Sukrita Paul Kumar

NARRATING PARTITION
TEXTS, INTERPRETATIONS, IDEAS
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NARRATING PARTITION
TEXTS, INTERPRETATIONS, IDEAS
SUKRITA PAUL KUMAR

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INDIALOG PUBUC.ATIONS Pvt LTD.

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Paintings by Satish Gujral reproduced with his permission.
The newspaper clippings on Partition have been taken from the

archives of the Nehru Memorial Museum, New Delhi.
Copyright@ Sukrita Paul Kumar
Printed at Chaman Offset Printers, Darya Ganj, New Delhi.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

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ISBN 81-87981-62-8
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to my father,
a refugee
since he left Sialkot
in 1947
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENI'S
I owe thanks to several institutions and individuals for the making

of this book:
To the University Grants Commission for the offer of a Major
Research Grant as an incentive for me to focus on the theme of
this book and conduct research with ease.
To all those spirited writers and academics with whom I have
been discussing my writings on Partition literature. specially
Bhishamji whose fond memories 1 cherish.
To Principal Salman Hashmi, Zakir Husain College, for
supporting my research v~ntures and graciously granting me leave
for the completion of my writing.
To Satish Gujral sahab, for graciously allowing us to use his
paintings in this book.
To the helpful staff of different libraries: Sahitya Akademi, Nehru
Memorial Library, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, India
International Centre.
To Lucy Rosenstein of SOAS (London) and Francesca Orsini of
Cambridge University who invited me to make presentations on
Partition Narratives at their institutions, thus giving me an
opportunity to sound out some of my thoughts on the subject.
To Tarun Saint whose telephonic conversations often updated
my database on Partition.
To Azeem for assisting me in organising my research and files.
To Chandana and Sampath of lndlalog for their editorial
suggestions after a careful and sensitive scrutiny of my manuscript.
Thank you, everyone at home for leaving me alone to work.
Sukrlta Paul 1[11mar
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CONTENTS
Introduction ix
SECTIONI
IIACROVISIONS: INTERROGATING PARTrl'ION
Introduction 3
~Amma, Basant Kya Hota Hai?": 6
Tums of Centuries 1n Qurratulain Hyder's
Aag ka Dariya
Partitions as Pakistans: Kamleshwar's 15
Kitne Pakistan
Sadness Retold: Abdullah Hussein's 22
The Weary Generations
SECTIOND
NARRATIVISINO PARTITION: MEMORY INTO .OUAPHOR
Introduction 31
Critiquing Partition Narratives: 34
In Search of Tools and Lenses
De-troping the Muslim: 46
A Review of Image and Representation
- Stories of Muslim Uves in India
On Narrativising Partition 50
Translating India as the Other: 69
Partition and After
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SECTIONm
RAPE AS PARTITION
Introduction 91
Re-membertng Woman: Partition, Gender and 93
Reorientations
Androgyny In Search of Modernity 107
SECTIONIV
THROUGH PARTITION: HINDI-URDU AND ENGLISH
Introduction 121
In and Out of Partition: The Hindi-Urdu Story 123
In Midstream: The Urdu Short Story in 140
India and Pakistan
Negotiating the Original: 143
Language/Culture Interface in English in India
SECTIONV
CONVERSATIONS
Introduction 161
Bhisham Sahni 163
Kamleshwar 172
Guizar 182
Bibliography 192
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INTRODUCTION
1947: FREEDOM AND PARTITION. Partition has been a very physical

as well as a deeply existential experience for the people of the
Indian subcontinent. So internalised Is this experience that
the future of generations of people on both sides of the borders
was determined by what happened at this time. That ls why
Partition can be seen as a metaphor for a psychosis of
captivity. The psychosis of divisiveness. of dts-membering.
The rupture with the past. caused by this colossal event of
historical importance. came with unprecedented violence of
absurd dimensions. trauma and even death. But while the
catastrophic end of one era can in no'-way be undermined,
ironically. the simultaneous birth of a resurgent vision too
cannot be ignored.
Independence from the oppressive British rule and the
consciousness of new responsibilities amongst the leaders
have been duly recorded tn history. So also has the birth of
independent twin nations. India and Pakistan. found its place
in the annals of history. each nation with its own definition
and base for nationhood . What was recorded in literary
narratives was not only the ugly experiences of Partition and
how this event demolished earlier securities. but also how
the spirit of renewal and resurgence soon took over. Partition
then also becomes a metaphor for the rebuilding of identity -
both the identity of a people. as well as of the nation. This
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NARRATING PARTITION
happens either through romanticised visions of the distant

past, or through dreams of a glorious distant future or through
a realistic confrontation with actual experience. Literary
narratives, I believe, take on the exploration of experienced
truth at various levels of human consciousness, sometimes
presenting the illusory as a greater experience than what
may be considered as objective reality. After all, even the use
of fantasy reveals some specific truth about the human
imagination, which too, is rooted in some reality.
Just as the First World War engulfed the people of Europe
in a cultural crisis that led to ·high modernism,· Partition,
too led to a cultural crisis that compelled the affected people
to think anew about life. This volume presents critical
appreciation of literary representations/expressions of some
of the dimensions of the psychosis created by Partition, which
is very much alive and disturbingly throbbing even in the
present times. The advent of modernism in Indian literature
is demonstrated by the writers' concern for redefinitions of
identity, issues of rehabilitation, individualism and revtewtng
of tradition.
The backdrop of Partition is not merely a shadowy, distant
event, it is really the entire context from which these texts
emerge. Many of the literary texts chosen for study in this
volume are canonised in their original language literatures,
but what is attempted here is to put them together to evolve
an understanding of the varied aspects of Partition - PartWon
in itself as well as its continued effect on life and people. The
intention is not to suggest any historiography of Partition,
nor is there a wish to discern any political underpinnings of
the phenomenon. Historians, political scientists and scholars
of various other disciplines have produced ample material to
understand and present different debates and studies in this
regard . This book establishes the autonomy of literary
representation in articulating the range of imaginative
experiences triggered by Partition, immediately after 1947
and also throughout later, till the present date.
The Partition has been a major determinant for cultural
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re-orientations that have shaped modern India. Social

transformations and some basic philosophic permutations
were bound to emerge In a society that experienced not only
large-scale migrations Involving physical displacement. but
also an existential anguish following the insane violence.
While on the one hand. Partition brought with Itself the
devastating experience of rupture from a secure past. and
an uprooting from a stable communtty-Uvtng. post-Partition
life tn modem India presents evidence of continuities of some
of the earUer social and cultural formations. Historians have
extensively examined the question of the demand for
Partition. the reasons for Partition, the leaders responsible
for it, how It happened, the perspective of the British. etc.
On the other hand, the creative writer has been constantly
recapitulating Partition-related violence, experienced
individually by people of varied ages. different classes. sexes
and rellglons, both at the physical as well as the psychological
level. So obsessive and deep has been the experience of
Partition for those who actually went through it that the act
of writing itself seems to have served a therapeutic purpose.
Many writers have been constantly engaging with different
aspects of their memory of Partition. sometimes as the
experience of 194 7 itself. and at times with Partition as a
point of reference for many other events and socio-cultural
orientations consequential to it.
From describing the unimaginable violence and migration,
to delvtng deep into the psychological churntngs in the mind
of a refugee. the writer in Hindi, Urdu. Punjabi, EnglJsh and
other Indian languages has remained persistently alive to
Partition. realising that the exploration of the "present" is
not possible without a study of the unforgettable past loaded
within it. While there is a vast body of Partition literature
that delineates the meaningless conflict and mindless
violence witnessed at the time of Partition. there is also ample
literary representation of Partition-related social conditions
in modem India - including cultural movements. social
prejudices. and also portrayals of how communal conflict is
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NARRA11HO PAR1TT10N
often resolved through simple and spontaneous human

sentiment.
Psychic and physical rehabilitation subsequent to Partition
meant a total resurgence and a rebuilding, not only of the
nation but also of the individual self. It meant a redefining of
identity. This study undertakes to look closely at some of the
narratives written in the last ftve decades in Hindi and Urdu,
in an attempt to understand the new orientations. These
narratives emerged in an India that celebrated its newfound
freedom within the backdrop of Partition, about which people
could not remain amnesiac for long.
The interplay in the writer's mind between the present
and the past - between the urgencies of his present life and
the memories of Partition - may actually result in mutations
of the original experience of Partition. More and more of the
present creeps into the depiction of the past, although there
is no escaping the fact that the present is clearly the product
of the past. The present study scans narratives (such as the
two novellas - lnttzar Husain's Bastt and Joginder Paul's
Khwabro) that also deal with the stocy and vision of India as
the "other" - through the perspective of the mohajirs and the
migrants from India. As ttiey merge into the new life in
Pakistan, their vision of their place of birth gradually
undergoes a change. India to them is no longer the same.
Thousands of people affected by the Partition had to confront
the reality of the rupture, as also the continuities of their
lives, to start growing fresh roots and build a fresh identity.
On examining the new fiction of the stxttes and the strong
literacy movements of "nat kahanl" in Hindi and the "naya
afsana" in Urdu, one can convincingly argue that the
modernism of this fiction is a consequence of the spirit of
renewal arising from the uprootment caused by Partition.
Exorcising themselves of the grotesque experiences witnessed
earlier, the characters in the fiction of these times make new
beginnings in life. They make a bid for enterprise, regeneration
and a re-working of older mythologies. Shrtkant Verma, Mohan
•
Rakesh, Surendra Prakash, Qurratulain Hyder, Joginder
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1""1t0DUCT10N
Paul, Nirmal Verma, Kamleshwar and many other writers

capture the rehabilitation process of existentially displaced
characters. In their fiction, not only is the experience of
Partition narrativtsed, there is also a depiction of the rise of
the new woman, a demythologising of social constructs. and
a remythologising of interpersonal relationships and gen<:ler
roles. Many of the characters suffer deeply from a nostalgia
for their lost homeland, and hence they grapple with the past,
if only to exorcise themselves of their obsession, so that they
can move towards a new future.
Those who migrated and suffered violence while crossing
borders to go to some imaginary land have had their own
repository of stories within them, but those who chose to stay
on, too, have had many a tale to tell. For instance, the Muslims
who decided to continue to live in India went through new
adjustments of self-consciousness vts-a-vts the majority
community. The Muslim identity located within the political
cognition of the minority status granted to it gradually led to
the creation of stereotypical images of the Muslim~. In this
approach, there is a dental of the diversity of Muslim identities
found in India. It is in literature and in stories written around
Muslim characters that the Muslim identity gets de-troped
through the writer's effort to present each character
convincingly. In fact, though the stereotype of the Muslim
character may remain alive in the popular imagination, the
wrtter·s portrayal of the Muslim identity pulls a Muslim
character from out of the restrictive framework assigned to
him by common perception. The Mushirul Hasan and
M. Asaduddin edited book of short stories, Stories about
Muslim Lives in India presents stories that break Muslim
stereotypes. Interestingly, they also show how the self-
perception of the Indian Muslim, too, may fall into the trap of
perpetuating the stereotype. There are many Muslim
characters who demand a closer study if one seeks a better
understanding of minority consciousness. They assert
themselves and seek freedom from the confines of narrow
and biased constructions of Islam. The plurality of lifestyles
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NARRATING PARlTTION
xiv
of Musllms cannot be homogenJsed and the complexity of their

