2010. Potter in Shohid Nagar, West Bengal. This is the 3rd generation of potters in my squatted refugee camp where I was born, grew up and lived in upto when I was 14-years-old. To keep myself alert about my early age and economic deprivation then, I regularly go there at least once a year. Such visits are not nostalgic for me, but existential.
When India was partitioned 1947 to create Pakistan, a new country for Muslims, about 20 million people of Bengal and Punjab were displaced and brutally victimized. Sen’s wealthy, literate family had huge landed property in erstwhile East Bengal, the present Bangladesh, which was carved out to be East Pakistan for Muslims. So for being Hindus Sen’s family was overnight evicted from their home. Without taking any possessions, they fled for their lives amidst people warring over religion, and so became squatted refugees in West Bengal.
