Tapestry

Sindhi food – beyond papad!

Food is that one thing that links every Sindhi family back to its lost traditions. Most Sindhi families eat a wide range of world foods, but have also carried the lost-homeland recipes with them to every corner of the planet. In this final episode of the Tapestry podcast’s first season, you are going to enjoy mirchi pakoras a long way from home, samosas as a starter at a Chinese restaurant with devoted Sindhi customers in Iquique, and Indonesian gado-gado – where else but in Chile. This is a conversation that takes us beyond papad. It takes us beyond saee bhaji, kadhi, kok pallo, dal pakwan, singhar mithai, gheyar and the other familiars. Step in and travel across Sindh along with Sindhi pop-up chef Sapna Ajwani and get a whiff of flavours that you are going to find familiar, nostalgic even, even when you’re encountering them for the very first time.

Their dedication to education

People think of Sindhis as committed to business and money. This episode is about how important education was in Sindh, the thrust for women’s education and the yearning for a life of the mind. People strived for education for their children, knowing that it paved the way for a better life. After Partition, Sindhis set up schools and colleges in the places where they settled so that the education of their own children would not be interrupted and their teachers and educationists would continue in their professions. There are many high points in this episode, here are a few: -       the reception HK Kirpalani received when he came home to Hyderabad after having been accepted into the Indian Civil Service, an occasion of joy and celebration for the entire province -       Rabindranath Tagore and some connections between Sindh and Bengal -       a glimpse into the long heritage of education the Amils of Sindh have -       the diary of a Sindhworki – some important notes and a gentleman's guide on how to do business Some interesting links He took his college with him – the story of how Professor Kundnani brought National College to Bandra, Mumbai: https://sindhstories.wordpress.com/2022/12/02/he-took-his-college-with-him/ [https://sindhstories.wordpress.com/2022/12/02/he-took-his-college-with-him/] Urban Legacies - Tracing the Sindhi and Parsi Heritage of Bombay, an event by Avid Learning on 17 January 2023 https://youtu.be/Gi2B00HSqQs [https://youtu.be/Gi2B00HSqQs]

Partition

Even 75 years after Partition took place in 1947, and despite the huge number of Sindhis affected by it, Sindh has not yet been accepted as an essential part of the mainstream narrative. This episode is a conversation with expert Nandita Bhavnani whose research on the topic, and her book The Making of Exile, cover the chronology of events as well as the many layers of experience, loss, and feeling that the Sindhi community underwent. The large range of topics that are brought up in this episode, with many examples and many points of discussion, give a really good idea of the extent to which Sindhis, even down to the present generation, were affected by Partition.

Fighting for freedom

Sindh was the final frontier of the British empire, the last province to be conquered. This episode is about how the Hindus fared under British rule, the changes that laid the ground for Partition – and how freedom was won. As always, there are many stories from different sources including some really dramatic ones of life at the time and how people stood up to fight for freedom. A very special guest, Dr Subash Bijlani, joins us and speaks about life under the British and his family’s contribution to the freedom movement, with many light-hearted moments as well as some solemn ones.

Sindhi multinational companies in colonial times

This episode, about the centuries-old global trading networks centred on Sindh, has stories and a lot of light-hearted conversation, as always. But the high point is an interview with the reclusive Claude Markovits, who speaks about how he embarked on his pathbreaking research as well as various other topics from Gandhi to the plight of the women left at home, and his own experiences with some members of the community he rescued from obscurity by documenting it.