Identity cannot be overlooked by merely grouping them all
together as "Indian Muslims."
In the post-Independence, post-Partition scenario,
language-politics has played a slgnJftcant role In the creation
of a sociology of debates around such languages as Urdu
and English. This book Includes an essay on the study of
Urdu In relation to Hindi, which argues that shared streams
of culture flow In the literatures of both these languages. ln
another essay, the discussion on creative writing In English
In India demonstrates how negotiation with the original
contexts of reality In independent India demanded a process
of a thorough de-colonising of the mind. Rather than
remaining mimic men or translated creatures In the use of
English, what Is sought by a writer Is a new English for an
autonomous and dignified reallsatlon of fresh orientations of
living.
Stories from India and Pakistan very obviously project
common concerns and a shared predicament of the people
living In the subcontinent. Abject living conditions of the poor.
living mythologies, cultural foundations ... all these and much
more, are common to both the countries. Harping on the
communal difference and conflict Is precisely what sustains
the strife, even though Indirectly. It Is the politically motivated
people/leaders who have vested Interests In keeping the
conflict allve. Generally, people map their memories together
and wish to live in harmony. Literary narratives from both
India and Pakistan concern themselves with living issues
rather than contrived political positions. That Is why it is
through the fiction from both the countries that the emphatic
realisation of common concerns is effectively laid out.
Abdullah Hussein's novel. Udaas Naslein (The Weary
Generations in English) paints the contrast between the
fragmented present and the memory of the past of
togetherness. Everybody is weary of the strife. The novel
grasps the sadness of generations of people who find
themselves in the trap of political decisions. helplessly and
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1NT1t0oucno11
xv
hopelessly living them out without the backing of their own

convictions. While Partition is the take-off point for
Kamleshwar's novel Kitne Pakistan (How ·Many Pakistans).
the author does not end his narrative with that. In fact. he
builds upon the 1947 experience of Partition and writes about
several partitions taking place all over the country and all
over the world. in different centuries. His novel transcends
the limits of historical time and flows into Partitions which
are physical as well as psychic. The connecting force of the
narrative is the myth of Gilgamesh which surfaces In the
novel repeatedly. and establishes a human being's need for
immortality. This becomes an ironic backdrop to the
fragmentation of the world witnessed In history. and the large-
scale loss of human life caused by partitions.
In Qurratulatn Hyder's powerful novel Aag ka Dariya (River
of Fire In English). the 1947 Partition Is the source of
Inspiration for the writer to pause and reflect on the Hindu-
Muslim cultural synthesis experienced and evolved over
centuries. The pain of the erosion of this culture runs through
the narrative as the subtext of this novel. The underlying
question Is. how could the continuities perceived in the
history of several centuries simply collapse with one stroke -
that of Partition. The novel interrogates the psychological
acceptability of the rupture caused by the division of the
country, In the light of the formidable history pooled into the
common flow of the national stream of consciousness.
In the context of the brutality, and unleashing of a violent
male sexuality at the time of the Partition riots, the woman's
body became an easy site to "dishonour" the other community.
Thousands of women were abducted, raped and, either
murdered or forced into committing suicide. Patriarchy
demonstrated its ugliest face and women became helpless
victims of male barbarity and the notion of honour. Personal
narratives and fiction written on the experiences. of these
women reveal the nature of the violence experienced by them.
Thousands of women died or became homeless, and many
more had their lives laid waste. Their silenced history comes
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NARRA1UIC PJ\R'TTllON
xv1
to light through these narratives, some of which also portray

women who underwent the remarkable process of rebuildtng
their Identity by burying the past and establishing new selves.
The rehabilitation of these women also meant the emergence
of "the new woman" In modern India.
Vishnu Prabhakar's novel Ardhanartshvara may not be
directly linked to the Partition experience, but It Is flctlon
that establishes the need to redefine womanhood. Women
who have been victims of rape are shown to acquire
extraordinary sensitivity towards the problem of male
aggression. They muster tremendous shakti to redefine
themselves as autonomous human beings and lead
Independent lives. From where does this resurgent spirit
come? The enormous scale of the abuse of the female body at
the time of Partition -left an indelible mark on society and
established the need t9· work out sexual equality. Later, when
Vishnu Prabhakar makes a choice of androgyny as the ideal
to defy gender polarities, thJs can be seen as a step In that
direction.
This book also includes excerpts from conversations on
Partition with three writers (Bhisham Sahni, Kamleshwar
and Guizar) who have written about the Partition experience,
and whose fiction has been picked up for analysis In this
book.
People In the Eastern region of the Indian subcontinent
suffered two Partitions within a span of three decades. They
underwent gory experiences of forced dislocation, Identity
crisis, language problems and communally motivated
savagery. Even though there is a vast body of literary
representation of these partitions, thJs volume has not dealt
with it, primarily because it merits a separate study that
could grapple with the complicated politics and existential
dilemmas of people in that region. I have not considered them
in this volume, also because I am myself not equipped with
the wherewithal to examine the literature of this region. The
multitude of people on either side of the border have lived
with a continuous sense of insecurity, and have been boggled
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IN'l1IODUCT10N
xvU
by different notions of homeland, mother tongue and identity.

Another volume is required to do justice to the richness of
the literature produced in such a circumstance.
The present collection of insights emerged from my study
of Partition narratives for a project on "Cultural Re-
orientations in Modem India," undertaken by me with a Major
Research Grant given to me by the University Grants
Commission. I take this opportunity to express my gratitude
to the UGC. I hope this volume will facilitate the study of
literature as a means for understanding the making of modem
India, and of the cultural mutations taking place in society
as a consequence of the Partition.
What I wish to reiterate here is the · fact that while this
•
book is not concerned with presenting a historiography of
Partition, it does suggest a study of Partition narratives as
literary representations of the Partition experience and its
aftermath. The literariness of the narratives takes us into
the domain of creative writing which, I believe, explores
possibilities of various kinds of truth rather than establishing
any facts with a sense of finality. For a critical appreciation
of these narratives, I suggest, in one of the essays included
in this book, that there is an impending need to evolve tools
specific to understanding Partition literature. For example,
the question of memory transmuting the actual into
fabrication because of the changed context of the present, or
remembering to relocate identity - in other words, to re-
member one's self. Literature of Partition has used different
tropes and techniques to enter the personal and collective
history of Partition. Now, it is time to articulate a
comprehensive theoretical base to equip the reader to examine
and understand the aesthetics of this literature within its
socio-cultural context.
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MACROVISIONS:
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INTRODUCTION
Appeals to the past arc among the commonest of

strategics In Interpretations of the present. What
animates such appeals Is not only disagreement about
what happened In the past and what the past was. but
uncertainty about whether the past Is really past. over
and concluded. or whether It continues, albeit In
different forms, perhaps. This problem animates all
sorts of discussions - about Influence, about blame
and Judgement, about present actualities and future
prlorltlcs.
Edward Said, Culture and Impertalts_m
THIS SECTION SPECIFICALLY LOOKS at narratives that approach

Partition from a macro-perspective - with a narrative sweep
spanning centuries or several generations. The texts taken
up include Qurratulain Hyder's River of Fire. Abdullah
Hussein's The Weary Generations and Kamleshwar's Kitne
Pakistan. Hyder. Kamleshwar and Abdullah employ the device
of going upward from historical time - of wanting to transcend
time (in Hyder's novel the same character is in different time
frames/periods). There seems to be a compulsive need to
"break out" of the gravitational pull of time/history - a tendency
common to all three novels mentioned above. The perspective
laid out in each of the novels then is that of larger cultural
issues evolving out of the 1947 Partition of the subcontinent,
going beyond any narrow temporal frame of reference.
"Amma, basant kya lwta hai?" (Amma. what is Basant?) It
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NARRATING PARTITION
is this small, apparently innocent question that aroused the

sensitivity of the Urdu wrtter Qurratulatn Hyder to the cultural
losses caused by Partition. She had migrated to Paklstan
and the question is posed by her ltttle niece who had never
got a chance to witness the cultural festivities and rituals
associated with the arrival of "Basantw (Spring). Hyder sets
out upon a contemplative Journey into time to weave the story
of "Indian culturew as it evolved from fourth century BC. The
narrative of Aag ka Darl.ya flows through centuries, meanders
and builds up a macrovtsion of the overlapp.tng, synthesising
cultures richly co-existing till Partition happens and there
are partings. The thrust of the narrative rests on an
integrative perspective, and is derived from the patn triggered
by the fissure caused by Partit.ton. The novel transcends
chronological history and dwells in the realm of an imaginative
continuum. connecting signiftcant moments from the past
into a total vision of Time.
If Qurratulain Hyder is dealing with centuries in River of
Fire, Abdullah Hussein tells the story of sadness of
generations in his classic novel in Urdu, Udaas Naslein. Here
too, the novel has a huge canvas where the wrtter presents
the sadness of ordinary people who lead their lives helplessly
while political decisions that would alter their lives
dramatically are taken without their knowledge or consent.
Partition has meant homelessness, separations, loss and
violence. The novel's deceptively simple style of narration
makes the reader deeply aware of the complexity of life,
suggested by the struggles of the characters - a struggle that
goes on generation after generation.
The year 2000 saw yet another literary creation of vast
dimensions when Kamleshwar published Kttne Pakistan. a
novel in Hlndl - not on the micro-theme of one partition. but
on several partitions. Tilis novel does not restrict Itself Just
to the Indian subcontinental context, but encompasses
partitions In dlfferent countries of the world. Indeed, It is not
even constrained by historical time but narrates a saga of
partitions happening perennially - from pre-historic times.
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INTRODUCTION
And yet again, It was 1947 that motivated the writer to

