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ometimes, I think about my bari nano, my great-grandma. A woman so accustomed to the grand havelis in her village in India but forced to leave it all behind during the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. She moved with her family to a small area in Akalgar, Pakistan. I remember visiting her in the little living room shared between five other families. She would always sit in the center, her children and grandchildren and even great grandchildren surrounding her. She sat against her little cushion as if it were a throne instead of an old bolster whose blue colour had long since faded. Once, she was the woman of a haveli, overseeing the work of her gardeners and servants. Now, an elderly woman with no servants to oversee and no grand haveli to live in but she still sat in a court of her descendants with the same grace. According to my grandmother, bari nano had always been a gentle woman. It was as though kindness and compassion were woven into the fabric of her character. I felt it when I spoke to her–in her loving tone and her gentle eyes. That didn’t change after she’d witnessed the horrors of the partition. She may have lost her riches, her home, and her family, but she never lost her character. 1. Arabs of Canada. A message from a mother in Gaza [Internet]. 2023 Oct [cited 2023 Nov 3]; Available from: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyY8Q_ sxFnu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link 2. Motaz Azaiza https://www.instagram.com/motaz_azaiza/?utm_source=ig_ web_button_share_sheet&igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== 3. O’Reilly, A. (2019, May 3). The cartographer’s mistake . WAG. https://www. wag.ca/art/stories/the-cartographers-mistake/ 4. Sarindar Dhaliwal. The cartographer’s mistake: the Radcliffe Line, 2012. Chromira print, 107 x 107 cm. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. J.S. McLean Collection, by Canada Packers Inc., 2020. Sarindar Dhaliwal
12 | THE MUSLIM VOICE | NOVEMBER 2023
