Parveen and her younger sister Bulbul had, through no fault of their own, ended up trapped for life as bonded labourers in the brick-kiln industry in Pakistan.

Their drama began at an early age when their family moved from Goa to a small railway town called Kamoke situated in rural Punjab. The years just after World War II, with the partition of the Indian subcontinent and the formation of Pakistan and India as separate independent nations, came into being. An account of one single massacre in the Kamoke railway station provides the reader with the window into what might possibly have happened to a portion of approximately 1.5 million people who were murdered or killed during the mayhem.

Also, that year, the mighty British Raj was preparing to finalize their occupation of the Indian subcontinent and return to Great Britain. They had repulsed a Japanese massive attempt to invade Northeast India from Burma. The British army, along with the support of a couple of Indian regiments and American air support, suppressed the advance.

One of the Lord Louis Mountbatten’s chief contributions was to coordinate the partition on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. He also was responsible for drawing up the new international (Radcliffe Line) boundary between the two new countries. The agreement went ahead on the 14–15 August 1947 in the company of Prime Minister Nehru representing India and Jinnah, the ‘Quaid-E-Azam’ (Founder of the Nation), representing Pakistan.

The story began in the 1980’s. Praveen, at the time was a grandmother, shared her stories with a group of workers at the end of their hard day’s work in the day pits, brick kiln, and farmlands.

As the sun sank low in the skies, out across the semi-arid desert, one could not but notice how, at forty –eight, Parveen looked much older than her age because of the harsh climate and her individual lifelong struggle for survival. Nothing much had changed in their lives since she and Bulbul were transported to live in the desert. This was where they learnt to face up to the various issues because of inadequate health facilities, and lack of basic infrastructure. Regular droughts, famines, infant mortality, malaria, and waterborne diseases were commonplace reality.

Sean McQuade

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