Author: Aanchal Malhotra
Publisher: Harper Collins India
Pages: 756
How Long it Took Me To Read: 8 days
Plot Summary: Oral historian Aanchal Malhotra's first book, Remnants of a Separation, was published in 2017 to mark the seventieth anniversary of India's Partition. It told a human history of the monumental event by exhuming the stories lying latent in ordinary objects that survivors had carried with them across the newly made border. It was acclaimed for the freshness of its approach to a decades-old, much-written-about subject. But more significantly, it inspired conversations within families: between the generation that had witnessed Partition and those who had only inherited its memories.
In the Language of Remembering, as a natural progression, explores that very notion as it reveals how Partition is not yet an event of the past and its legacy is threaded into the daily lives of subsequent generations. Bringing together conversations recorded over many years with generations of Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and their respective diaspora, it looks at how Partition memory is preserved and bequeathed, its consequences disseminated and manifested within family, community and nation. With the oldest interviewees in their nineties and the youngest just teenagers, the voices in this living archive intimately and sincerely answer questions such as: Is Partition relevant? Should we still talk about it? Does it define our relationships? Does it build our characteristics or augment our fears, without us even realizing?
As the subcontinent marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Partition, In the Language of Remembering will most importantly serve as a reminder of the price this land once paid for not guarding against communal strife - and what could happen once again should we ever choose division over inclusion.
Things I Loved:
1. If you've read Aanchal Malhotra's first book, the brilliant Remnants of a Separation, a stunning book about material memory and the objects through which Partition and the memories of a lost home came to life, you know just how deftly she manages to bring these stories to life. Her first book was a knockout, a wonderful and sincere and heartfelt homage to lives displaced and altered irrovacably by the partition. I loved that book so much, and if for some reason you haven't read it yet...please pick it up.
When I heard of this book I knew it would be good. It was, easily, my most anticipated book of the year. And it lived up to every hope I held in my heart. So I want to tell you, fresh off the bat, this is a book you need to read. RIGHT NOW. Seriously, go read it. I promise you need this in your life. This book should ideally made some sort of mandatory reading for the subcontinent, for this our collective story. We have all been touched by this and we need to understand the legacy of the Partition, now more than ever.
2. This book is about the memories and the legacy of Partition. It's easy to think of the Partition as an event that happened so long ago and that it's aftermath is long gone. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even as we are losing the generation affected directly by the Partition, the ripple effect of this tragedy is well and truly alive. The pain, the displacement, the loss of home and the trauma can be seen even now and is felt in subequent generations and is very much alive in the hearts of the generations that come after. The people we meet in this book and the countless stories we read show in so many ways, big and small, how the Partition and the loss of people, home and land go on to shape the lives even 75 years later. The second and even third generation is feeling the pull to the homeland and wants to hold on the strands of family history.
3. My life and the lives of my family weren't particularly touched by the Partition. My paternal grandma, my beloved Thamma and her family is from East Bengal, originally. We are Bangals- people from East Bengal vs. Ghottis- people from West Bengal.
On both sides of my family we trace our roots back to East Bengal. Rajshahi on my father's side. Rajshahi is a place I know only by name. Yet..funnily when I see a picture from Rajshahi, which for some odd reason I've been seeing a lot on IG lately, I can't help but feel a strange, nebulous connection to it. I look at those pictures a little longer and imagine a life in those parts. A different life to the one we had, a life I am more than grateful for.
I know a lot of Bangals who feel a very strong connection the Bangladesh, who speak very fondly of the land and it's people. Family members who've never lived on the other side..yet feel drawn to the land of their ancestors. I have aunts and uncles who've traveled to Bangladesh to walk the roads and eat the food and buy the sarees and maybe even make a trip to a village where their grandparents once lived. For most part, these sojounrs to the land of memories and family is a pleasant one.
Then there is my aunt, my Mami (maternal aunt), whose memories of Home are so much more complicated. My aunt P, was born in East Pakistan in a zamindar family. Her family owned several villages and had only ever lived on their lands. When Partition happened, the family stayed on. Leaving home was not an option. Surely, they, a beloved family would not have to move? So they stayed on. For years life went on. Upheavels happened, riots broke out but leaving was never an option. Till 1971. The world went dark and staying on became impossible. I don't know too many details, my aunt never, ever, ever speaks about those days.
