Narratives

Citizens' lives and memories. Urban histories. In the voice of Ulhasnagar's people.  The oral narratives are available on Wikipedia Commons. 

Overall category page on Wikipedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Barracks_of_Ulhasnagar:_An_Oral_History_of_a_Refugee_City 

Bhavna Cheejwani, retired academician narrates her life. In her narrative, she recalls her life lived in Ulhasnagar. Her grandfather was a refugee who came from Sindh at the time of the Partition. She was born in Ulhasnagar. She recalls the stories of her barrack neighbourhood: the neighbours, their professions, the sounds and smells she can still recollect, the precarious housing, the gang wars, the lack of toilets and sanitation in the city, and the transformation of her city into a commercial, suffocated space. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Call_recording_Bhavna_Cheejwani_250714_080309.webm 

Bhavna Dandwani was born in Ulhasnagar. Her ancestors arrived in Nasik first when they fled Sindh. When they got to know of Ulhasnagar, they moved here. Dandwani's mother stood third in school and had an opportunity to land a good job. However, conservative family values rushed her into marriage. But she was determined to give her daughter a better life. Dandwani is grateful to her mother for the education she received. Her life story is embedded within the urban history. She recalls a lone income tax officer in the barracks where she grew up. The gentleman urged everyone to educate their children so that they could think of lives beyond cottage industries of making pickles and papads. Among the fondest memories Dandwani shares is the memory of a cleaner Valdhuni, the river nearby that Sindhis turned to when celebrating festivals. The history of Ulhasnagar is intertwined with that of nearby water bodies as much as it is entangled in the history of urban infrastructure. Listen to her story here:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bhavna_Dandwani_Recalls_Growing_Up_in_Ulhasnagar.webm 

Ulhasnagar is seen as her motherland by Leena Meghani, a retired Principal who has lived all her life in the barracks and continues to live there. She talks about her home and her city with a sense of pride. To her, Ulhasnagar is a space of saints and spirituality. One can hear echoes of the idioms usually reserved for Sindh as home in the way she speaks. Her fond memories include being together and celebrating festivals with her neighbours. Listen to her story here:  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Leena_Meghani_04.08.25.webm 

Maya Bachani talks about Ulhasnagar and its history with a sense of pride. Her emotional journey is peppered with a well detailed memory of her home and the architecture of the barrack she grew up in. She remembers celebrating festivals and life in general with her neighbours. Her vocabulary for barracks includes several words such as thallo, padhar, and aangan for the tiny courtyard like space outside every house. She remembers that the dishes used to be scraped with ash and coir. She remembers a much cleaner Ulhas river too. The barracks, according to her, were a space of intimacy: relatives visiting someone in the barrack would invariably visit the neighbours too. Similarly, neighbours reached out to other neighbours, exchanging dishes or asking for help with things such as babysitting. The women in the barracks used to sit together around the courtyards to make buffs for talc. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maya_Bachani.webm 

Sunita Hassani remembers various figures from her neighbourhood of her childhood: the moong seller, the kulfi seller, and the dal moong seller peddled food and delicacies. Ulhasnagar was a city where people addressed each other and their children on the basis of their occupations and livelihoods. She herself, for instance, was known as the daughter of the X-ray clinic owner. Someone else was the kid of the printing press owner. These were endearing expressions, not reductive categories to pin people down. These conveyed the sense of pride people of her city took in their work and the dignity they felt everyone deserved. She thinks the city's map does not look the same anymore: where there were barracks and C blocks, now there are buildings. These are, in a way, knotted to each other, with barely any space to breathe. But Ulhasnagar remains dear to her as a place that holds the memories of her family. She does feel irritated by problems such as roads that are constantly dug up but she chooses to live here rather than go elsewhere. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunita_Hassani_RKT_250817.webm 

Roshni Kukreja came to Ulhasnagar when she was 8 years old. Her paternal and maternal grandparents were zamindars. She remembers her bus commutes from home to school or college when asked to reflect on her life and the history of Ulhasnagar. She thinks the city has everything one can ask for. She has seen others struggle around illegal constructions and permissions for rebuilding or renovating their barracks houses but is optimistic that things will get better. She has seen families shrink, houses multiply as younger generations live separately from their parents, and barrack homes expand to one or two storeys. She wishes for Sindhis of Ulhasnagar to come together in unity and help each other grow.  Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Roshni_Kukreja_250922_101637.webm 