consolidate his vision of the ruptures and renewals centred
on political, cultural and psychological partitions.
All the three novels examined in this section of the book
have another commonality that cannot go unnoticed: they
are all narratives where the author Is revisiting Partition by
reworking/translating the text that he/she wrote decades
earlier. Hyder and Hussein do so by transcreattng their Urdu
novels (Aag ka Darl.ya and Udaas Naslein respectively) Into
English, while Kamleshwar writes his novel Kttne Pakistan
by building upon his short story (with the same title) written
years ago. This Interesting phenomenon In Itself speaks for
the continual and haunting relevance of the theme of Partition
In post-Independence India. The persistent communal
tensions and the sporadic riots In different parts of the
country off and on have kept Partition so alive as to make the
writer revisit the experience Imaginatively and once again
reflect on Its several dimensions.
The vision of the novels presented in this section of the
book reveals both sensitivity and a deep human concern.
They interrogate divisive tendencies and appeal for a larger
perspective on differences between groups and human beings.
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..AMMA, BASANT KYA HOTA HAI?":
TURNS OF CENTURIES IN QURRATULAIN HYDER'S
AAG KA DARIYA
0
QuRRAnJIAIN HYDER S NOVEL, MO ka Dariya (River of Ft.re) engages
with the question of composite culture tn India In the backdrop
of the Partition. Published In the original Urdu In 1959. this
novel was transcreated Into English (by the author herselJ)
and published again In 1998. In fact, It captures several turns
of centuries, both In terms of historical linearity as well as
with a sense of history that transcends chronology. The novel
deals with the individual, and goes on to present a collective
identity. It is fiction that captures the history of a single
culture as It slowly encompasses many others. It engages
with the totality of existence by deltneating Individual lives
tn various ages:
"Time pursued me whichever way I went. I think Ume
Is very dangerous. Have you ever felt frightened of
Tline, Gautam?" (Aag ka Dariya 6)
"Gautam, the expanse of life Is very burdensome, save
yourself from Its spread." (11)
"Where does creation begin from? Where does It go?
Why are we llvlng? And how? Where will we go?" (11)
A novel that opens with such daunting questions and

enfolds within itself the cultural history of over a thousand
years of this subcontinent, as also the perennial existential
dilemmas of an individual, demands a critique that cannot
be confined to what has come to be known as the "separate
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7
spheres" critical paradigm. The binary category of gender

establishes Its relevance politically and It has convincing
historical determinants. However, It has been evidenced how
an application of the metaphor of "separate spheres"
inevitably leads to reductive and sometimes even seductive
categories such as the "cult of domesticity," "the cult of true
womanhood," and "the female world of love and ritual"
(Davidson, Preface). River of Fire encompasses both the private
and public space for men and women with a dual rather than
a binary vision. It is Written more In freedom from the prison
of gender than from within It.
"The truth Is, a great mind mu·st be androgynous," wrote
Coleridge more than a century ago. And to quote Virginia Woolf,
"Everyone Is partly their ancestors; just as everyone is partly
man and partly woman." Qurratulain Hyder's creative vision
In this novel Interrogates many a divide - of gender, of time, of
religion, of race - through an Intense probe of the specifics
themselves. The metaphor of the river emphasises the flow of
both time and 'human consciousness. There are continuities
despite ruptures, and compassion despite conflict.
The author
.
picks the title of her novel
.
from the verses of
the famous Urdu poet Jtgar:
•
Yeh ishq nahln aasan
ltna to sa.nu.yh Lye
Ek aag ka dartya hat
Aur doob ke Jana haL
Which in English Is:

This love is not easy
Do understand this much
This is a river offire
And you must drown in it, to go ahead.
(my translation)
•AJI quotations from Hyder·s English translation. River of Fire, have been
acknowledged as such. Also, as Hyder seems to have omitted portions of the
or1gtnal In the translation. I have translated Into Engllsh, quotations from the
Devnagrt transcript of the ongtnal Urdu version of Aag lea Dartya.
Original from
Digitize~ by Google UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NARAATINC PAR1Tl10N
Gautam Nilambar, Champa, Kamaal, Hart Shankar and

others are characters from the novel, in love with. life. Love
that involves suffering, pain, longings and probings. The ftety
river of time subsumes them, revives them and carries them
away in its forceful currents. They flow along with the river,
century after century. birth after birth, creating in the novel
a breathtakingly vast canvas of an epic scale. What made
Qurratulain Hyder write such a novel? Ironically. the
stupendous Journey rests on an apparently simple and
innocent question asked by the author's niece in Karachi:
MAmma, basant kya hota hat?" (Amma, what is Basant?). In
the December 1959 issue of the well-known Urdu Journal
Naqoosh. Hyder records how she ended up writing a novel of
over eight hundred pages in response to that question.
Her quest needed to rest on some specific point, for after
all. as she says. no one person can undertake the exploration
of the whole world. the whole of creation. Hyder ls deeply
concerned about the cultural amnesia evidenced in that
simple question posed by a girl who (going the Western way.
with apparently no cultural rooting), reads the life of Elvis
Presley so intently. She sets out to bring alive streams of
collective consciousness flowing through four special phases
in the history of the Indian subcontinent: (1) the fourth
century BC. (2) the late fifteenth and the early sixteenth
century. (3) the end of the eighteenth and the whole of the
nineteenth century. and (4) the post-Partition era.
Gautam Nilambar is a student of Shravasti Gurukul in
the fourth century BC; in the second phase, he serves the
British government; and while he is a teacher in a Brahmo
SamaJ school in the third era, in our own times, he ls an
intellectual living in London and New York. with the values
of his community secure in his being. In Kamaal runs the
vibrant stream of the history of the Islamic presence in the
subcontinent - in the same Kamaal who in the fourth century
had reached Tughlakabad through Central Asia and Kashmir.
Abdul Mansur Kamaluddln comes to Jounpur, Kashl and
Ayodhya and meets a very different brand of Muslims, the
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"AMMA, flllSANr KYA HOTA ,w?"
Sufts. With his contact also with the idol worshippers and
the new land, the process of negotiation between his brand
of Islam and the local culture begins. His very existence then
dives into the "River of Ftre," and when he re-emerges in later
times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he comes
through as a synthesis of the Islamic and the local culture.
After some negotiation there is mutual assimilation. Then
history witnesses in India the progress of the unique Indo-
lslamic culture. While there were a lot of conflicts and
differences, there was also a bonding and some concord.
Kamaal, the outsider of the fourth century BC becomes a
nationalist: "Are you a very staunch nationalist, Kamaal?" asks
Champa. "Yes, every honest person should be a nationalist," is
his answer. "How is it that all the Muslim intellectuals and
scholars and theologians of India are nationalists?" (River of
Ffre 254). When his father supports the demand for Pakistan
and Joins the Muslim League, he is upset and says. "You cannot
discard your motherland like an old coat" (254). By capturing
the inner currents of the evolution of a dynamic culture,
Qurratulain Hyder endeavours to clear the cobwebs in our
understanding of the process of. first, integration and later the
disintegration of cultural harmony. The bonding that is evolved
over centuries between the Hindus and the Muslims begins to
crack because of the Partition politics generated deviously by
the British rulers . While the novel is not history, it is
nevertheless an imaginative reconstruction of a cultural
process that has its foundations in history as perceived by the
author.
Aag ka Darl.ya was written in Pakistan where Hyder had
migrated after the Partition. and published in 1959. The
personal anguish of the experience of uprootment and "exile" -
exile that is geographical as well as psychic - brings her into
an intimate closeness and understanding of all her
characters. They are the weary generations of Abdullah
Hussein's Udaas Naslein, and the victims of permanent
homelessness in Inttzar Husain's Basti. Both Kamaal and
Champa of Aag ka Dariya require tremendous fortitude to
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NARRA11NC PAR11110N
10
survive the Partition. Kamaal ts driven, against himself, to

migrate to Pakistan. As for Champa, she becomes an "exile"
psychologically even when she stays on tn India. ·
"Remember, how Abdul Mansur Kamaluddln had entered
Hindustan· and how he has gone out of It" (Aag ka Dartya.
511). This Is not a simple statement from the novel , It
embodies the thematic content of Aag ka Dartya. Once again.
Kamaal becomes the "other," but not the same "other" as of
the fourth century BC. Earlier, he himself had perceived his
presence In Hindustan as that of an alien. But after a long
history of negotiation, In the recent history, he Is abruptly
pushed Into this role by political forces beyond his control.
How can he detach himself from his ancestors whom he
carries within himself? It Is for this reason that Intlzar
Husain's Zakir is a professor of history In Bastt - an agent
who attempts to recapitulate and review some knots regarding
Muslims in the subcontinent. The cultural heritage of the
two communities, the intermingling and owning of each other's
customs, festivals, mythologies and languages, and the
sharing of the same geographical climate under the same
sky for centuries could not simply be trashed or forgotten.
This civilization had nurtured Sant Kabir (or Kabir Mian),
and also someone like Dara Shikhoh who translated the
Upanishads into Persian. Mushtartka Tehzeeb, the culture of
sharing got badly disrupted with the eruption of the politics
of extremes in communal consciousness. And as Is well
known, this was played up tactically by the British, leading
finally to the Partition of the country. The "River of Fire"
gushes forth, sweeping emotions and sensitivities and the
past and the present simultaneously over rocks and crags
and through inexplicable eddies.
Shifting locations, and severed from home, the post-
Partition Kamaal becomes a wanderer forever in search of
his origins. At the same time, for many, as for him, Pakistan
could be viewed as the Promised Land where he may indeed
have the potential to reconstruct his own identity within the
identity of his community. But as Sa'adat Hasan Manto and
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"AKMA, 8ASIINr ICYA HOTA ,w?"
11
many other sensitive writers perceived, the common song of

