Sarla Kripalani

Sarla Kripalani was born in Karachi in 1930, a gentlewoman of Sindh and a lifelong custodian of its culture and memory. Educated at a convent school under the care of Irish nuns, she grew up in a world that was soon to be irrevocably changed. In 1946, on the cusp of the Partition of India, Sarla was sent to Indore to live in safety with her grandmother. There, she completed her Bachelor of Arts and married in 1952, returning to a Pakistan newly severed from India. 

In December 1963, Sarla and her family escaped from Pakistan and settled in Mumbai. She was the beloved wife of a doctor, a devoted mother and the gracious matriarch who bound her extended family together with warmth and wisdom. 

Sarla’s hands were never idle. She brought her innate creativity to life through painting, embroidery, cooking and, above all, writing. Throughout her life, she remembered Sindh—the land, its stories and its spirit—and recorded her recollections with tenderness and insight. 

A storehouse of memory and tradition, Sarla Kripalani remains a voice of love, longing and luminous storytelling from a land that was once her own.