Anand Thadani was born in Ulhasnagar and continues to live there. His impressions of the city’s history include changes at emotional levels. For instance, he thinks today’s Ulhasnagar shines because of streetlights; these were not there when he was young. He misses the enthusiasm of the festivals and rituals that used to be an occasion for people to come together. Regarding the problems of housing, he says that the citizens themselves are at fault. If the buildings began to collapse, it was because the inhabitants did not care for them. Living in barracks generates a different sense of ownership: the expenses such as maintenance come across as burdens to people who began to live in buildings. When asked what he wishes for the city, he says the only thing Sindhis miss in the city is a name. He hopes that the city will get recognition that speaks of its Sindhi identity with the name Sindhunagar.  Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anand_S_Thadhani.webm 

Thakur Kundnani lives in Thane but was born and brought up in Ulhasnagar. He remembers his childhood of struggle: going to school and then rushing home to work in various capacities doing embroidery or working in papad making setup. To him, his city , Ulhasnagar, is a place that has not let anyone down. It is still a great city that provides livelihood to lakhs of people. Regarding the housing crisis, he has interesting perspectives to share. He remembers that the growth of families was not accompanied by growth in space. What started as simple, isolated acts of renovation ballooned into an urban catastrophe. The demand for housing compelled some people to disregard laws and norms of construction. At the heart of it all, he sees people’s problems and suffering. His message is that one should help as many people as possible. According to him, this sense of help and goodwill that he witnessed as a child will keep the community together. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thakur_Kudnani_250927.webm 

Anita Jaisinghani has lived all her life in Ulhasnagar. Recently, she has moved to an apartment on the outskirts of the city. She shares her memory of living on a plot in Ulhasnagar and her observations of life in the barracks around her. She recalls the sounds of hawkers, pressure cookers, and security guards strolling with a stick on their night duty. She recalls being saved from a road accident because someone recognized who she is and where she used to live. As her experience shows, one’s place becomes a source of identity. Because she has witnessed the diverse changes in the city, she believes that cities should be developed only if they can be maintained. That is, it is easy for new projects to be ideated but one should resist if one can’t imagine how these projects will be maintained later. Her simple way of putting it sounds like a layperson’s guide to urban planning. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anita_Jaisinghani.webm 

Rajesh Makhija was born and brought up in Ulhasnagar. He lives with his wife and two children very close to the house he was born in. He recognizes the city faces some problems here and there but has nothing but love and gratitude towards the city. While he thinks all is well, he hopes that the Sindhis who have left the city come back someday. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rajesh_Makhija_Talks_about_Life_in_Ulhasnagar.ogg 

Lachhu Parchani recalls that the Ulhasnagar of his childhood was a space of venturing out. He remembers going to public spaces such as Goal Maidan or Netaji Chowk. Among his other memories is the memory of experiencing the monsoon. He believes that the city is very rightly known as the manufacturing hub because of the various industries here. He is grateful that this city was given to the refugees and for the fact that Sindhi institutions such as the Chaaliya Saahab are established here. His memory of his home is intertwined with the memory of his late father who literally built their first home in the barracks by personally looking after things as basic as construction or plumbing. He has lived in a building that was deemed illegal later. His experience of being displaced has left him better informed about norms of construction and the ways in which these are flouted. He would love to see a time when the affected buildings are repaired and people are allowed to inhabit them once again. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lachhu_Parchani_Shares_His_Experience_of_Living_in_Ulhasnagar.ogg 

Satish Santani shifted from Ulhasnagar to Thane because he wanted to work in the IT sector. Born and brought up in Ulhasnagar, Santani has lived in a barrack as well as a building. His story of Ulhasnagar is that of people turning their homes into spaces of livelihood where women made papads and other items at home while men ran shops, flour mills, and embroidery businesses from home. He shares that while people living in barracks tend to be judged for their location, there are several people who continue to live in the barracks because they feel close to their parents’ histories and memories. These are people who have acquired wealth and can afford to move elsewhere but continue living in the barracks because it is their way of being in touch with their roots.  Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Satish_Samtani_Talks_about_Barracks_as_a_Space_of_One%27s_Roots.ogg 

