After 75 long years, Pindi Girl back home...
Indian woman Reena Chhibber Varma, a 90-year-old woman has been granted a three-month-long visa by the Pakistan High Commission in India as a goodwill gesture. Varma was 15 years old when she left her ancestral village in Pakistan and moved to India during the partition in 1947.
Sonali Khullar the daughter of Reena Chhibber Varma said, “When things have to happen, everything falls into place” as her mother is ready to venture on her travel to her ancestral village. Reena Varma’s ancestral village is situated in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. On Saturday, Varma reached Lahore via the Wagah-Attari border.
Varma was granted her visa by Hina Rabbani Khar Minister of State for Foreign Affairs of Pakistan, earlier this year after her video for a visa appeal went viral on social media.
Khullar on her mother’s visa approval said, “She has always wanted to go back to her ancestral home in Rawalpindi. She tried a few times but somehow, it never worked out for her. She had visited Lahore with her friends once when at the time, the governments allowed fans from both nations to watch test matches. Then circumstances of life, as well as the tensions between the two countries after the 1965 and the 1971 wars just further diluted her plans,”. She added, “They were a family of eight, with six siblings. She moved to Solan during Partition and her mother hoped that they would go back, which never did happen.
At the time, her elder brother was in the army and the family moved with him on his postings…After my mother lost her last sibling, she started to reminisce about her home, her family and her childhood. She had started to recall the minutest of details — the number of rooms in the house, the names of her neighbours there, the group intrigued my mother and she posted her story on it. People were interested to have someone from that time on social media. She posted pictures and stories of her times in Rawalpindi, Murre, Lahore…She received several friend requests from people who asked her to visit…soon she was in touch with Rawalpindi-based journalist Sajjad Haider.
He found her house and sent my mother photographs to confirm it. The house and the board which read the name were still present. So, after two years of the pandemic, she voiced her desire to visit her home,”.
Soon after that Varma was granted the Visa.
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