the people could not be partitioned, and thus the sense of
loss and desperation on both the sides. Gautam tells Roshan
Ara in Aag ka Dariya. Min this divided world we can meet
each other only on borders" (349). Aft.er all, time is not mere
blocks of historical events: and if perceived as it actually flows,
the despair of the "disinherited mind" reduces markedly, re-
establishing the psychological connections that cannot
disappear merely through political action. The novel asserts
the need to realil3C continuities, if only to accommodate the
new realities.
After having spent a few years in London, in 1961,
Qurratulain Hyder decided to come back to India. One thinks
of Champa Baji of Aag ka Dariya who chooses to live in
Moradabad after having lived in Europe for several years
following the Partition. She comes back "as part of the crowd,
accepting the comradeship of her fellow beings" (492). During
his sentimental visit to India, Kamaal understands that
Champa was not really left behind and that she had chosen
to be with the veiled women and ragged urchins of her lane,
and with "the under-nourished coolies with their push-carts"
(492). She is a wayfarer, ~adder and wiser - the serene
Champa of the new India, heroic in her decision to face the
insecurities and uncertainties of her future in the backdrop
of distressing economic problems and the impending war
between India and Pakistan. The applicability of the metaphor
of the separate spheres becomes immediately compelling in
the face of the politics of the two nations. But this is not
ultimately convincing since this metaphor does not explain
the emotional and psychological ties when cultural memories
are charted.
Champa Baji emerges in various avatars in the narration
of the cultural history of the subcontinent in the novel. In the
kaleidoscopic presentation of Champa Baji (of Lucknow, Paris,
London, Cambridge and Moradabad) merge different images
of Champak of Shravasti standing in the corridor of time -
Champak as the Aryant (Goddess of the Woods), Champavati,
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NARRATING PAR11'110N
12
a Sufi allegocy for Kamaal. as also Champajaan. the courtesan

who enchants Cyril Ashley. Relishing her power over men.
Champa comes galloping down the lanes of history.
demonstrating the courage to not only take decisions, but also
act upon them. She becomes the "chowdharain" of Lucknow.
the head of the "tawalfs" of Lucknow - a prestigious position -
and has access to the Royal Court. The author chooses all
these Champa(s) who can operate outside the Purdah and
create their own space for empowerment. The cultural
alienation of these characters Is rooted In the patriarchal
politics of constriction, exclusion and dispossession. It Is within
those constraints that the Champa(s) of the past detenntne
their destinies. But then the pressures of society and politics
find Champajaan amidst beggars at the end of her life. And
Champa Ahmed of post-Partition India survives amidst the
poverty-stricken and backward Muslims left behind. while
most of their relatives migrate to Pakistan for better prospects.
"'But I saw the city chock-full of Muslims,' Kamaal argued.
'Only the hoi-polloi,' Bade Abba replied dismissively. The
gentry has more or less emigrated"' (River of Fire 400). Kamaal
looks at the pomegranate tree swaying in the breeze and
invokes the past as he shudders with the question. "Does
Spain still haunt the Muslim mind, specially in times of
crisis?"(400). While Kamaal projects the painful conflict
between conviction and circumstance. Champa Ahmed's
philosophic self collects and contains the anguish of Gautam.
Hartshankar and Kamaal along with the entire crisis of Indo-
lslamfc culture and the crumbling of long-cherished values:
·1 am an ordinary girl. If I had been God's special
person - somebody like Meera, Muktabal. Saint Sophia,
one would have seen the marks of wounds on my body.
My apparel would be bloody red with the murder of
my purity. My hands would be pierced with nails. My
head would be haloed. Bowls of poison and baskets of
snakes would be sent to me. But I am merely Champa -
Champa Ahmed. No one can see my wounds. Because
my fellow beings too are wounded. They are weak
mortals and have no vision.· (Aag ka Dartya 491)
Champa Ahmed Is the most vibrant and living character In
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"AMICA, 8AS4NI' ICYA HOTA HA/r
13
the novel. She herself points out how, like an ant, she climbs
the mountain of problems in front of her. She breaks the
stereotypi<:al image of a woman through her power of
articulation and self-awareness. Such a woman is easily and
generally silenced, marginaltsed, and made invisible. Not only
do the readers of this novel get an insight into her personality,
the delineation of this personality also offers a picture of her
ancestors. A careful feminist reading of the novel could bring
out all the connectives and departures of the evolution of
Champa's identity as a woman over centuries.
Aag ka Darlya came out in its English avatar in 1998, nearly .
forty years after the Urdu novel. The English version is a
transcreation. not a translation, by the author herself. Having
been rewritten over the tum of the century, after another half
a century of the fiery history of the extended lndo-Pak conflict,
Aag ka Dariya acquires greater relevance today. Its Vision
invokes the awareness of legacies of the Hindus and Muslims
lying on either side of the border, producing a peculiar socio-
politico-cultural mosaic in the Indian subcontinent. Denial of
history and heritage can in no way establish a stable identity
for a constructive future. The novel is beyond giving merely
sentimental or even moralistic dicta. It presents a process of
creative unravelling of a past that inevitably lives in the present
just as the present finds its seed in the past. But, for such a
realisation. an alertness about the essential flow of time rather
than an amnesiac state of mind is required. A creatively
selective memory animated through personal as well as
collective consciousness explores the warp and the weft of the
complex cultural weave of this region with its disruptive tears
as well as knots.
The novel comes full circle when in the last chapter the
reader finds herself once again on the highway to Shravasti.
Harl says. MKamaal has deserted us - together we could have
challenged the galaxies," to which Gautam responds, "We have
all betrayed one another. Can these western visitors to
Shravasti understand the pain in our souls? In India"s, in
Kamaal's, in mine?" (River of Fire 425) . The outsider is the
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14
westerner, not the Muslim or the Hindu. Or perhaps, the

alienation experienced by each one is ultimately existential
and from one's own self. The novel ends with the same question
with which it begins: "I ... who the hell am I?" (424). The river
keeps flowing and the quest of the individual continues - the
quest for identity and for the very purpose of one's existence.
But then, nothing can be taken for granted, asserts the novel:
for, who knows, even the river may not be eternal - '1be river
may dry up or change its course Just as human beings
disappear or change the direction of their Journeys" (426).
The novel knocks at the walls of silence in the universe
and searches for the meaning of human existence in specific
space and time - ln the migrations and settlements, politics
and cultures, calendar years and timelessness. All this, to
finally merge into absolute silence, perhaps to get ready for
another Basant.
WoaKa CrrsD
Davidson, Cathy. Preface. American Uteratw-e. Vol. 70, No. 3.

Sept.1998.
Hyder, Qurratulain. Aag ka Dariya. Allahabad: Kitab Mahal.
1960. (Devnagrt transcript of the Urdu original.)
- - . River of Fire. New Delhi: Kali for Women, 1998.
Note: For an exhaustive understanding of Aag ka Darlya. the Urdu. Hindi and
English texts of the novel can be used for Inter -textual study, for they essentlally
conform to the same vision despite some significant variations. particularly In
the English transcreatlon. River of Ftre Is specially organised Into chapters wtth
titles (not gtven In the Hindi and Urdu texts). an attempt to perhaps simplify. for
the English mind. the complex metaphor of cultural plurality evolved over
centuries.
Original from
•
PARTITIONS AS PAKISTANS:
KAMLESHWAR'S KITNE PAKISTAN
THERE ARE HISTORIES AOAJNSI' histories,

partitions within partitions,
and stories behind stories emerging ln different hues as one
focuses on the eye of this kaleidoscope that ls Kamleshwar's
Kitne Pakistan. Chunks of history, real-life situations and
mythological episodes collide with each other and congeal
into patterns to be seen and felt by future generations. The
shadows of the past become concrete images while the
present may become fantasy. The Hindi novel Kttne Pakistan,
publi$hed in January 2000, actually germinated from a
powerful short story (with the ~ e title) written by the author
more than two decades earlier. The writer has had to .live
with the urgency of the experience of Partition over a long
period. before it finally found expression 1n the much larger
canvas of the novel. The space offered by the novelistic form
gave him an opportunity to organise and articulate his vision
into a form that allowed him to travel in time and geography
without any constraints. The writer fully exploits this freedom,
and does not have a conventionally structured narrative or
a plot, nor a single definite protagonist. The blurb on the
back cover of the novel declares, "In this novel, history and
time stand knocking at the door of human!ty ... with the hope
that the blood-soaked tradition of partitions, happening one
after the other, would at last get terminated."
The writer's exasperation with the innumerable "Paktstans"
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16
is reflected in the title of the novel itself, which exclaims, "So

many Pakistansl" The author records his anguished reaction
to diVisive forces operative not just in the Indian subcontinent,
but the world over- both geographically, and also as partitions
between man and woman, one religion and another, life and
death, and so on. The alien imperialistic forces Injected the
seed for diVislon to suit their own needs, and the tragic
manner in which the Partition and Pakistan happened
centuries later, lend very unfortunate associations to these
words. To the writer's sensibility then, the word Pakistan ls
nuanced heaVily with tragedy, desperation and helplessness.
He is in no way directing his rancour at the nation that ls
Pakistan, nor certainly at the people who are in Pakistan
now. Though It is possible to construe the title of ~s novel as
a questioning of the legitimacy of Pakistan's existence as a
nation today (why not a "Kitne Hindustan"?), that doesn't
seem to be his intention. Nor is he interested in priVileging
the "whole Hindustan/India" over a "partial Pakistan." He is
only concerned with interrogating the complex socio-political,
historical and cultural processes that bypass simple human
concerns in a bid for more and more "Pakistans." Pakistan
does not merely remain the name of a country: it becomes
the symbol for diVision, a metaphor for violence, hatred. and
even massacre and death. The writer's exasperation ts further
accentuated when he engages with the multitudes of
partitions the world has gone through.
Kitne Pakistan serves as a pause for reflection for the
reader. enabling him to perceive with painful clarity the
direction in which mankind has moved decade aft.er decade,
century aft.er century. The novel begins with the presentation
of the rather placid life of a middle-class man and woman
travelling together each day to their respective places of work.
sharing a sweet silence. They are content with inaction and
even the monotony of their existence. Steeped in the memory
of that quiet and personal life in the first chapter. the
narrative makes a quick shift in Its tone in the following
chapter when the narrator records current history tn the
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PARTT110NS AS l'AJUSTANS
17
voice of a Journalist or an artist. M

