Reviews - Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

95 reviews for:

Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

Aanchal Malhotra

4.51 AVERAGE

vani_in_wonderland_'s review against another edition

5.0

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

galaxy's review against another edition

5.0

emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

aartireadsalot's review against another edition

4.0

emotional informative reflective sad

zainub_reads's review against another edition

5.0

A collection of 21 stories that each begin with an object that in some cases appear to be mundane everyday objects such as kitchen Ware or in some cases exquisite and expensive such as jewelry but are all always priceless.

These items are those that have become the sole survivors and symbols of a different life that once was real, a lifetime ago..
Family heirlooms that bear witness to the struggles their owners faced and are repositories of their memories.

The India-Pakistan partition was the largest and bloodiest division of land in history that displaced millions and created overwhelming number of refugees on both sides of a border decided upon by colonialists who then promptly washed their hands off the affair and left a legacy of unimaginable horror and unchecked violence in the wake of a brutal Hindu-Muslim partition.

The narrators of these stories lived through this terrible time period and have nothing except a few physical keepsakes, serving as a bond to hold onto a fast escaping past.

There is not one person among them who doesn’t desire to go back “home” one last time or touch the soil of their motherlands in reverence despite having been disowned by people they believed to be of their own.

These stories are not about who was at fault or who was right because the truth is that they all bled and no narrative can ever really fully encompass the severity of the calamity that was the partition.

The author in a very compassionate, empathetic and respectfully nuanced narrative has carefully curated these stories and created a masterpiece preserving and documenting history for generations to come.

The book is profoundly touching and haunting.
It is filled with triggers of murder, rape and death yet, it is nothing but a stark and honest portrayal of that time.

“We should have realized it sooner, at least my father should have, that there was no coming back. Not in September when the riots died down, not in October when the subcontinent still lay in shock, not even in November as he had hoped and promised us. Lahore was now lost forever”