Kavni Mirchandani was born and brought up in Ulhasnagar. She remembers her commute to and from school as one of the fondest memories she has of growing up in the city. According to her, barracks made her feel safe and connected with her neighbours. For instance, neighbours treated senior citizens in the neighbourhood with kindness and respect. That exchange has disappeared from the lives of citizens as people move to surrounding cities and even as they move to buildings within Ulhasnagar. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kavni_Mirchandani_Remembers_Her_Commute_to_and_from_School_and_Her_Childhood_in_Ulhasnagar.ogg 

Palak Punjabi has seen her grandparents being respected as elders and influential people in the barracks where she grew up. She loves her city and feels sad that it could have been a more developed and a better planned city. She remembers that people got to know about FSI and similar construction related norms only after the infamous list of 855 illegal buildings. The contrast between barracks and buildings for her is that buildings are safer and feel more private. But barracks make one feel less dependent on others. For instance, one can fix issues on their own. Doing a similar thing in buildings requires everyone’s consent and contribution. Buildings in Ulhasnagar are a mirror-image of barracks because of lack of space. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palak_Punjabi_on_the_Differences_between_Barracks_and_Buildings_in_Ulhasnagar.ogg 

Bharti Thakur recalls two features of barracks. One, one house in a barrack had a well inside. There was no concrete around it and it was open.Two, some houses in barracks did not just share walls; these also had windows in common. As a result, neighbours seemed to be family members. She remembers the hustling activities in her neighbourhood throughout the day with patches of quiet afternoons when homemakers rested and children would not do anything to disturb their siesta. She also remembers the kachcha roads of the city back then. For her, these roads were kids-friendly: children could run around without getting hurt and the roads could also absorb rain water that would then settle as groundwater. Today’s roads of concrete are no match to the advantages of the kachcha roads of those days. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bharti_Thakur_Says_That_Barracks_Were_Extensions_of_Homes.ogg 

Kailash Rohra shares that his grandparents were settled in Pimpri. When they heard that Ulhasnagar will be a Sindhi colony, they came to settle down here. He regrets the fact that the city has become infamous for its roads. He remembers a lone man, a shopkeeper, who used to go from school to school collecting details of students topping in the subject of Sindhi language across grades. He used to offer small prizes to these students to encourage them to continue studying the language. He says that barracks are the roots of the city’s Sindhis. While some Sindhis who have moved to other cities especially to Thane and beyond judge the Sindhis of Ulhasnagar, these roots still remain the core of the community’s identity. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kailash_Rohra_Calls_Barracks_as_the_Roots_of_Ulhasnagar%27s_Sindhis.ogg 

Ritu Bajaj was born in Ulhasnagar. She paints an interesting picture of the barracks of Ulhasnagar. Over a period of time, she has seen people extending or enlarging their houses in the barracks, which has, in turn, shrunk the lanes between the barracks. These enlargements were necessary because family size has increased. But today, the barracks themselves are shrinking as buildings come to be erected. In the history of Ulhasnagar, she sees the condition of Thalassemia as a major health concern ailing the city. While it has reduced a lot over the years, she thinks the community needs to do more to keep safe from this genetic condition. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ritu_Bajaj_Talks_about_Barracks_in_Terms_of_the_Width_of_Lanes_between_the_Barracks.ogg Deepak Bhatia thinks that roads and buildings of Ulhasnagar can be made much better. He can sense that people living in the barracks are in a way looked down upon by those who live in buildings. But he is grateful to Ulhasnagar because it has given him everything he has in life: education, career, and family. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deepak_Bhatia_on_the_Status_Differences_between_Barracks_and_Buildings.ogg 

Manju Bajaj finds life in the barracks to be similar to the popular representation of neighbourhood in the Hindi serial Taarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashma. In a way, people are together and help each other; but in another way, it is a togetherness that is gradually vanishing. The barracks of the yesteryears had an intimacy that bonded children with their grandparents and even with the neighbours’ grandparents. When kids scratched themselves on the kachcha roads earlier, their clothes got mucky; falling on today’s concrete roads does not leave any telltale signs on the body or clothes. Over the years, amenities in Ulhasnagar have increased but not enough because Mumbaikars seem to have the impression that people in Ulhasnagar are orthodox. Listen to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Manju_Bajaj_Shares_Her_Observations_about_Life_in_the_Barracks.ogg 