He then read the dispatches
in quick succession ... it had happened again ... Just as in
the year 1948, 1965 and 1972" (Kamleshwar 12).• The army
movement in the Kargil area Is perceived promptly as an
extension of the same politics. Taking 1948 as the nodal point,
the novel travels in time, with the writer acting as the
conscience for each age and for its political and cultural
heroes.
The protagonists of the novel are Adeeb (the writer) , a
character in the novel, and Time, face to face with each other
throughout the narrative. Time steps in as All-Time, existing
in the simultaneity of its past as well as the present. The past
gets summoned within the present. Documented history Is
perpetually questioned, the underlying posture of the narrator
being that of a sceptic. The stylistic device used for this is
interrogation In the court of the artist who, like a Judge,
examines the past dispassionately and explores the truth
without the blinkers of the colonial historian. Adeeb is as much
a critic of the present political scene as of the past. A sample
of his Journalistic critique of the present appears in the form
of an open letter that begins, MDear Prime Minister and Defence
Minister Ji," and he signs off as M A writer and Journalist
participant of the sad times of this nation."
A little over three hundred and fifty pages, the tone of Kitne
Pakistan ranges from one of bland documentation, to an
imaginative narration of mythology and fantasy, interspersed
with flashes of insight, and interesting anecdotes from history.
One by one, from the first Mughal emperor Babur to Lord
Mountbatten, many historical personages are brought into
the Court of Adeeb for scrutiny of the truth of Partition history.
From the Battle of Plassey (1757) to the Civil War of 1857, the
formulation of the British strategies of rule emerge, whose main
thrust is clearly on controlling the culture of the Mnatives."
The narrative of the novel attempts to sift "reality" from the
coloured representation of facts. The novel aggressively
• All translaUons from this novel are mine.

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NAIUIATING PARTTl10N
18
narrates the story of the "divide and rule" policy of the British
and reveals how their historians destroyed evidence from
Babumama, and manipulated facts in the Faizabad Gazette -
thus sowing seeds for the communal strife which eventually
erupted at various points in the history of India - 1948, 1965.
1972 and so on. up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid, later
leading to Kargtl as well as Pokhran and Chagat. It is as if the
genealogy of partitions gradually unravels itself brutally in
the court of Adeeb, who scrutinises the politics of the historians
and attempts an unbiased representation of the past.
Commenting on his own creative process, the writer of the
novel identifies with Adeeb. The following dialogue from the
novel partly explains the chaos, or rather, the complexity of
the narration:
"... but I want to tell this story along with Its Immensely
beautiful and painful contexts ... If this unique (aprattm)
story can become a creative work, It will live for a long
Ume ... I need Ume to write ltl" said Adeeb.
"... don't be obstinate. This Is not an age for aesthetic
creation. Whatever you have to tell, narrate It quickly
or your stories will die of suffocation."
"Alrlght then, dig a grave and bury my qalam. You
can continue telling the story thenl" Adeeb was
disappointed and helpless. (318)
This self-reflexive note within the novel is a comment on

the form of this novel, which begins to flow in whatever
direction the narrator's stream of consciousness may flow.
The reader faces the challenge of remaining an involved
witness or a participant consistently, to be able to absorb
the abundant historical data with all the arguments presented
in the novel. However, since the central axis remains the
theme of continual partitions and divisions , the collage
connects up and the fictional narrative of the novel gets
straightened out.
The novel carries within its vision some very incisive
metaphysical contradictions regarding human existence.
There is, for instance, the parallel story of Gilgamesh seeking
to conquer death while the history of mankind projects the
grotesque scenes of man killing man, of man becoming an
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PARTmONS AS PAIIISTANS
19
instrument for cessation of human life through gory

massacres. The Gilgamesh story appears at first in the
beginning of the novel Within the larger narrative. a couple
of times in the middle, and later once again at the end of the
novel . While on the one hand. there is Hiroshima and
Nagasaki in recent history, on the other hand, Ironically.
there is Gilgamesh's hope of conquering death and attaining
immortality. The resolve to fight pain and death goes hand in
hand wtth man's concern for power which. in tum, itself
creates death. Humanity is absurdly caught in the double-
bind of its own creation/destruction.
·It Is because I am blind that I am able to see everything
so clearly" (362). says Kabir at the end of the novel. Another
irony! Mere sight does not yield insights. That is reason
enough for the stories of the past to get unveiled and the
curtain to be raised for the theatre of history to come alive
for a review. The discerning eye may then witness truth
directly in all its true colours. What emerges is yet another
contradiction: while there is partition within partition
through history, 1.n point of fact, this narration of partitions
becomes a pointer towards the essential connections
between people and people. The pain of the Partition is felt
most acutely by those who have experienced connections
and whose vision is holistic. The history of Partition does
not remain localised in the novel precisely because the entire
world is seen as one. The novel begins wtth the Aryans not
originating in India, nor settled eventually only in India. What
is there in the notion of one's own land then? In the light of
this, the politics of the wsons of the soil" all over the world
becomes suspect.
But then. as a counterpoise, the writer makes a direct
tntertextual lift from Rahi Masoom Raza's novel. Adha Gaon
and quotes the passages demonstrating the dictum, wldentity
is territory": WI am myself my village" (60). References are made
to Lebanon, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, as also to Tunisia, Algeria
and Somalia, to show how partition does not necessarily
happen between one religion and another - Pakistans are
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NARRATINC PAR11110N
20
created within Paktstansl Crippled nations! Nations hollowed

out by termites!
From Kurukshetra to Hiroshima. large masses of people
have been killed , cultures destroyed, and barbarism has
thrived in the guise of the forces of civilization. One of the
evocative Images that is bound to haunt the reader of the
novel is that of the displaced Surjit Kaur. who continues to
live. corpse-like. after the 1947 Partition. with her unconscious
son on her shoulders. Every time she ts tn a crisis. she asks.
-Has the bomb dropped on my Multan?" (316).
Kttne Pakistan Includes within Its ken another gruesome
spectre of Partition which looms over gender relations and
realises Itself as rape or male assault on women. -suddenly
they found a house .. . a house with a woman! . .. the officer
ordered his men out and after that the woman went through
the same experiences.... And then his soldiers too did the same
things to her which the soldiers and the officer of the defeated
army had done with her before running away" (340). Toe enemy
ts not the other race or country. but the male. Woman emerges
as man's victim and a mere object for sexual abuse. Ugly
partitions between the two sexes happen over and over again.
Alongside , ironically, stories of love pile up endlessly.
Karnleshwar is not merely being politically correct when he
brings in a gender perspective into this novel which has
partition as its central concern. His living portrayal of male
lust and aggression arouses a deep empathy for the woman.
enriching the novel by further adding to the meaning of
partition.
Toe narrative moves from research to Insights. and in its
epical growth remtnds one of Qurratulain Hyder's novel. Aag
ka Dariya. Interestingly. there is a cross-textual reference to
Hyder's novel in Kitne Pakistan: -she could see Qurratulain
Hyder's 'Aag ka Da:rtya· flowing out there... !" (316) .
When Karnleshwar drops the names of many contemporary
Htndt and Urdu writers in this novel. without really according
them any role of significance. ts Adeeb (the writer) attempting
to build a collective writers· consciousness? Does he perhaps
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PAR'ITl'IONS AS PAIUSTANS
21
feel the need to show his association with like-minded writers

of his times?
Off and on In the novel, the author picks up stories of his
relationship with Vldya and Salma In an effort to complete
what he calls the "Incomplete stories" of his personal life. His
personal life runs parallel with the hearings In the court,
where he sits as the conscience of the people from the past
and the present. and also as a witness to phases of history
when thinking and understanding are at a standstill. The
surreal pictures of mountains of eyes which do not see. and
of souls which are enslaved, suggest yet different kinds of
divisions, fragmentation and oppression - partitions between
the body and the soul. the haves and the have-nots, life and
death. "Creation could be beautiful without partitions," Is
one of the messages running through the subtext of the novel.
The novel evokes a sense of absurdity as regards the
evolution of human existence and its claims of civillzational
progress. Behind Kitne Pakistan stand poignant moments and
~rlences of Partition captured by such writers as Yashpal,
Manto, Krtshan Chander, Bedi, Krishna Sobti, Ashfaq Ahmed,
and many others. The body of Partition literature in Hindi
and Urdu gains In stature with Kamleshwar's Kitne Pakistan.
notwithstanding the monotone of journalese brought at times
into this fictional enterprise. Given the span of fifty-odd years
following the 1947 Partition, the writer of this novel gets into
a position to telescope time and draw logical connections from
history to understand the Irrational cracking of nations.
Pakistan is not a mere territory. Pakistan is a metaphor for a
dream, for a nightmare; it is Hiroshima, it is division, it is the
pain of separation. but also home ... so many Pakistans!
Wou: CITED
Kamleshwar. Kitne Pakistan. Delhi: Rajpal & Sons, 2000.
Original from
SADNESS RETOLD: ABDULLAH HUSSEIN'S
THE WEARY GENERATIONS
•
A REALLY 0000 AND authentic piece of literature is a humbling

experience and there is. therefore, no question of being
Judgemental about it. In examining 1l1e Weary Generations,
then, I can only share my pleasurable experience of reading
it. The arrogance of an intellectual and the authoritative
posture and power of a critic collapse helplessly in the face
of a perceptive and beautiful presentation of a throbbing
life experience. In 1963, when the original novel Udaas
Naslein was published in Urdu. it caused a tremor amongst
its readers. It was hailed as a modem classic and became
very popular as a significant Partition novel both in India
as well as Pakistan.
·Udaas Naslein was Abdullah Hussein's first novel. and
for the author to go back to it and recreate it himself in
English thirty-five years later raises pertinent questions:
• Why does the writer want to tell the story again and relive
the old experience all over aga.ln? Why does he not write
another novel instead? Does the writer indulge in this
exercise to share his experience with the English audiences
in the West where he lives? What happens to the original
story
. when It is ·retold? Strangely. all these questions cease
to have any significance when we find that the text in
English vibrates with a life of its own. For the reader, it does
not matter whether it has deviated from the original since
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SADNESS RETOLD
23
it in itself has the appeal of an original! The question of

