1947 Partition Archive

1947 Partition Archive: walking my father's voice

I do not have a recording of my mother's voice. I do have my father's.

His voice carries his story of 1947, the year of Partition: the places he lived, what he left behind, and the paths he walked. Since he passed away, these recordings have become an archive, but also something more. They are the place where I can still hear him.

I carry his voice with me when I walk. I follow the places he spoke about, through villages, valleys and mountains, and I ask what a landscape can remember. Walking lets me meet his history through my body, not only through documents, photographs and maps.

This is also a practice of grief. I walk to stay close to a voice I can still hear, and I walk with the silence of the one I cannot. Between what I have and what I have lost, the path becomes a place to remember.

The mountains he walked are changing too. Floods, melting ice and people leaving for the cities are altering the land. Following his steps, I notice what remains, what has changed, and what can no longer be found. I begin to understand that I am grieving not only a person, but a landscape that is slowly disappearing.

What happens to a memory when the land that held it changes?
Can a voice still lead me back to a place that is no longer the same?

What isn't walked and recorded is lost.