India, Aug. 14 -- Raminder and Harpreet Kaur, 70 and 50

'We moved from a palace in Pakistan, to barracks here... but we held on to hope'

"There we had everything; here, nothing in comparison." That was how Raminder Kaur's paternal grandmother used to sum up the upheaval of Partition, when the family left behind their house, belongings, and life in Gujrat, Pakistan.

"She would tell me we had a really big house there, almost like a palace," Raminder, now 70, recalls. "There's a saying I often heard - jo rani thi voh goli ban gayi, jo goli thi voh rani ban gayi - the queen became insignificant, the insignificant became the queen."

When asked if they still have anything from those days, Raminder and her 50-year-old sister Harpreet light u...