The writer Kartar Singh Duggal (1917-2012) was from a Sikh family in a village near Rawalpindi (now in Pakistan); his wife Ayesha (nee Minhaj - maiden name sometimes given as Jaffri) was born into a Muslim family in Aligarh. At the time of Partition and independence in 1947, he was in Delhi working for All India Radio and she was a medical student at Lady Hardinge College in Delhi. They famously decided to marry on the eve of India's independence celebrations, an incident recounted in Collins and Lapierre's Freedom at Midnight.
This interview was recorded at the Duggals' home in Hauz Khas Enclave in Delhi on 20 May 2007. They spoke about their romance and how it was regarded. Ayesha Duggal also recalled her work as a medical officer at a camp in Jalandhar in Punjab for abducted women, and how many of the Muslim women heading to Pakistan would have preferred to stay with their abductors. K.S. Duggal also reflected on Partition as a theme in his writing. Mr Duggal write an autobiography Whom to Tell my Tale, published in 2007, and his writings include Abducted Not and other stories of Partition Holocaust, also published in 2007.