Mohanbir Singh Rekhi, fondly known as “Tony,” was born in 1943 in Sukho, Rawalpindi, where his family had lived for seven or eight generations. Mr. Rekhi’s family was tied to Sukho. Mr. Rekhi’s grandfather built the first high school in their town, which stood until an earthquake in 2005 destroyed it. Mr. Rekhi’s father was the first graduate of that high school. According to Mr. Rekhi, the townspeople valued Mr. Rekhi’s father as an educated and respected person in the community, to whom they could turn for advice in times of need.

In their joint family home, Mr. Rekhi lived with his parents, his three uncles, his four aunts, his grandparents, and his four brothers. His mother managed the household, while the majority of the men in his family worked or took care of the community at large. His grandfather was a town leader of sorts — he was the chief and arbitrator, the man that people visited when they had disputes that needed to be settled. Mr. Rekhi’s father was an ordinance officer in the army, and his family often accompanied him when he was stationed at different cities.

Their town of Sukho was quite simple and self-sufficient, Mr. Rekhi recalls. The town was known for its craftsmen, its weavers and clay potters. Mr. Rekhi’s grandmother would hang-dry vegetables in the summer, so they could have them in the winter to supplement their diet of corn, spinach, butter, lassi, roti, and homemade pickles. The first water-retrieving hand-pump in the town was installed in their house, as well as the the first generator and engine. As child, Mr. Rekhi and his friends and brothers would often spend time playing around these new inventions, marveling at them. Rawalpindi and Peshawar, the major cities nearby, were at least 20 to 30 miles away, reached only by a local bus that stopped at their city once a day.

Sukho didn’t have any hospitals or doctors, so women had their children at home. A midwife, Mrs. Husseini, would help them with their delivery. The nature of their town, Mr. Rekhi explains, was of a large, extended family in which its equally Muslim and Sikh population lived as brothers and sisters.

In fact, there were no interfaith problems in their town, Mr. Rekhi explains, until the Partition came. In June, the papers were signed that two twin nations would be created, and in August, in less than two months, these people who had been living side-by-side for seven to eight generations were expected to separate, to discriminate between their interwoven identities, and to uproot themselves to an entirely different place. Mr. Rekhi remembers that the interfaith population of his town faced no threat from each other; they were like family. People from neighboring villages and towns were not as familial. When they came and threatened individuals in Sukho, and Mr. Rekhi remembers that his townspeople stood in front of their neighbors to protect them against the invaders.

However, conditions were still getting more and more dangerous for people who were not migrating, and finally, the government gave its civil servants a choice: work for Pakistan or work for India—and relocate accordingly. Mr. Rekhi’s father arranged for a convoy to take his whole extended family to Firozpur, Punjab, India. He was already in India at the time, working with the army. Pakistani army officials escorted Mr. Rekhi’s family. He remembers one man in particular, a Pakistani soldier, who wouldn’t let Mr. Rekhi and his brother look outside. The two brothers were bored with pent up energy, and wanted to see what was going on beyond the dark tarp that covered their truck and veiled them from the outside world, but every time Mr. Rekhi tried, the soldier would take the mischievous four-year-olds head and trap it between his knees, looking towards the young boy’s grandfather, sighing, “I’m tired of this boy!” Once or twice, Mr. Rekhi managed to sneak a peek between the flaps of tarp covering the sides of the truck, and then he understood what the soldier was guarding him from: there were dead bodies lying everywhere, severed hands and limbs scattering the terrain, people with missing limbs walking around in crutches with a sack slung over their shoulder. Mr. Rekhi’s grandmother want to help these people; she asked if they could take them with the convoy, but the soldiers asked where they would take them to, and then what?

Mr. Rekhi’s grandmother refused to believe that they were leaving forever. She firmly believed that they would return so much so that she buried all her family’s gold in their yard, so it would be safe until they returned to Sukho. The only thing that she refused to leave was their calf, which she was afraid might get eaten. Mr. Rekhi says that only after reaching Firozpur did they realize that almost everyone there had lost more than gold, but had lost family.

After they reached Firozpur, India, it would still be a long time before Mr. Rekhi’s family was able to settle down. Because his father was an army officer and in some ways the leader of the family, Mr. Rekhi’s entire extended family followed him on all his postings. They would stay in an a home provided by the army in a military cantonment in each city for a few months before taking the train to the next city; this went on for five to six years. After their initial migration from Sukho to Firozpur, they went to Jabalpur, then Hyderabad, Dehradun, Jancy, Agra, and finally Kanpur. At Kanpur, Mr. Rekhi’s father settled his family down, so they wouldn’t have to move around so much. They lived in a bungalow that was “katcha,” or not fully developed and furnished.

All four Rekhi brothers had an excellent education, not from their schools, but from their grandfather, says Mr. Rekhi. Because he was partially paralyzed due to a severe stroke, their grandfather spent a lot of time narrating histories to them and teaching them vast amounts of geography at home. Mr. Rekhi went on to complete a majority of his education in Kanpur, but after six years, he decided to join the army as an ordinance officer himself, like his father before him, and moved around much of India.

Mr. Rekhi remembers that his father, as an army officer, was a strong man, but he had never really had a heart-to-heart with his father until he was quite a bit older. Mr. Rekhi’s father revealed that he had always wanted to leave his sons something, some inheritance, because when his father had passed, he had been left with only the responsibilities of getting his siblings married and taking care of them. At least, his father said, he wouldn’t leave his family with any responsibilities, even if he couldn’t leave them with any money. A week later, his father passed away, and Mr. Rekhi realized that his father did leave his sons with something: the value of education and knowledge. It was something his father had always emphasized, and it is for this reason Mr. Rekhi was able to get three masters degrees: an L.L.B. law degree, an L.L.M. in engineering as well as a Master’s degree in business, which he earned while still working in the army.

Mr. Rekhi recalls being stationed at a camp near the Bangladesh-India border in 1971 after being wounded very badly during training. One of the soldiers approached him and said, “Are you Bava Singh Rekhi?” Surprised, Mr. Rekhi said, “No, that is my father. I am Tony Rekhi!” The man immediately hugged him and said to Mr. Rekhi, “Don’t you recognize me? I am Baptar Khan! I am the Pakistani soldier who trapped you between my knees when you tried to peek out of the tarp!”

Since his army days, Mr. Rekhi married, had two sons of his own, and moved to California in 1991, where he and his brothers manage an internet-based wine business and where he still presently resides. Mr. Rekhi enjoys spending time with his family, gardening, photography, and reading. Mr. Rekhi reads about everything, but especially likes reading about religion and politics in South Asia, a region to which he still has a great attachment and returns every year to visit. He mostly misses the laidback culture there, he says, as well as his army family. He has a message that he’d like to share with the current and future generations: “Bitterness and hatred, they will kill our society.”