Inspired Series: The story of Hindu Sindhis through my grandmother's lens

I grew up eating my grandmother’s Sindhi curry. A tomato-base soup, if you will, that warmed my mouth and heart after the very first sip. 

It tasted like home. Comfort. 

And for some reason, I always felt a sense of pride when I ate this. I felt like I got a taste ( pun intended ) of my culture. 

For a while, this was the extent of my relationship with Sindhi culture -- well that and knowing of  our nasal voices, obsession with money, and loud, flashy sense of fashion. 

I knew the surface traits of my people, but I didn’t know the story. The story thousands of miles away from my kitchen where my grandma cooks up this curry and into the land of Sindh where my grandma’s mother would cook for her, her brother, her sister, her uncle, and her great grandmother the very same thing. 

Until 1947, when they no longer had the means to make this curry in the comfort of a place they called home. 

Until 1947, when all my grandmother, her mother, and sister had to eat was whatever was provided to them in their Darmshala (refugee camp) which was often a rationed “bowl of rice half with stones” - a method many shopkeepers used to make their bags of rice seem more full. 

For four days they remained in this camp picking out the tiny camouflaged stones in their rice  as her brother began to look for homes. Though “they [ the homes ] were there, but you need money” to buy them. 

Jobs were the best answer to this, but, in such scarcity many people often stole food or other essential items, participating in the wide-spread looting that was taking over all Indian stores. 

“That was the condition: survival of the fittest.” 

Eventually, her brother and uncle landed a job in a Muslim Military canteen in what is known today as Kalyan. So the six of them moved to a place nearby.  Best part about it was that they could take some of the canteen food home. 

“One bread a day, they used to give."

“So that helped us a lot. We didn’t starve. We had enough to eat.” 

And so, as they begin to feel as though their life was somewhat coming together, they begin to advertise these military barracks as a place to stay to their friends and family fleeing Sindh. 

“We brought so many people.” 

Bear in mind, this was no suburban neighborhood endorsed by real estate agents and known for its great schooling system and mortgages.

This was a neighborhood where “the bathrooms were outside, the toilets were outside, even the water was outside.”

But, this was also a neighborhood where they wouldn’t get killed, where they would not starve, where they would be surrounded by people that weren't angry at each other.   

Amidst the discrimination from many angry locals who would yell “go back to your place,” they were starting to build a new home. 

With the influx of enough Sindhis and, importantly, Sindhi teachers, they had the resources to create a Sindhi school. First, they borrowed a space from another college whose students would “study at 10, so we would come in from 7 to 10.” 

Within a year’s time, the drive to build a Sindhi college was growing with social workers like my grandfather accumulating money through donation. 

And, just like that, Jai Hind College was founded. 

Both my grandmother and grandfather received a degree in Economics from this college.

They took a once empty place and, with the help of dedicated, motivated Sidhi brothers and sisters, made it a place in which they could learn and grow. 

And this growth allowed my grandfather to get a job for a well-paying company that required a move to Bangalore where he and my grandmother, now married, left their many neighbors behind and lived “as a small family,” with their kids. 

After their kids, my Dad and aunt, left to create a more fulfilling, ambition-filled life in America, my grandparents followed in suit. 

At first, my grandma shared that she had this preconceived notion that “people in America were different” from us. Just as she was treated in Bombay when she left Sindh. 

But, much to her surprise, when she arrived in California, she realized that “people are like us, only.”

They didn’t feel like the locals were against them. They didn’t feel like they didn’t belong. 

And so, nearly 20 years later, my grandma remains in her kitchen in Tampa, FL, USA, her new home, cooking a dish that will always remind her of her first home. 

Though I may never be able to truly imagine the life they lived, I’ve learned much more about them, below the surface.

Every sip of my Sidhi curry means a little more to me now.

Listen to others and you will always find more to be grateful for, less to take for granted, and more to love.