fidelity does not bother the reader tf the translator /writer's
sincerity and commitment to the experience of the novel ts
clearly evident tn the telling of the tale. More so. since the
translator is the writer himself.
The English translation, 'The Weary Generations, ts the
product of a labour of love. The urgency of the narration
combines wtth an artistic restraint. and the language of
translation acquires the creative fervour of original writing.
The following passage from the first chapter of the novel is
just a sample:
Holding the Jar aloft, transferring It from hand to
hand as the anns got tired, Roshan All rode for
sixty hours, day and night, stopping off only three
times during the period for a bite to eat from his
bag and a few minutes· rest. That was all that the
horse and the rider could do before the two of them
got too exhausted to go on. But enough had been
accomplished. The honey, leaking drop by drop
through the tiny hole, had attracted ants and other
Insects of all kinds and sizes wherever It fell. Millions
of these creatures not only outlined the surface of
the earth, but most of them could not free
themselves from the dense stickiness of honey and
died there. forming fixed borders to Roshan All"s
land. Roshan All had become Nawab Roshan Agha
not Just In name but In substance as well.
(Hussein 17)
The novel begins fable-like, '"A man on horseback, holding

aloft a leaking jar of honey ... " ( I 3). The man Is Roshan Alt
Khan, who has come from nowhere to somewhere and has
founded a village 1n a strange fashion. He names the village
after his own name. laying claim to the land demarcated by
the leaking jar of honey tn his hand. The veracity of this
part of the tale. as the author says, need not be doubted
since its substantiallty stands established through the solid
evidence of a landmass of ten thousand acres cultivated
and looked after by Roshan Agha. The legendary, the
hearsay or the fable acquires plausibility and becomes
realistic. The fact that Roshan Agha lays claim to the land
demarcated by a leaking Jar of honey is acceptable even to
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24
the reader with a highly modern sensibility as the novel

progresses and gets entrenched in historical reality. There
is the coming together of the real and the imagined, the
strange and the down-to-earth.
The "somewhere" created by Roshan Agha is to become
home for the subsequent generations. Their roots find their
ground, slowly growing deeper and spreading all around over
time. Nairn, the protagonist of the novel. is unable to detach
himself from these roots. Territorial bonding remains strong
even when he has stayed away from his land for a long period
of time. In fact, even his relatio0:ship with Azra, whom he has
married, is predominantly affected by his constant and
inherent attraction for Roshan Pur. Azra's mental make-up
is more a product of the upper class breeding of Roshan
Mahal. The familial affinities are of no consequence in the
face of individual distinctions that develop through the
difference in their physical roots.
The emphasis on physical rooting in the novel acquires
greater signtflcance at the time of Partition. Nairn is pushed
into moving painfully from "somewhere" to "nowhere," as
though he were undoing all that Roshan All Khan had done
to build up his family.
The imaginative dastaan in the novel gradually moves Into
the scanning of political events on the national plane. But
what makes the narrative Interesting is the way In which a
panoramic political perspective becomes accessible to the
reader through the everyday existence of ordinary people. Be
It the First World War, the Jalllanwala Bagh Massacre, the
Gandhian Dandl March, the Civil Disobedience Movement
or the Partition Itself, the novel sensitively depicts men and
women responding and reacting, and making limited
individual choices within the framework of their socio-political
context. The helplessness of a struggling Individual such as
Nairn reaches its lowest at the time of the Partition when he,
like millions of others in the subcontinent, has lost all control
over destiny. They are submerged in the madness of a political
circumstance that pays no attention to them either as
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25
individuals or as communities settled in homes, specific

territories and neighbourhoods.
Generations of people who are weary of struggling for
survival. for jobs, for organising resistance to the British. get
thrown into massive and totally disorganised, violence-ridden
migration to the other side of a border created suddenly. The
panicky and fear-stricken masses of people amongst whom
are Nairn and Ali, wriggle Uke worms who may be crushed,
injured or killed any moment. But these scenes are actually
presented only in the epilogue. A clever storyteller. the writer
has already recorded - before the epilogue - an emerging
atmosphere of doubt and suspicion amongst the Hindus and
Muslims. When the Partition actually happens. (presented
in the epilogue) , and the mass migration starts. there is a
step by step dwindling of logic. and Nairn finds himself joining
a column. From a small, organised group. the column becomes
a baffled crowd, which acquires a gory demeanor as it moves
on, with people dying either of starvation or from the violence
meted out to them.
Stylistically. the author maintains a quietude and
sobriety throughout the novel. Despite telling the tale of
several generations and covering historical events of
tremendous importance, The Weary Generations does not
in any way lose its classical restraint in the language of
narration. The story of Azra and Nairn and the kind of love
they experience moves alongside the story of the nation.
Their parting coincides with the partition of the country.
Tragedy on the personal plane mingles with the tragedy of
the subcontinent. The pathos of the individual deepens a
millionfold as millions suffer with him, distraught
psychologically. emotionally as well as physically, having
been rendered homeless.
Even when the novel is packed with spurts of violence. it
does not have a hint of melodrama or sensationalism
anywhere. The author employs a deceptively simple but subtle
style to narrate the saga of the subcontinent. But at the centre
of the novel is the individual. What effect do events of such
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NARRATING PAR11TION
26
magnitude have on the Individual? The following passage from

the end of the novel is the answer:
The tree, although present In Its bare ordinariness,
seemed to be sliding back, as If the earth beneath It
was slipping. Nairn looked down at the floor under his
feet; It wasn't an earthquake. He felt that he was slipping
back. Suddenly he was seized by the feeling that not
Just the tree and the crowd and the man In It but
everything - everything that he had known - was
receding, becoming too far and going away. (305)
Na.Im recalls what Anees had told h.im once, MFor every
man, there comes a time when he knows he has lost it· (305-
06). What he thought of as a mere homily now comes so alive
in his sharp existential consciousness that the protagonist
experiences a moment of acute self-cognition. It is common
knowledge after th.is that a similar feel Ing of worthlessness
and defeat is actually suffered by many more at th.is point of
time. A persistent experience of pathos has led people to
weariness and eventually to total inertia. However, for the
reader of Tite Weary Generations, these are the •moments of
wakefulness and realisation.
Abdullah Hussein. the remarkable teller of tales. moves
the novel into many a sub-story and narrates stories within
stories, covering a large canvas and bringing alive a whole
age through a variety of characters. While he ·presents
convincing and earthy glimpses of village life. he also
skillfully delineates party scenes of the privileged classes.
And just as he can draw the vivid reality of the First World
War. he can also evoke the throb of a quiet communal
tension delicately.
As a Partition novel. Tite Weary Generations is distinctly
significant, and exclusive in its rendering of the experience
of parting. It portrays the unique manner in which individuals
Internalise a political situation. The author does not interrupt
the action of the novel through a s eparate commentary on
the h.ighly active politics of those times. The perfect fusion of
the external with the internal makes the novel very
experiential. Pre-Partition history, Partition itself and the
aftermath of Partition are witnessed through generations of
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SADNESS RETOLO
27
people, who become more and more sad and weary as they
get enmeshed in the complex sociology of their age.
The novel comes on the scene just in time to remind us
that the theme of Partition is inexhaustible. The subaltern
cast of The Weary Generations records sadness with such
artistic control that, rather than tears, the novel evokes a
deep mood of reflection over human destiny and a philosophic
curiosity about the bizarre reality created by human beings
themselves.
WoltK Cl·11tD
Hussein, Abdullah. The Weary Generations. New Delhi:

HarperCollins, 1999.
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NARRATIVISING PARTITION:
MEMORY INTO METAPHOR
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INTRODUCTION
·METAPHOR INTERPRETS MEMORY, .. SAYS Cynthia Ozick when she

discusses how metaphor presses hard on language and
storytelling and is at the core of the use of language (282).
The strange and sometimes shocking experiences registered
in memory force their way into expression in the language of
communication, and turn even idiosyncratic, subjective
responses into metaphors that make sense and reach out to
others. In fact. all language is metaphorical because what is
said is really a representation of what is experienced. But
the representation is bound to be the interpretation of what
is experienced, and has therefore the underpinnings of a
·point of view." Each creative text is a unique representation,
a powerful metaphor of a spectftc memory or experience.
Creative writers' sensitive and powerful use of language
in articulating their experience of Partition demands a close
study of each of their texts if one wishes to reach a
comprehensive understanding of the complex range and
dimensions of Partition, and its impact on the people of the
subcontinent. Every story is a distinct metaphor seeking to
give concrete shape to some dimension of the historical
phenomenon of Partition.
This section of the book first offers an essay making a case
for the formulation of spectftc critical and theoretical tools to
examine the large body of Partition literature now available
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NARRAT1NO PAR'ITT10N
32
in several Indian languages. The argument Is based on the

premise that the dynamics of creativity, the quality of
Imagination and the question of memory that are associated
with writing fiction cannot be Ignored In · the examination of
these texts, as they could be by a scholar who may have the
strong orientations of a social scientist eager to collect "data"
or "material" for a project.
The essay, "On Narratlvlslng Partition" looks at how
different perspectives on the experience of Partition find
expression In the short stories of Hindi and Urdu writers. For
Instance, the assault by Partition on the eclectic, Integrated
mlndscape of people like Daujl In Ashfaq Ahmad's story
"Gadarla" comes out as an unforgettable tragedy. When
presented as a fictional narrative, Daujl's experience emerges
with the intense moral sertousn~ of a tragedy - the tragedy
of a human being caught In the net of political decisions,
mob confusion and communal rioting. The writer's point of
view gets revealed In both, the very selection of the subject
for his story, and also through how he narrates It.
What else Is the "story" of Partition If not the story of
conscience? One after another, In the stories selected for a
closer look In this essay. there Is evidence of the moral vision
of the writer questioning the perfectly avoidable brutality
demonstrated at the time of Partition.
Dislocation. migration and redefining identity are major
thematic concerns In Partition literature. The essay,
"Translating India as the Other" looks at how literary texts
such as Bastt, Khwabro (Sleepwalkers) and La.u.te Hue Musa.fir
reveal the pain and tension of getting uprooted, and getting
suspended In time and space. It discusses the plight of the
characters In these stories who, belonging to a culture that
cherishes a deep sense of belonging to a place, a location. a
homeland, are now physically and psychologically ravaged
when they are forced to relocate.
It follows logically that one looks at the post-Partition
scenario vis-a-vis the lives of Muslims who did not migrate to
Pakistan, and struggled to acquire a respectable Identity as
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33
Indian Muslims. ·oe-Troping the Muslim" is my review of a

remarkable collection of stories that offers a picture of the
heterogeneity of Muslim lives in India recorded sensitively in
fiction, as against both, the stereotypical perception and the
homogenising approach that have marked the general
attitude towards this community. This short essay is included
only to emphasise the need to break the stereotype and
inspire the reader to go to these stories for a better
understanding of the Indian reality and the Muslims here.
Literature deconstructs memory if only to create new
memory to be further renewed by the receiver's mind. The
story goes on but/even though with a difference....
Wo1t1t CJ1m
Ozick, Cynthia. Metaphor and Memory. USA: Vintage Books,

