Children of partition be allowed to cross border at will: Reena Chibber

Story by  Aasha Khosa | Posted by  Aasha Khosa • 1 Years ago
Reena Chibber Varma in Amritsar (Image Courtesy: Kashmir Images)
Reena Chibber Varma in Amritsar (Image Courtesy: Kashmir Images)

 

New Delhi

Reena Chibber Varma has returned from Pakistan after visiting 'her home' in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, which her family had to abandon during the partition, says the "children of the partition should be allowed to cross the border and visit their countries and homes without any formalities."
 
The septuagenarian Reena, a resident of Pune, Maharashtra, told a friend and a journalist Rashmi Talwar in Amritsar on her return via Wagah-Attari border in Amritsar: “Let the children of partition visit without a visa, let them move across the border on both sides freely as both countries are their homes. Give them a chance to visit their homes in their twilight years.”
 
Reena Chibber Varma's visit rekindled the memories of lakhs of people in both countries about the gory violence during the partition and millions became refugees overnight. Her family had come to India and her father Bhai Prem Chand Chibber was never able to build another house.
 
About her experience, Reena says she got to spend one night in the room that was hers till 75 years ago “I got a sound sleep in my room,” she said.
 
“When you get a chance to have a sound sleep in your childhood bedroom after 75 years that too when the house housing the bedroom is now in another country, is a feeling that can’t be expressed in words,” she told her friends in Amritsar.

Reena Chibber Varma said she relived her childhood in the house where she was hosted by the new owners. Wearing a Pink top contrasting with a black Salwar and dupatta, Reena looked an image of happiness as she walked into the Indian side.
 
Reena is overwhelmed by the love she got from the Pakistani people. She declared an nth time: “We are the same, here (India) or there (Pakistan).”
 
Reena told her friend: “It was a dream gift to revisit my childhood home, walk in the city of my teen years,  relive my childhood days, in the home of my family, in the house that my father built, in the place I was born,” said Reena.
 
She said he picked no material memorabilia from her house other than revisiting her childhood and the hospitality of the people of Pakistan.
 
“Staying and sleeping one full night in my own (childhood) room, in my own house after 75 years was a fulfilling experience,” Reema said in an emotional tune.
 
Dr Muzamil Hussain, the owner of the house, gifted Reena a solid name plaque with the words “Reena’s House” and “Don’t ever give up!” She was happy to see ‘her house and four other houses in the lane named after her father as ‘Prem Gali’ had not been altered by their new owners.”

Her house once called ‘Prem Niwas,1935’ named after her father Bhai Prem Chand Chibber on the DAV college road, Rawalpindi has since been renamed  “Kashane Imtiaz” or home of Imtiaz, the lane rechristened as “Gali Ghulam Fareed.”
 
Reena also visited Katasraj Hindu shrines in the Chakwal district of Pakistan. Her visit was organized by Faraz Abbas Secretary of the Evacuee Trust Property Board (ETPB) of Pakistan.

She was welcomed by Ravinder Kumar Chhibber, one of the seven lineages of Mohyal Brahmins, the head of the lone Hindu family of Chakwal. Incidentally, Reena too belongs to the Chhibber clan of  Mohyal Brahmins.

 
In Lahore, she visited the Forman Christian college where her husband studied and which had IK Gujral former Indian PM, former Pak President Pervez Musharaff, and Kuldip Nayyar lawyer and journalist as alumni.