The Punjabis in my school whether Hindu or Sikh had always been rich and in businesses like construction or big shots in trading. It's funny isn't it, we never identify who are peers were, where they came from, etc when we were in school. It's only later, when we grow up that we start observing the other aspects of their identity. I would say I was fortunate to have studied with students from all the different parts of India since the school I went to was quite popular. It didn't restrict me to just my own community and this happened despite me never migrating anywhere. Now I think about it, my classmates were from North India, South India, my own state of course, some parts of East India like West Bengal. So a very diverse group.The majority of our class were Hindu Punjabis whose families had migrated from Pakistan. They had strong resentment against Pakistan, inherited from their parents.
Many of the rich kids got involved in their own fathers' business/started their own or did something unique which they liked while the middle class like us did the typical Science to Engineering/Medical to Job thing. Only 1 classmate of mine joined the Army.
I come from a later generation but no mention in our books as well apart from the Partition and Jinnah being the leader of the Muslim League wanting a separate country, that's it. There was also no mention of Indian history or World History after 1947 as far as I remember. The World History ends after World War II. Of course, we had a State Board so no NCERT syllabus. NCERT differs quite a lot from State syllabus. Nowadays, I hear that people want to send their kids to NCERT schools.It may sound strange, but our books and magazines of that time had no mention of Pakistan at all.
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