Original version

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

The Conversation

Factual: Life Stories

Two women from different parts of the world share the stories of their lives

Two women from different parts of the world, united by a common passion, experience or expertise, share the stories of their lives.

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service East Asia

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service News Internet

The Conversation: My family's hidden history

Magazines & Reviews

L Sim Chi Yin (credit: Keyyes.com/Joel Low) and R Aanchal Malhotra (credit: Aashna Malhotra)

01/04/2019 GMT

My family's hidden history

BBC World Service - The Conversation, My family's hidden history

Two women determined to piece together their families' secrets

Two women determined to piece together their families' secrets.

Discovering how your family was caught up in major historical events...two women from India and Singapore tell Kim Chakanetsa why they started digging into family secrets, how these stories were lost or deliberately forgotten, and the role that gender played.

Aanchal Malhotra's grandparents fled what is now Pakistan in the chaos of Partition in 1947.  Until she began to research her book Remnants of Partition: 21 Objects from a Continent Divided, she never knew their traumatic migration stories.  They had buried them deep.  Aanchal managed to persuade her grandmothers to reveal their secrets using the few objects they managed to bring with them. Aanchal is an artist and oral historian.

Sim Chi Yin's grandfather was caught up in two different conflicts, the Malayan Emergency and then the Chinese Civil War. He was executed by nationalists in China in 1949.  When Chi Yin discovered this history, taboo in her family for decades, it became the starting point for her photographic project One Day We'll Understand.  She has since gone on to gather oral histories from the remaining leftist rebels of the Malayan conflict. Chi Yin is a photographic artist and nominee member of Magnum Photos.

L Sim Chi Yin (credit: Keyyes.com/Joel Low) 
R Aanchal Malhotra (credit: Aashna Malhotra)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Conversation

My family's hidden history

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

About BBC World Service