Golakganj (Assam),  Aug 20 (UNB) Unless her feet revolt, Niyoti Sarkar, a 70-year-old retired teacher, makes it a point to trek to the India-Bangladesh border - 1.2 km northwest of her house in Golakganj. "I just try to imagine life without the boundary line," she says.

Niyoti crossed over in 1953. She was 11 at that time, old enough to remember and be troubled by memories. Her father, Shashi Mohan, the last of the family to cross over in the 70s, would keep making the same journey as well, driven by nostalgia, reports Hindustan Times.

Golakganj, 295 km west of capital Guwahati, is a laid-back town of 12,000 people. A commercial hub before the partition, it had a railway link with Kolkata via Lalmonihat (in Bangladesh), a river port and an airport at Rupsi, 12 km to its southeast.

The Sarkars were based in Sonahat, now in Bangladesh, and barely 3 km northwest of Golakganj.  Shashi Mohan owned 801 bighas (107 hectares) and had a mansion that local kings used as a stopover en route their hunting expeditions in the Dooars. "What we have left now is 75 bighas (10 hectares) that happened to be on the Indian side of the Radcliffe Line. Less, when you factor in the land that fall in no-man's land," adds Niyoti.

This land has been divided among Shashi Mohan's 12 sons and daughters, and the descendants of his brothers. Each have too little to make it count agriculturally. "Fortunately, our grandfather had the foresight to buy a small piece of land in Golakganj so we have a shelter," her nephew Ashish, 40, an electrician, says.

Ashish's father Kamakhya Prasad lost much of what he had inherited trying to live by the lavish standards Shashi Mohan had set.

"Most members of our family shifted to India by 1953, but my father stayed back until the 1971 war. His employees in Bangladesh took over everything," Niyoti says, hoping to be compensated some day for the land lost.

But Golakganj isn't the only border town affected by Partition. Sonahat's golden gloss, say the Sarkars, has faded as well. It hasn't, however, been easy to reconcile their past glory with their present lot, marked by the struggle to make ends meet.

"Maybe we are better off. Maybe not," says the 70-year-old, refusing to draw neat lines around their life and complete the picture.