chandigarh as a teenager in 1947 krishan baldev duggal had everything going for him until the partition of india came as a bolt from the blue putting his family at the centre stage of a richestorags storyliving in amritsar ever since he crossed over the 88yearold retired sdo from punjab irrigation department recalls that as a 13yearold he was part of an enviable khatri community in narowal tehsil 5 miles from his gota fatehgarh village in sialkot district close to kartarpur sahibour village had a middle school and most residents were welltodo after class viii students from our village would go to narowal to study and very often their cycles would break down as all roads were kutcha my father lala sikandar lal too was an sdo pwd posted in sargodha district at that time but nearing retirement his elder brother was a money lender ours was the only threestorey house built with rs 32000 at that time my father would often say that he will send me abroad though i took it as a joke said duggal who had five siblingsthere was confusion because of a rumour that narowal will be part of india and batala will go to pakistan so we didnt leave the village until august 25 when armed crowds from adjoining villages thronged it around midnight we left the house with no belongings on us my younger brother was only 10monthold he saidthe exodus followed a fiveday turbulent and frightful journey towards amritsar where duggals mothers family lived incessant rains lashed the area for several days we used to walk the distance at night and hide in the high vegetation after dawn on reaching sankhatra railway station the sikh station master there advised us not to take the risk of waiting for a train to amritsar he saidduggal added we were without food for three days until we reached villages of jats and more migrants began to join in and we were soon part of a large jatha that had bullock carts loaded with wheat and other things we would drink rainwater standing in the fields that had turned red the jatha would boil wheat grains and serve handfuls to all members that is how we survived our clothes were torn and the locals we met on the way looted even my fathers turban and shoes we were penniless halfway through basantar river was in spate and after crossing it we reached dera baba nanak and by then the jatha had 80000 migrants we could see signs of bloodshed all aroundlocal sikhs had organised langar at the camp set up in amritsars khalsa college that fed everyone it had stopped raining and our relatives came over to find us he saidthings changed when the government decided to reemploy duggals father for three years and he was posted in chandigarh he had a large family to support at mere rs 50 per month those were testing times he said adding we lived on a shoestring budget