Kamlesh Matta lives in the barrack he was born in. He feels proud of his roots in the barracks. While the changing situations require people to leave the barracks and move elsewhere to apartments within Ulhasnagar or outside the city, he continues to live here because he respects his mother’s wish to live here. When his ancestors landed at the Bombay dockyard on 22 February 1948, they were shifted to the barrack house he was born in and still lives. He urges the Sindhi community to think about developing the city rather than leave it. He recalls that the roads of Ulhasnagar have always been notorious for potholes and their condition has been immortalized in the famous song “Hede Hede Hede" from the 1958 Sindhi film Abana.  Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kamlesh_Brijlal_Matta_Talks_about_His_Roots_in_the_Barrack_He_Was_Born_in_and_the_Pride_He_Takes_in_Them.ogg 

Ajit Jairam Khairpuri was born in Hyderabad (India) but he has lived in Ulhasnagar for a very long time. His family is settled here. He shares that the city has given him a lot: family. The city is also blessed with great food. But he deplores the condition of the roads and the barracks. He remembers the Ulhasnagar of the past where there were no autos and one depended on state transport buses for movement within the city. The other option to get to anywhere else in the city was to walk. He has also seen the river flowing near Ulhasnagar station get polluted over the years. Regarding the barracks, he thinks that clusters of barracks should come together so that buildings can be constructed for better housing in the city. He remembers the looming fear of pigs in people’s minds as they visited common lavatories. Gradually, people shrank the sizes of their rooms in the already small barracks to make space for bathrooms within their homes. His testimony shows that Ulhasnagar is a city that was turned into home after a very long struggle. In a sense, that struggle still continues. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ajit_Jairam_Khairpuri_Recalls_Ulhasnagar_through_Its_Food,_River,_and_Barracks.ogg 

Lilaram Parsram Mulchandani is a successor to his father’s legacy of cultural and charity work. He hails from the family that runs the Kailash Parbat chain of restaurants all over the world. He remembers being a part of the hustle of running the original Kailash Parbat restaurant in Colaba area of Mumbai. Today, he oversees Sindhi rituals such as the bahrano sahib on special as well as full moon days. His cultural institution performs the traditional Sindhi dance chhej which was performed on the banks of the Sindhu river as well. He mentions that Ulhasnagar is a city that preserves these rituals while also offering great food and opportunities for economic growth with manufacturing to its citizens. Today’s Ulhasnagar is fast becoming an industrial city with people running factory-like spaces within homes (as people move to other cities with better housing amenities). This is a city that has come a long way from the days when it was a remote, deserted place where it was not unusual to find snakes around. The city he has seen has evolved from a site of wilderness to a bustling city and the barracks are a site where this change has unfolded. Listen to his story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:22_Lilaram_Parasram_Mulchanchani_Sees_Ulhasnagar_through_the_Lens_of_Evolution_from_Being_a_Deserted_Place_to_Becoming_a_Cultural_and_Economic_Hub.ogg 

Heena Tej Shahdadpuri relates the history of Ulhasnagar in terms of a second displacement for Sindhis, the first of which happened during the Partition of India. She has seen Sindhis become homeless for the second time as they went through the housing crisis. She narrates the incident of a slab falling over a house late in the night and recalls how a family became deprived of home as well as livelihood because both the house and the shop were located in the same place. She has seen people relocate to dharamshalas because they have no place to stay. The dream for these people was to move to buildings and apartments in search of a better lifestyle. However, for most of these people, that aspiration has become a nightmare. Regarding life in the barracks, she recalls the otaks in the veranda or the padar, the different names for the courtyard common to a group of houses: the elderly men of the neighbourhood would sit there in the evenings and sing Sindhi and Hindi songs. She affirms that Sindhis have created a city out of a jungle and everyone, especially the citizens, deserves to know about the history of Ulhasnagar. Listern to her story here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:23_Heena_Tej_Shahdadpuri_Relates_the_History_of_Ulhasnagar_and_Sees_the_Story_of_a_Second_Displacement_of_Sindhis_in_This_History.ogg