Pre-independence: A turbulent phase

Our member Ms. S. Acharyya shares a stirring event of her early life of pre-independence India on the occasion of our 77th Independence Day.

I was very young when this incident took place. Years later as I grew up, when I heard about it, it touched me deeply.
My parents’ house was in Bhaluka Bazar, a small village next to the Fulahar river in Malda. The workers and domestic help at our house were provided with some land and that’s how the village was set up. Everyone in our family, directly or indirectly, were a part of the freedom struggle. One day, a few months before India won independence, we heard some rumours that our village would become a part of East Pakistan as part of the Partition agreement.
My father's elder brother and sisters were in prison then, and the charge of the house went to my father. He decided that he would stay and guard the property while Chhoto kaka, the youngest of my uncles, took the women and children elsewhere. Overnight, Chhoto kaka escorted us on to a budgerow, and we set sail in the direction of Rajmahal, where the Mahananda meets the Ganga. It was decided that establishing any sort of contact with human settlements was too risky, and so we spent three months from budgerow to boat, from boat to budgerow, leading a nomadic life on the Ganga.
While we had some provisions and a few attendants with us, it was a difficult phase for the family. We cooked, bathed, and slept on the boats. Apparently, I was a very stubborn child and had the capacity to cry loudly and endlessly. Chhoto kaka later told me that when I would cry, the boat would be commandeered to the middle of the Ganga lest we be overheard by anyone. For provisions we had to reach the shore at times which was risky. But we braved such uncertainties Today, when I think of the three months of tribulations faced by my family, I find myself emotionally stirred.