I wished to delve into the socio-cultural aspects of the region that was affected most during Partition. I picked up Remnants of Separation because I was looking for books on Partition of India which happened in 1947. Much thanks to Bahrisons Booksellers for a copy of the novel.
I definitely broke into a great many ugly sobs. POVs of people on both sides of the border.īe warned you will well up several times and even break down crying while reading the stories. stories of women who raised families, served government, became writers, fought against fate etc.
accurate description of monetary value in those times for easy comparison with today's scenario Aanchal interviews many who witnessed the partition on either side of the border and writes their stories in the book Friends became enemies neighbours became betrayers and relationships changed. Long before partition, Muslims and Hindus co-existed as neighbours, friends or business partners. I cannot even talk about the passages I have underlined or marked because there are that many! Aanchal Malhotra’s Remnants of a Separation tells the history of partition through heirlooms and gifts smuggled across the borders - thus revisiting the past through material memory. I read very few non fiction titles this year and I was amazed by how touching the stories are.
This book is one of my favourite reads of 2017. It is an alternative history of the Partition - the first and only one told through material memory that makes the event tangible even seven decades later. A refugee certificate created in Calcutta evokes in a daughter the feelings of displacement her father had experienced upon leaving Mymensingh zila, now in Bangladesh.Written as a crossover between history and anthropology, Remnants of a Separation is the product of years of passionate research. A notebook of poems, brought from Lahore to Kalyan, shows one woman's determination to pursue the written word despite the turmoil around her. A string of pearls gifted by a maharaja, carried from Dalhousie to Lahore, reveals the grandeur of a life that once was. They now speak of their owner's pasts as they emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history. These belongings absorbed the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations. Remnants of a Separation is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through objects that refugees carried with them across the border.
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