1991 .
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CRITIQUING PARTITION NARRATIVES:
IN SEARCH OF TOOLS AND LENSES
THE LAST FEW YEARS have seen a substantial focusing on

Partition literature. But the critical paradigms required for
the study of this massive body of fiction has not received
adequate attention from literary critics in India . While
enough number of Ph .D. dissertations are being written
on this literature, there has not been much effort at evolving
an indigenous critical framework to examine the creation
of a convincing interface between fact and fiction ,
imagination and history, and memory and myth in Partition
literature. Partition had triggered a cultural crisis causing
a definite tum in the flow of history of the subcontinent.
Both the geographical as well as the cultural context of
the phenomenon determined the nature of the experience.
Indeed, the creative expression of the same too was filtered
through a consciousness that cherished the values ,
traditions and myths , beliefs and faiths rooted in this
region . The writer discovered his/her own mode of
expression, tropes and metaphors, and a fresh idiom to
give shape to the raw experience that entailed the division
of the country. In the light of the need for theoretical
wherewithal for the study of Partition literature, this paper
argues for a concerted effort to not only consolidate the
dispersed critical perceptions but also to examine the
uncharted range and variety of Partition experience. This
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CRmQUINC PAJl'TfflON M.'l!..■.A11YIS
35
wtll help evolve an authentic critical position native to the

literature of Its study.
Of late, In their efforts to understand the rupture caused
by Partition In the history of the Indian subcontinent,
historians and social scientists have been using literature
to access the varied experiences of people In 1947. Official
history has stored statistics of numbers of migrants/
refugees. rapes, murders, etc. Also, there are records of
political debates and positions of leaders regarding the
Partition of the country. At the level of the masses, the
Intensity of the experience was so deep and strong that easy
articulation of the same was not possible. In fact, there
seemed to have been a deliberate effort at pushing the gory
reality of those experiences Into the subconscious. to be
amnesiac about them. From where would the refugee or
the victim of rape or even the one who may have killed his
neighbours have mustered that extraordinary fortitude to
be able to confront the gruesome past, specially when the
present urgently required their full energy to construct not
only new homes but also a new identity. Amnesia served as
a survival strategy. Memory as a site then acquires a very
critical Importance , as It enables . an alternative
Interpretation of history. Millions of people traumatised Into
silence found voice In the writer's use of memory that
negotiated the present In the light of the past. The revived
past In Mohan Rakesh's short story, "Malbe ka Malik" ("His
Heap of Rubble"), for Instance, Is regenerative because It
brings the protagonist to terms with the present. Manifested
In literature, such fragments of memory, In the words of
the well-known Pakistani writer, Bapsl Stdhwa, sought a
poetic license. "Lahore would keep burning" for an Inordinate
length of time In memory, Sldhwa said, till It Is confronted
squarely. In order to reconstruct the event, a fresh
configuration of memory Is bound to take place when filtered
through the present. nie devices used by the writer may be
that of Interrogation. Introspection, or even a faithful and
clinical depiction of events of the past.
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NARRATING PARIIII011
36
Even though etched in collective consciousness. Partition

experiences remained unarticulated and buried in the
wasteland of memories. It needed several decades for society
to bring to the conscious level what lay submerged in the
minds of people for so long. The creation of Partition literature
led to a revival and, to borrow Foucault's words, a resurgence
of hidden suppressed histories that destabilise and challenge
the official ones. The nightmarish past had to be exorcised. It
had been a time when humanity seemed to have surrendered
to bestiality completely. whether through victimhood or by
indulgence in an act of violence. The archives of memory
collected in literature speak abundantly for the subaltern
experience which has been overshadowed by official history.
Khushwant Singh's A Train to Pakistan, Bhisham Sahnfs
Tamas, Jogtnder Paul's Sleepwalkers, Intlzar Husain's Basti
and many other novels recalled the past as a rupture that
has been followed by continual reenactments of the same
phenomenon. The project of an engineered "forgetting."
whether conducted by the individual, the society or the state,
came under scrutiny with the production of powerful Uterary
texts that reveal the different colours of Partition. It
questioned both the censoring as well as the denial of
experience.
The numbness in the psyche of those affected by Partition
had been like the lull after a devastating storm or an
earthquake. It was a sense of bewilderment, a
dumbfoundedness , a stony silence as also a sense of
helplessness. On the other hand, the country had just
acquired the long sought after freedom. Hundreds of people
had become martyrs in the struggle for independence and
there were countless numbers of selfless, idealistic freedom
fighters. The euphoria of freedom and a deep sense of anguish
over the Partition riots could not really be contained or
experienced simultaneously. An utter confusion followed the
contradictory nature of the circumstances. The multiple uses
of memory include the use of nostalgia, of taking a sentimental
Journey into the beautiful past, as if to salvage humanity, or
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CRmQUINO PARTmON IWUIA'ffllES
37
to recover moments of solidarity and connectedness. While

Krishna Sobtl's Zlndaginama brings alive an era of perfect
co-habitation of different communities, Kamleshwar's Hindi
novel, Laute Hue Musaflr, Is an example of communities coming
back together after the dispersal caused by the Partition.
These are just a couple of examples from amongst many
fictional narratives which demonstrate a vision of prioritising
communal harmony In the wake of bitter memories of the
violence of Partition riots.
There are many stories In Hindi and Urdu that explore
personal memory as a means of relocating Identity. An Intense
process of remembering actually becomes an a ct of
re-memberlng, of healing and putting together the fragmented
bruised self In order to recover the dignity of ·human living.
Evoking th~ past through subjective memory and then finding
ground In the new rf!Sllty became an effective device for the
process of reshaping Identity. In Lallthamblka Antharjanam's
story. "A Leaf In the Storm: the protagonist does not need to
recall. but In effect she has to rid herself of the memory of the
brutal rape she suffered during Partition; only then would
the new r~Jtty of the baby In her womb get any space In her
psyche. It Is the direct physical consciousness of the
movement of the baby In her body that connects her with her
new Identity. Memories can be like shadows, haunting and
oppressing an Individual till death.
Memory can Indeed become a burden. There are many
characters In Partition fiction who feel doomed because they
cannot forget, or they want to cling to their sweet memories
of the pre-Partition past, If only to escape from the reality of
the angst generated by the cruel present. In the Urdu story
by Joglnder Paul, "Dartyaon Pyaas" ("Tillrst of Rivers"), the
old woman does not part with the bunch of keys of the havelt
that she and her family had to abandon when they migrated
across the border. She actually believes that she will be able
to open the locks of her son's new house with those keys.
She cannot forget and remains stuck to her past.
It took the sensitivity, keen observation and the
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NM..-..A1UIO PAkiiiiON
extraordinary objectivity of a creative writer to witness, identify

and articulate the plurality of the experiences of Partition.
The writers captured moments of compassion and love from
within the scenario of the brutality of degenerate humanity.
And If there was a representation of bizarre violence, It was
portrayed 1n such a manner that It aroused disgust through
the "aesthetics of the ugly.· What Is noteworthy Is that a large
body of good fiction was written In Punjabi, Urdu, Hindi,
English, Sindhi and Bangla. not with any avowed dldacttctsm
or melodrama, but to confront the truth of the felt experience.
This process held up a mirror to the society, a mirror that
offered a closer look at both, the warts as well as the blossoms
of humanity.
An aesthetic rendering of the incidents of Partition. be it
that of migration or rape or murder, and an excavation of the
deeply wounded psyche of the victim as also of the agent of
violence, continued to be of deep concern to creative writers.
specially to those who experienced the trauma of Partition
themselves. It was the writer who had the courage to face
such experiences with acute alertness and explore the
working of the human mind at the collective as well as the
individual level. Even If the action was not a pre-meditated
one, there was a compelling need to figure out the makings of
a mind that could so easily indulge in barbarism. What is
pertinent to note here is that literature is not created either
to document sociology, or to provide any historical evidence.
It is not written to ptove any political viewpoint either. What
is paramount is the writer's commitment to search for truth
through a non-partisan narration of life-experience, without
compromising essential human values such as social Justice,
compassion and love. In an atmosphere of combative feelings.
hurt, vengefulness and repugnance, the writer felt the need
to nostalgically recall the value of the earlier sense of
community and connectedness with the neighbour. which
had transcended any kind of communallsm. Krishna Sobtl's
Hindi story, "Sikka Badal Gaya" and Abdullah Hussein's
Udaas Naslein come to one's mind in this context.
Original from
CRfflQUINO PAlfffflON 11.t~"UIATIYSS
From subjective, lndlvtdual memory to collccttvc memory,

and moving on to connect with a non-linear cultural
mythology, Partition narratives churned up symbols that
corresponded with notions and myths sanctioned by the
society. The point of reference for the symbols used ls then
that of the memory lying ln the storehouse of culture. For
instance, the Urdu writer lntlzar H11satn used the notion of
·hJjrat" to describe migration and cxlle. In a literature that
dwells so much on cultural rootedness, crltlcal appreciation
has to develop suitable tools and resources for the formulation
of a relevant critical theory.
·What place do you come from?" This ls a question asked
of each other after the initial greetings even today when
former refugees - now a very senior generation of people -
meet, both ln India and ln Pakistan. This highlights the
compelling desire to reestabllsh some contact, lf not with
the place, at least with someone who may have come from
the same town or city as themselves. The strong sense of
place ln Manta's story, ·Toba Tek Singh" gets further
accentuated when lt ls revealed that ·Toba Tek Singh,"
besides being the protagonist's name, ls also the name of
the town to which he belonged - an instance of complete
ldentlflcatlon of the person with the place of his orlgln.
Partition severed this strong relationship physically, but
perhaps that ls the very reason that psychologically lt
became even stronger. "This ls Lucknow" - thus begins
Jogtnder Paul's Urdu novella. Sleepwalkers. It ls actually a
statement made about Karachi, because the mohajlrs had
carried their Lucknow ln their minds to Pakistan. This sense
of terrltorlallty holds within itself also a sense of specific
ancestry. norms, moral order and a special cultural meaning.
The massive migration of people ln 1947 meant many a story
emerging from the experience of exile. Critical theory alien
to this culture would not hold good for an adequate reading
of these narratives.
The exodus of kaftlas (large groups of people) had no defined
destination. It was a journey to exile and homelessness. To
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suffer an exodus of this nature, for people who otherwise

