{"id":1637,"date":"2018-07-23T22:28:58","date_gmt":"2018-07-23T16:58:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2018-07-23T22:47:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-23T17:17:59","slug":"the-blade-of-mian-baljit-singh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/museumofmaterialmemory.com\/the-blade-of-mian-baljit-singh\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blade of Mian Baljit Singh"},"content":{"rendered":"

TEXT BY SAUNDARYA CHAUDHARY<\/strong>
\nPHOTOS BY AANCHAL MALHOTRA<\/strong>
\nGurgaon, India\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

For many years now, I have seen this sword displayed on the wall of my uncle\u2019s house, but never quite bothered to ask its history or origin. Then, one day, out of curiosity, I asked my family if we had anything from the \u2018other side\u2019, something that had been carried to India during the Partition. To my surprise, my uncle pointed to this very sword. At first I didn\u2019t believe him, given his notorious and humorous nature, but when he narrated the story, it became clear that an important heirloom had been sitting in plain sight for all these years, without being valued or celebrated the way it should have.<\/p>\n

But truth be told, the story of this sword goes further back, to the year 1924. It once belonged to my maternal great-grandfather, Baljit Singh, born on April 4, 1904, who was affectionately called \u2018Mian\u2019 by his friends and family. Baljit Singh was a student at D.A.V (Dayanand Anglo Vedic) College, Lahore, while the rest of his kin lived in a small village named Dattal near Palampur in Himachal Pradesh. As it so happens, after Partition, D.A.V College found a new home in Ambala and incidentally, on its premises in Lahore, was established the ‘Islamia College, Civil Lines’. Baljit Singh had travelled for higher education to Lahore, as there was no college in Himachal Pradesh at the time. He completed his bachelor\u2019s in English and was a teacher by profession.<\/p>\n