Transcript: The Partition of India

NARRATOR: For Martha Stewart, Margaret Cho, and Sanjay Gupta – the courageous, pioneering spirit that compelled their families to risk everything and move to America was shaped by strikingly similar themes of exodus and upheaval. Their family histories are each colored by a deep sense of loss.

And no wonder. Each was directly affected by political turmoil that tore apart families – and entire nations--in the process.

In fact, Sanjay Gupta’s mother, Damyanti, lived through one of the worst social upheavals in contemporary history – the partition of India.

SANJAY GUPTA: She was very young when this terrible Partition happened. I’ve tried to find out just how violent, uh, was it, for real. Um, what she saw. But she doesn’t, she doesn’t talk about it that much.

NARRATOR: In 1947, partition divided India into two nations, creating the new Muslim state of Pakistan. In the chaos, more than a million people lost their lives. 14 million Muslims and Hindus were displaced – among them, 5 year-old Damyan and her Hindu family. They were forced to flee their ancestral home in Sindh, Pakistan. Damyanti spoke with us about her memories of that night.

DAMYANTI HINGORANI: I remember that we had to leave very, very early in the middle of the night, so nobody can recognize us. My dad’s mother, she didn’t want to even leave. She said, “I came as a bride, and I’m not leaving this place.” She loved her place so much. And actually, I remember, she used to carry a big key chain. It was round, and she had several keys, and she knew exactly which key fitted which lock. She had locked everything, and she used to tell me one day she is going to go back and open all that.

NARRATOR: Sanjay’s great grandmother reluctantly left with the rest of the family. they made the perilous journey over land from their home in Sindh to Karachi, then by boat to Bombay. With every mile they traveled, they were unwittingly – and permanently - leaving so much of their past – and of their family's history - further and further behind. They would never return to their ancestral home again.

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.: I find the story of the key so deeply moving.

SANJAY GUPTA: I, I can’t believe that they hung on to this key. That’s, that’s proof of what, where they expected their lives to go. They wanted to go back. They wanted to, to go back to where they, where their homes were.

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.: Or proof that even if she knew she couldn’t go back where her heart was.

SANJAY GUPTA: Yeah. Right, right.

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.: Forced to leave almost all of their worldly possessions behind, Sanjay’s family’s ancestral paper trail on his mother’s side runs out. The story of Sanjay’s mother being forced to flee her home with virtually nothing still resonates deeply with him. It’s the defining, climactic event that separates him from the ability to gain a deeper understanding of his family’s roots.

SANJAY GUPTA: There is a cultural thing that I see among Indians, and maybe it’s among Indians who immigrated away from India. There is a desire to protect their kids from some of the tougher parts of their lives.