Her eyes were set on the hardships their fellow refugees are facing at the camp.

Sunheri breaks her silence. "Mujhe yahan ki boli nahin aati hai. Hamari boli aati hai. Idhar bahut khush hain. Apne desh mein aa gaye hain. Bharat jo hai wo Hinduon ka desh hai (I know Sindhi, but I am very happy in my country Bharat - the land of Hindus)."



On 11 December, when this author visited the Majnu ka Tila camp, Sunheri was separating stones and mud with her hands on a mound of loose mud. Assisting her in this grueling assignment Mangal Das was working up furious blows of the spade on the hard end of the ground.

In Sunheri, the joy of smearing her hands in the mitti of Bharat, was marked by a sense of victory of having over come their past.



The smell of burning wood in chulhas rises from every kutcha dwelling, every hut, at the camp. It is that time of the day when most women here light up the chulhas to prepare the first meal.



Sunheri does not have even that basic. She doesn't have a chulha to cook for her children, leave alone a having a roof to brave the winter chill.

Having left everything she had built so far, in Pakistan, without even having the chance to sell any of that to the Muslim locals there - for the fear of "being stopped from leaving", she seems to have accepted the new idea of home. She calls this homecoming.

Mangal Das, just as most Hindu refugees staying at this camp have stated earlier, says that he did not have the option to sell his property to support his travel, or support the beginning of the process of lives here. "Bechenge to wo rokenge (if we sell, we will be stopped by them)."

He says that they left their home in the night. "Chup chaap aanaa padta hai. Usko daya to hoti nahin hai. (we have to escape stealthily in the dark, they don’t have compassion), " he adds.

For years, every day, Sunheri and Mangal Das would be told by their relatives - mostly Hindu refugees from Pakistan living in India, that it was time for them, too, to leave, escape, for the sake of their dharma, their children, and their children's dharma.

Her salwar kameez are beginning to take the hue of mud and labour. Sweat trickles down her brows mixing with the kohl from her eyes and grime. Her hands are tired and turning rough with mud, but she continues with the task.



The memory of broken rice and the reality of broken homes are two aspects sharing home with Parvati and Sayani.



Living as Hindu labourers who worked on the fields for Muslim landowners in Sindh, according to Sayani, was about facing discrimination. "The meager pay would be delayed, and worse, would be inadequate."



Sayani is helping her Hindu refugees relatives rebuild lives. Her brother in law's kids play with the rice left for drying in the sun. Looking at the rice, she says, "living there wasn't safe for us and for our children. I stepped out to buy this rice drying here from shops outside the camp. It was unimaginable there. My daughter has gone to school. Unimaginable there. More importantly, we are getting to eat decently."



Parvati and Sayani belong to two different families. Rice builds a common grain of memory for both.