From South Asia to North America: An Autobiography, 1915-2000

Norman P. Goldman is a retired Civil Law Notaire (Notary) who also
specializes in Montreal history and culture.

In 1915, Syed Habib Ahmed was born in Delhi, where he lived for 34 years
before moving to Pakistan and subsequently to the United States. Upon
his retirement (he worked for the United Nations for 25 years), Ahmed
and his wife moved to Winnipeg and became Canadian citizens. This
autobiography, which he wrote at the age of 84, divides his life into
six phases: early life and environment, heritage, education and
self-development, marriage, working life, and retirement. It provides a
vivid portrait of pre-partition India and the creation of Pakistan in
1947. Above all, it details the sad consequences of the partition of
India in 1948—a partition that, as the author states, “brought
untold misfortune and misery to millions of people in the
subcontinent.”

Ahmed is a good storyteller, able to relate events without getting
bogged down in extraneous detail. His memoirs are a testament to courage
and the persistence of the human spirit in the face of adversity.