Author Pran Seth started his career as a lecturer in Political Science in a Punjab College in Lahore in 1946. He has written about the Partition experience in his book "".

Excerpt:

Walking ahead of me was an old lady of more than sixty years. As I passed by her, my jacket may have touched her loose clothes. She became very angry and pushed me to the floor. The cause became clear as she cursed me for being a dirty polluted Muslim who, by touching her body, had polluted her. She continued fretting and fuming for quite some time.

I was too stunned to react initially as I was lying on the floor. I got up slowly and spoke to her meekly. I explained that I was not a Muslim, that I was a Hindu boy called Pran and part of a Seth family. The lady calmed down a bit but did not accept my Hindu identity. She continued to call me a liar and a Muslim as she finally walked away.

It was a confusing state of affairs then for adults, never mind a child. In a later chapter, I describe life in the narrow streets of Lahore where mutual distrust among the communities, Hindus and Sikhs on one side and Muslims on the other, manifested itself in every sphere of my early life. My hatred and fear of Muslims was reciprocated by them with equal intensity. Though claiming to preach love, religion was very much the base for hatred and prejudice in our daily life.

Link to full article by Subodh Mathur: