The first night

The article describes the first night of a person and his wife, after they came to India as refuges, in a street in Amritsar (Punjab state in India).

India is a prospering economy now; nevertheless ordinary Indians paid a heavy price for the independence of the country. The couple in the article were uprooted from their traditional homes and lands and had to start life from a scratch, in a refugee camp.

This write-up can be summed up in one word, “loss”. The loss that human beings suffer, silently, when countries battle or get dismembered. The story is about my own parents. My father, lost his parents in the holocaust of partition, in August 1947.

The Ukraine war has also rendered millions homeless. The refugees from Ukraine are also suffering staggering losses of loved ones, property, homes, children, etc. It concludes as follows: “Around 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees are suffering similar staggering losses of family members, children, livelihoods and homes. Again, 20,000 Ukrainian children are languishing in Russia, without their parents. There are 184 million displaced persons and 35.2 million refugees, in the world. Surely, world leaders can find solutions to end the agony of refugees and innocent children, across the globe.”

Rajendra Aneja,

Mumbai, India