Meengla
Elite Member
In the interests of sharing, for historical reasons, what I saw as a child when India and Pakistan had the war in December 1971. I am sharing these based on vague memories of those days but I am trying to recall as honestly as I can. I was barely a 6 year old child then and the war happened so long ago that hard to recall much. Be as it may, here is what I remember of those days living in a nice upper middle class Urdu Speaking household of Karachi's great North Nazimabad town.
This thread is not about blaming this or that. Just personal recollections of a child while I am still able to recall some of what I saw. Feel free to share your own memories here.
1) Pakistanis had mobilized to support the troops against India. We kids used our pocket money to create small packets of items like Gud (brown sugar stuff) and a few more edibles with long shelf life to send to the troops.
2) We used the Urdu newspaper Jang's paper to glue on the windows to reduce light from the house seen from outside. There were many windows.
3) There was no love for the 'Bangalis'; on the contrary.
4) There was supposed to be blackouts: No lights from the house to be seen outside. No headlights on at night. That was to avoid the Indian jets from bombing the targets--strange thing because now I see no reason for Indians to waste ammos on some harmless civilian houses and cars. But then it was war.
5) My dad was a 'Razakaar': His job was to make sure the road in front of our house had no vehicles with headlights on. We saw him once shouting at a lone motorcycle rider; the road were empty at night because of curfew. We were told our dad threw a rock to smash the motorcycle's headlight but that maybe just a made up story.
6) No one shed a tear in the Karachi community when Pakistan lost and Bangladesh was formed. There was some mention of why the Paan leaves were not available because the supply from 'Dhaka' had stopped.
7) General Yahya Khan as well as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were disliked by the Urdu speaking community but the 'Bangalis' were even more disliked.
8) Our family house was large and had a full 'Teh Khana' (basement) with bunker beds. The entire household--maybe 10-15 people-- moved there at night. It used to be full of books owned by an uncle (Ibn e Safi novels), which were moved away. We used kerosene lamps for light. Even an aunt from the more central part of Karachi moved in with her kids and only then we realize they were our cousins.
9) We could hear loud aircrafts in the sky and even after the war ended, low flying loud PAF jets continued to fly.
10) We were shown a fist sized shrapnel from a bomb, presumably dropped by the Indians.
This thread is not about blaming this or that. Just personal recollections of a child while I am still able to recall some of what I saw. Feel free to share your own memories here.
1) Pakistanis had mobilized to support the troops against India. We kids used our pocket money to create small packets of items like Gud (brown sugar stuff) and a few more edibles with long shelf life to send to the troops.
2) We used the Urdu newspaper Jang's paper to glue on the windows to reduce light from the house seen from outside. There were many windows.
3) There was no love for the 'Bangalis'; on the contrary.
4) There was supposed to be blackouts: No lights from the house to be seen outside. No headlights on at night. That was to avoid the Indian jets from bombing the targets--strange thing because now I see no reason for Indians to waste ammos on some harmless civilian houses and cars. But then it was war.
5) My dad was a 'Razakaar': His job was to make sure the road in front of our house had no vehicles with headlights on. We saw him once shouting at a lone motorcycle rider; the road were empty at night because of curfew. We were told our dad threw a rock to smash the motorcycle's headlight but that maybe just a made up story.
6) No one shed a tear in the Karachi community when Pakistan lost and Bangladesh was formed. There was some mention of why the Paan leaves were not available because the supply from 'Dhaka' had stopped.
7) General Yahya Khan as well as Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were disliked by the Urdu speaking community but the 'Bangalis' were even more disliked.
8) Our family house was large and had a full 'Teh Khana' (basement) with bunker beds. The entire household--maybe 10-15 people-- moved there at night. It used to be full of books owned by an uncle (Ibn e Safi novels), which were moved away. We used kerosene lamps for light. Even an aunt from the more central part of Karachi moved in with her kids and only then we realize they were our cousins.
9) We could hear loud aircrafts in the sky and even after the war ended, low flying loud PAF jets continued to fly.
10) We were shown a fist sized shrapnel from a bomb, presumably dropped by the Indians.
