Over 350 pages and 20 chapters pass before the reader gets a glimpse of the reluctance, militant and hard-edged, Aanchal Malhotra must have faced in the painstaking archiving of partition-related memories curated in her book, ‘Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory.’ I mentioned this book a few weeks ago in an earlier issue of this newsletter, and after taking a short break (to read The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree) I finished reading it this week. As the blurb on the back cover of the book proclaims, it is:
a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through such objects carried across the border…. (These objects) speak of their owners’ pasts and emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history.
An onerous undertaking, which is executed with remarkable grace.
Remnants.. is written beautifully, each chapter (dedicated to a particular object and its owners’ reminiscence) composed with care. It is scarcely believable this is the author’s first book. Her writing is assured and evocative. It has that rare ability to transport you into the scene she’s describing and make you complicit in her enquiries as she investigates the stories linked to the fabled objects. I say fabled but, more often than not, the objects are commonplace items with only time and circumstance having suffused them with relevance. The author delicately handles utensils, shawls and curios (literally and figuratively) as she stitches together the recollections of those who carried such things across freshly-minted borders: from Pakistan into India, from India to Pakistan, from East Pakistan to India, and so on.
Everyone in the sub-continent is aware of the atrocities perpetrated during the Partition. We have all heard stories of the rioting, the violence, the trains ferrying corpses across the border, and flashes of those grisly tales feature in this book as well. There are inevitable references to marauding mobs, people fleeing their homes at night, and the helplessness that deracination brings, but the primary emotion running through most of the chapters is pathos, a nostalgic longing for past lives and idyllic homes that had to be so cruelly abandoned. It feels as if for a majority of the protagonists the wounds left by the partition on their pysche, though not healed, have congealed and scabbed over time.
It is finally in Chapter 20 (Between This Side and That: The Sword of Ajit Kaur Kapoor), near the end of the book, that we encounter an instance where the interviewee’s wound is still fresh, still raw. Her story is by far the most gruesome, the most visceral and impossible to read without flinching. Seventy years have not been enough to dull the pain suffered by her and at one point, she asks the author, “Kyun yaad karan (Why should I remember it)?” This question echoed the uneasiness I’d been feeling when I was reading the book. Was it apposite to ask people to delve into their most painful memories and recount them for us? Was it fair to make them re-live the worst moments of their lives? It is true that history needs to be recorded for posterity, but at what cost to the survivors?
The author acknowledges this issue and the discomfort her questioning caused some of the interviewees. However, she is steadfast in her belief that the collection of these memories has a purpose and gives multiple reasons for embarking on this project; the principal one being our duty to know our own past. Looking back now, I would say there is another reason why it is essential that books like this exist: because in the midst of the trauma and the tragedy, one can sometimes discover moments of hope and humaneness. Two such moments stood out for me and will be my abiding memories from this book.
In Chapter 7 (The Light of the House That Stands No More: The Stone Plaque of Mian Faiz Rabbani) Mian Faiz Rabbani relates how his family had to flee from their palatial house in Jullundur into Pakistan, during the partition. Many years later, he visits the city and makes his way to his old home. He discovers that the house now serves as the residence of a Sikh family and a Thakur family. The Sikh gentleman greets him warmly and, while introducing him to the eldest widow of the Thakur clan, says “Thakurain, ghar ke maalik aa gaye ne (The original owner has returned).” Mian Faiz Rabbani talks about how this pronouncement overwhelmed him and I wondered how immeasurable emotions can be conveyed so simply through seemingly innocuous words.
The second moment was in Chapter 19 (A Conversation of Eroded Memory: The Identification Certificates of Sunil Chandra Sanyal). In this chapter, the author speaks with Sunil Chandra Sanyal and his wife, to piece together a tale of his migration from East Pakistan to Calcutta in 1948. Having suffered multiple cerebral attacks, his memory is uncertain, fleeting; but his wife faithfully recounts the stories he had shared with her over their years together.
Ever curious to see objects that travelled across borders, the author urges Sunil Chandra Sanyal’s wife to ask him, “Tumi Kolkata jokhon esecile shonge ki niye esechile (What did you bring with you when you came to Calcutta)? He replies, “Ami khub khushi hoye esechilam (I came with a lot of happiness).”
Beautiful review of a beautiful book! I loved her conversation on TSATU with Amit a lot as well.