Two friends, who were separated by the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 lost touch for 35 years and reconnected and met in the United States in 1982.
They have been meeting each other ever since. They reunited again in October 2023, after almost nine years since they last met. A heartwarming video of their reunion has been going viral on Instagram.
Megan Kothari successfully documented how her 90-year-old grandfather and his childhood best friend from undivided India reunited once again this time around.
For context, both hailed from Deesa in Gujarat, near the Pakistan border. During the partition, the friend and his family left for Pakistan on a boat, while Megan's grandfather was studying in Bombay. Upon his return, he discovered that his friend had already departed.
The Instagram page Brown History shared the video alongside a note.
The note reads, “When his friend reached Pakistan in 1947, he wrote to my grandfather that he had reached and shared his address in Rawalpindi (which to this day my grandfather has memorised). They tried to write to each other over the years, but the tensions between the two countries eventually made it impossible. They had no communication from 1948 to 1982 until a chance encounter with a mutual friend in New York led them back to each other.”
The video was shared recently on Instagram. It has since collected over 1.8 million views.
Here are some reactions to the heartfelt event:
On reaction read, "I’ve so rarely seen stories of the impact of partition on Gujarat, there must be so many more."
Here are some other reactions:
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