India, Aug. 15 -- For Tilak Raj Madan, the story of Partition is not something he learned from history books. It is a story he heard from his father, Laxmi Chand, in the form of loriyan - the bedtime stories and memories that were passed down to him when he was young.

Those stories began in a refugee tent near Kalkaji Mandir in South Delhi, where the family had arrived after losing almost everything in the Partition of 1947.

What may have sounded like a story before sleep was, in reality, the painful truth of a family uprooted from its home, separated from loved ones and forced to begin life again from nothing.

Today, as India prepares to celebrate Independence Day, the national flag will rise high, patriotic songs will fill the street...