedroom bungalow as compensation for all that had been left behind.
It was difficult not to notice the contrast.
In Sialkot, the family had owned eighteen acres of productive farmland, agricultural sheds, and a spacious six-bedroom brick home. Now more than twenty people found themselves beginning again in a small bungalow in an unfamiliar city.
Yet they did what countless refugees across India and Pakistan were forced to do.
They started over.
The older generation mourned what had been lost. The younger generation looked ahead. Work was found. Children went to school. New friendships were made. Gradually, life reassembled itself, though never quite in the same shape as before.
Years later, Arjan seldom dwelt on bitterness.
Instead, he remembered Sialkot with affection. He remembered the fields, the seasons, the people, and the life that had once seemed permanent. He understood, perhaps better than most, how fragile permanence can be.
History tells us that millions crossed borders during Partition.
It speaks of migration, politics, nations, and statistics.
But behind every statistic was a family carrying a few possessions along a dusty road.
Behind every refugee was a home left standing empty.
And behind one of those stories was a nineteen-year-old young man named Arjan Dev Ralli, who left Sialkot with twenty-one members of his family, lost two companions along the way, travelled for three weeks through a land in turmoil, and arrived in Kanpur carrying little more than courage, memory, and the determination to begin again.
Written in collaboration with Arjan Dev Ralli’s son, Rohit Ralli in Sydney.
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