For me, Thul town of Jacobabad, Sindh is a dot on a map and a collection of stories. For my father, it was the origin of his soul.
My father carried Thul all his life. And now, quietly, I carry it too.
Neelam Malkani | Bhopal
The screen flickering with the raw, rhythmic chaos of Lyari or the gritty heroics of Dhurandhar turned out to be more than entertainment to me. While the cinematic pulse of Pakistan’s streets fascinates me, it serves as a vibrant lens for a quieter, deeper ache: my father’s unfulfilled wish to return to his birthplace—Thul, Jacobabad.
For me, Thul is a dot on a map and a collection of stories. For my father, it was the origin of his soul. He spoke of the Sindh heat, lanes, people and the specific scent of the earth before monsoon. These weren’t just memories; they were fragments of an identity severed by the lines of Partition. He lived his life across borders, always planning a trip with his children to his birth place: Not to reclaim anything. Not to prove a point. Just to stand there. To see if the streets still remembered his footsteps. But the gravity of time and politics eventually made it impossible. His longing wasn’t a loud lament, but a “quiet hum” that stayed with him until the end.
I watched the “Dhurandhar” of the screen navigate the dusty, resilient alleys of the modern-day Sindh region, I am looking for him. I am squinting at the background of the frames, wondering if the light in Thul falls the same way, or if the grit on the screen matches the dust he once brushed off his shoes as a boy. It is a strange inheritance—to feel homesick for a place I have never seen.
Partition is often discussed in numbers: deaths, migrations, trains, dates. But in my house, it lived as an unfulfilled wish. A wish postponed by visas. By politics. By time. My father never crossed that border again. And now, he never will. So the fascination passed on to me as inheritance. A second-hand yearning for a place I have never seen, yet somehow miss. Thul lives in my imagination now-stitched together from films, fragments, and my father’s silences. I know it will never be accurate. But perhaps accuracy isn’t the point. Some places are not meant to be visited again. They are meant to be carried. My father carried Thul all his life. And now, quietly, I carry it too.
Read: Saving Sindhi from Silent Disappearance
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Neelam Malkani is an educator and writer. She is based in Bhopal, the capital city of India’s Madhya Pradesh State
