Against all odds | How nonagenarian Pune resident travelled alone to Pakistan to visit childhood home

It was one of those WhatsApp groups that also gave her the biggest adventure of her life at 90.

From Pindi to Pune

Verma was born in 1932 in undivided Punjab’s Rawalpindi. The family that included six children – four girls and two boys, with Verma being the youngest – had an upper-middle-class lifestyle with summers spent in Murree and winters in Lahore. She completed her matriculation at 14, just a year before Partition tore the subcontinent apart.

When indications of violence crept up in 1947, her elder sister’s husband in Amritsar urged the family not to go to Murree that year but to move towards the other side. Shimla was already full of people who had clearly thought similarly, so her father decided on Solan. They missed the worst of the bloodshed but not the ache it gave every heart. They lived for around six months. Her brother, serving in the Army, was transferred to Pune, and the family followed in 1948. Verma’s education was disrupted for years – she didn’t complete her graduation until 1956, a full decade after her matriculation.

She married at 30, unusually late for the time. Her father, she recalls fondly, was progressive: “He said he would only arrange my marriage when I said yes happily.” When she met her husband, an HAL employee who had had a brief stint in the Indian Air Force earlier, she felt she had known him forever. They spent 33 years in Bengaluru, raised two children, and eventually retired to Pune.

Her husband, Inder, passed away 20 years ago. Her son died a decade ago. Her daughter lives in Gurgaon and urges her to move closer, but Verma refuses.

“I like my independence,” she says simply. “My daughter Sonia, looks after me very well and is a great support, but she also knows I can handle most things on my own.”

The call

For decades, though, Verma had nurtured a dream of once returning to her childhood home in Rawalpindi. In 2022, a WhatsApp group called Punjab Heritage made it possible.

Her daughter had spotted the group – a cross-border community connecting people from both Punjabs – and urged Verma to join it. Verma, then 91, posted a short note, expressing her wish to visit.

A journalist from Karachi reached out, followed by another from Rawalpindi. They asked if she’d like to record a message for Pakistan’s Independence Day. With a friend’s help, Verma recorded her memories about her life in Pindi, her memories of the Partition, how she wished it had never happened, and her desire to see her childhood home. The video travelled. A Pakistani documentary maker in the US saw it and shared it widely. Suddenly, Verma was in the news on both sides of the border.

The journalists in Rawalpindi located her childhood house and offered to facilitate the trip. Verma applied for a visa, but her application was put on hold. Before she could reapply, Imran Khan’s government fell, and the embassy temporarily closed. She returned to Pune, disappointed. But someone forwarded her video to the new foreign minister, who called the embassy in Delhi and asked why a 91-year-old should be refused a visa. A three-month visa was granted.

When people asked who she was travelling with, her stock reply would be, “With myself.”

Prem Galli

In July 2022, her daughter took her from Delhi to the Wagah border. From there, Verma crossed alone.

But on the other side, there was a crowd waiting for her. She spent two days in Lahore before travelling to Rawalpindi, where the hotel owner refused payment. The media descended on her – stories and photographs of the 91-year-old visitor from India were splashed across the country.

Reena Verma’s childhood home in Rawalpindi’s Prem Galli. (Photo Credit: Special Arrangement)

The homecoming exceeded her expectations. The current residents of her childhood house arranged a dholak to welcome her, and flower petals were showered on her as she walked through the lane of Prem Galli.

“I said, what have I done to deserve this?” she recalls. “When I entered the house, though, it was with mixed feelings. I was overjoyed, but the tears wouldn’t stop. All I could see was my family. I felt they were right there with me – sitting with me, walking with me.”

Even though 75 years is a long time, the house had changed little. “But I sensed a strange uneasiness in the family – perhaps they feared I had come to reclaim property. I immediately said that I only wanted to see my home. Nothing more.” Relief bloomed into unbridled generosity.

The family’s younger son, who was away in another city, heard the news and rushed home. His room had been hers. He arrived with a wooden nameplate he had made: Reena’s House. He offered to hang it below his father’s. They asked her if she would like to spend a night in the house – in her own room. Verma agreed instantly. She sat in her favourite balcony and sang the song she used to sing during the monsoons as a girl.

Calm and connected

Back in Pune, Verma’s days continue to follow a gentle routine. She wakes up late, tunes into Vividh Bharati, and cooks her own meals with help from a part-time maid. She attends dance and yoga classes, participates in society events, and spends – by her own admission – too much time on Facebook!

An avid music lover, the walls of her charming home are adorned with photographs of her all-time favourite Talat Mehmood, as well as K L Saigal and her own picture with Sonu Nigam.

She listens to old classics but keeps up with contemporary music too. “People say current music is not like the old,” she shrugs. “That’s okay, you have to accept and appreciate change. Twenty-five per cent of the music I listen to is new.”

She has fond memories of being present at the iconic 1963 Lata Mangeshkar concert in Delhi, where she sang, “Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon,” moving Pandit Nehru to tears. History and her own life have often overlapped.

Her son’s death 10 years ago left a quiet ache, yet she does not dwell. Two things, she says, have kept her going: embracing technology and having the courage to live – and travel – alone. Her message to the world, born of the wisdom of the years gone by? “Be independent, solve your problems by yourself as far as possible, trust your intuition – your heart is always right, and never forsake your family. For the seniors, an extra word – be social, keep your hobbies alive, make sure you have done something good for someone before you leave this world.”