But I know this- my 14 year old aunt saw her father and older brother killed in front of her eyes. She, her mother and her grandmother, somehow managed to escape to Calcutta. My aunt, my 14 year old aunt carried her grandmother on her back. Her grandmother, this strong matriarch of the family who saw her only son and grandson killed in front of her eyes, didn't want to live, let alone walk all the way to Calcutta. My aunt had to pretty much force her move, resorting to carrying her on her back. They got to Calcutta, to safety but life was never the same again. My aunt's grandmother, went from being the proud mother of a zamindar to living in her daughter-in-law's brother's home. It broke her spirit in ways I can't even imagine. She didn't live for very long after making it to safety. Her will to live was gone. My aunt too was forever changed by this ordeal. And now, so many years later..she still never talks about those hellish days, she barely talks about her erstwhile home, her father or her dada.
Her pain lives on. The bad, the loss and even the good has all been put in a box and put away.
This book is full of stories like this. Unimaginable loss and pain. And the legacy of this pain.
4. I really appreciate how this book looks at the gendered reality of the Partition. And what it meant for the women, who were touched by this horrible time in history. Because let's face it, no matter what the occasion, we women have it harder. The danger is multifold for us. To hear stories of abductions, rape and even the lingering and constant fear of violence was painful and sadly something we can all relate to. The women who lived survived abductions and assault, even ones who were eventually rescued and re-united with their families... the silence and shame they've had to live with...God...there are no words for their pain. And this pain I am sure trickles down to how they raised their daugthers and granddaughters. Another legacy of the partition that lives on.
5. The thing I love best about this book is the honesty of the writer and the gentleness and kindness with which she treats each story and each person who is baring their most painful memories with her. There is such a respectful gentleness with which she writes about these often horrific memories. It never feels invasive.
6. I also loved how this book covered every possible side of the Partition. It was equally focussed on stories from Punjab, Bengal and Sindh. We read about Indians and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in equal measure and almost all sorts of migrations. The representation is very good.
7. I also found it very, very interesting to read about how certain behaviours, even now, 75 years later are legacies of the Partition. People who lost everything in the Partition tending to hoard things and this habit being passed down through generations, it makes so much sense. An uncle of mine, my pishemoshai (my paternal aunt's husband) lost pretty much everything during the Partition, his family was from Khulna, East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. They not only got displaced during the riots but shortly after moving to India, his whole family perished from cholera. This double trauma shaped who he grew up to be. He almost never ate out, was painfully particular about his food and ate his meals by the clock. And was known in the family as a world-class miser. He was a butt of many jokes and he was, occasionally, a nighmare to live with, but he became this version of himself because of the things he lived through and survived. Habits that were formed in reaction to his trauma and habits that he couldn't shake off. While reading this book and hearing similar stories, I had so much more empathy for my uncle and I wished he was still alive, so I could talk to him about his family.
8. I honestly cannot recommend this book enough. Not because it has some important stories that deserve to be heard, but because even 75 years later we are still there- there with the hate, the othering and the pain and the anger. Our world, this fragile ecosystem in our subcontinent, is one spark away from unthinkable violence. Even our country finds itself in this dangerous place where hate and bigotry is at an alarming trajctory. WE NEED to understand the very serious consequences of hate and where it can take you. Like I said in the beginning, this book and books in the same vein need to be mandatory. Understand the history, learn the personal histories and do everything in our power to not repeat the same mistakes.
Rating: 5/5
Seriously I cannot recommend this book enough.
It will break your heart, make you ugly cry (I know I did) but it is ultimately a book full of so much heart.
I loved the 8 days I spent with this book and it's people. Pick this book and read it slowly, let these stories and this history wash over you. Sit with these feelings and like me, maybe say a prayer to those we lost to this tragedy.
This book was sent to me by the publishers for review, but the thoughts are all my own.
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