1947: A story with a gruesome gender bias

Tanveer Ahmed, a young Pakistani, spent over four years trying to get an India visa for his grandmother so that she could come to India and meet her brother whom she last saw in 1947. Tanveer's grandmother remembers little of that time, except that, in Kashmir, where she then lived with her family, there were attacks by Pathans who came from across the newly-formed border. Her family was killed and she was taken away by a young man who later married her. She converted to Islam and has since then lived in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Her grandson Tanveer, however, moved to England. A chance encounter with someone in England some years ago led to the realisation that all members of his grandmother's family had not been killed and that her brother still lived across the border, in "Indian Kashmir". Tanveer made it his mission to bring his grandmother to meet her brother and last month he finally succeeded, and the Hindu brother and Muslim sister, separated by a few kilometers cut through with an international border, were able to meet after a gap of 62 years.

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