cherished the long entrenched notion of neighbourhood as
family, was In Itself totally disconcerting. And to make It worse,
It was a Journey through a grotesque dance of Violence. ibe
child who reached safety Is dead, It cannot speak. The living
child who could have spoken has been lost on the way"- this
perception, expressed In G\Jlzsr's story, "Ravt Paar" speaks
for the quality of silence of those who became permanently
exiled and suffered a throttling of speech. Their Journey Into
their selves remained forever an "Unwritten Epic" (the tttle of
a story by Intlzar Husain). Their disowned memories are
sklllfully retrieved by the creative writer and empathetically
given a language. In Jamila Hashml's story, "Banished." the
acute alienation of the woman married to the man who
abducted her Is projected as the story of Sita whose exile Is
never going to end.
Even the "rehabilitated" woman could not regain access
to the normalcy of Interpersonal relationship. Official
rehabilitation programmes could not de-condition the
mindsets of people. of both men and women. from shedding
notions of ~honour" related to "purity," "chastity" and so on.
of woman. The abducted "fallen" woman could not be
accepted in the hearts of people even if officially there were
enough programmes to rehabilitate them. Rajinder Singh
Bedi unravels this pertinent truth in his story "La.Jwantt."
After La.Jwantt is located and taken back by her husband.
there is a mutual inability on their part. with both La.Jwantt
and her husband unable to ask the right questions and
resolve the strain in their relationship. It is obvious that
even Sunderlal, who raises slogans for the rehabilitation
and acceptance of abducted women. is unable to give her
normal space. An understanding of such culturally defined
norms of living and relationships - whether with the
neighbour or with one's own wife, daughter or mother -
needs to be built into the critical framework required for a
closer look at Partition experiences and their impact on the
re-orientations tn modem India. If the silences are identlfted
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CRmQUINO PAR'ffl'ION N.UIIIATIVD
41
in creative literature, literary criticism needs to interpret

them in the light of the worldvtews upheld in the society
which has produced that literature. Only then can it have
credibility.
The cultivated genocide and organised violence experienced
by the Jews in the West during the Holocaust cannot compare
With the kind of spontaneous violence experienced during
the Partition riots. It would not be right therefore to use the
same paradigms for critiquing the literature emerging from
the two phenomena. The survivors of Partition clearly perceive
Partition as an end of a certain kind of innocence. the
Innocence of a shared culture and the sense of togetherness
that had evolved over centuries between Hindus and Muslims.
Qurratulatn Hyder's RiverofFtre, a post-Partition novel, traces
the history of negotiation and the process of mutual
assimilation of cultural practices of Hindus and Muslims. It
offers a vision of a gradual developing of composite culture in
India through a sharing of rituals, languages as well as
essential worldviews. The unprecedented violence between
the two communities during the Partition riots came as a
shock.
In fact. the suddenness of the rioting was so mind-boggling
that. as evidenced in many a fictional representation of this
violence in literature, there is greater sanity in the reaction
of characters who were actually taken to be mad . The
absurdity of the hatred, the violence and in fact the Idea of
Partition itself was perceived rather easily by the characters
who were considered insane, such as Manto's Toba Tek Singh,
Deewane Maulavi Sahib of Sleepwalkers and Jarnatl in
Tamas. A critic who ts not equipped with the history of the
nature of these composite cultures in India may not be able
to comprehend the full significance of the metaphor of lunacy
used so effectively by the writer. The literary works mentioned
shake one out of all complacency because such writing ts an
act of faith and conviction. They have a sense of Immediacy
and urgency about them, and draw upon the existential
contingencies of ordinary people trapped in the grand designs
Original from
~ - PAlffl110fll
42
of politics. The imaginative transcription of history tn such

literature creates meta-history or meta-narration, extracted
painfully from the courageous dtalecttc between history and
literature. The orthodoxy of official history ls Impressively
demolished through narratives llke Bapsl Sldhwa's Cracking
Ind.ta. Abdullah Hussein's Udaas Naslet.n or Manta's story
•Mozel,• as each of these stories offer a different perspective
on Partition.
Whtie journalistic writing In the immediate aftermath of
Partition thrived on descriptions of savagery and indulged
In what came to be called ·pornography of violence,· creative
literature sought to work out the aesthetics of presenting
savagery with a human face. The tension of violence in
Gulzar's Urdu story ·Khauf" (Fear) and the extremely
delicate handling of actual violence and its psychosis by
Sa'adat Hasan Manto In such Urdu stories' as ·Khol Do"
(Open It) and the vignette ·s1yah Hashiye· (Black Margins)
arouse a repugnance for what happened. Here the
presentation of violence In itself acquires a therapeutic
value. Urvashl Butalta's book, The Other Side of Silence,
records the personal stories of many survivors of Partition
violence, many In the form of confessional chronicles of
unacknowledged experience. Sharing Is In Itself
empowerment. And, notwithstanding the distortions that
may have come with the tricks that memory can play or
with the change of perception over time, recalling and
articulating the "other side" of silence provided a lot of people
with an indirect acknowledgement of their own suffering.
Fictional narratives, when juxtaposed with subjective and
confessional sharing, reveal different dimensions of the
same experience.
Closely reviewing the status and condttion of women during
Partition, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin perceptively and
systematically bring to use personal narratives, some literary
examples and official records for their research. Since the
material is all grounded In the society that actually went
through Partition, their book, Borders and Boundaries,
Original from
CRmQUDIO PAR'lfflON NARMffll'IS
43
becomes a must for an Intimate understanding of the gender

issue in relation to Partition experience. This book Is a g9()d
critical and conceptual Intervention in charting the
complicated situation of women as victims as well as agents
for ·action. It delineates both, how Partition crippled the lives
of hundreds of women, and also how It became an enabling
experience for many women who launched a confident
struggle thereafter to work out a new identity for themselves.
often through a great deal of enterprise, without feeling any
need for male support.
What Is also being argued here Is the need to apprise one's
self of the entire range of perceptions and insights already
derived by critics, social scientists, historians. psychologists
and others for a multi-disciplinary. indigenous critical theory
that could consolidate and make possible a fuller study of
Partition literature.
Looking at the fiction written in all the languages
mentioned earlier in this paper. one notices that an
exhaustive body of Partition narratives has been generated
in the ftve decades following the independence of the country.
What are the reasons for this almost obsessive focus of so
many writers In the country? Is it the Incomprehensibility of
the catastrophic event as it took place in the writer's own
personal life. or is it the bafflement with the collective tragedy?
Is it written to cogntse the degeneration of humanity, if only
to come to terms with it? Does it have a therapeutic value? Is
it catharsis that we are after? Or then. is it a concern with
the on-going communal strife sporadically flaring up into
violent riots in various parts of the country? Didn't, for
instance. the 1984 communal flare-up. when the demon of
divisive forces again raised its head, take us back to 1947? Is
Partition then perceived as the soil in which the seeds of
communal divide were sown? Do the personal. political,
national and cultural crises come together In this large body
of Partltlon literature produced in the last five and a half
decades?
A timely unified aesthetic comprehension of Partition at
Original from
IWUIA11110 PARffl10N
44
the human level would perhaps help in evoMng a much better

ethos for composite ltvtng and harmony In the country. But
when aesthetics ts marginalised by the mire of poltttca.l
Interests and religious fanaticism. then ltt~rature remains
within the confines of academia or an elitist readership. The
society at large cannot benefit from the invaluable Insights
to be found between the covers of books. How could one not
be moved by the fate of the little child In Bhlsham Sahnt's
"Pall," a story tn which the child undergoes religious
conversion twice and Is trapped In the meaninglessness of
dogmatic religious afllltatlons? The process of demontstng the
"other" through the politics of divisiveness leaves no place
for Ashfaq Ahmad's Daujt, a character in his story "Gadarta"
("'lbe Shepherd"). Daujt Is a Hindu Pandit seeped in Persian
language and culture. He Is humiliated during the riots. One
has to lmow the story of that harmonious "Ganga-Jamunt"
culture from the inside, to be able to realise the acute tragedy
of Daujt.
Thanks to new historiography and fresh epistemological
methodology, fictional as well as personal narratives now
command due recognition for the role they play tn offerl.ng
Insightful perceptions, and In developing a substantial
lmowledge-base for the study of an age, a culture, an historical
event, as also a political scenario. Even an understanding of
the nature of the writer's Imagination offers Insights on the
times and the social context he or she was situated in. Uterary
criticism cannot exist as an Isolated, autonomous activity. It
must evolve from the very literature It examines. Since
literature emerges from specific assumptions about life and
livtng patterns, critical theory too has to take cogntzance of
not only the same vortex of beliefs, assumptions, and
metaphysics, but also the language and its meaning, so that
it can access the specificity of the experiences recorded In
literary texts.
In an age when fanaticism, communal strife and the
politics of divisiveness are on the rise, it becomes imperative
to take stock of dispersed perceptions, bring specialised
Original from
CRmOUING P'ARTfflON IWUIA11VE8
45
studies together and create a climate for a balanced

understanding of Inter-community relationship. An aesthetic
apprehension of Partition Is bound to evoke sensitivities
relevant to present times: and the nostalgl~ for the multl-
ethnic, multi-religious co-habitation should not be dismissed
as sentimentalism. Why not nostalgia If It can save humanity
from pathological psychic distortions ·-and perversions?
Original from
DE-TROPJNG THE MUSLIM: A REVIEW OF
IMAGE AND REPRESENTATION - STORIES OF
MUSLIM UVES IN INDIA
IMAGES OF MUSUM UVES in varied contexts and locales in India

emerge in the stories selected by Mushirul Hasan and
M. Asaduddtn in their book Image and Representation: Stories
of Muslim Uves in India. These images do not conform to any
one construction of Muslim life in the subcontinent. but they
speak for a variety of Muslim lives in plural specificities, a
point asserted by the editors in their Introduction to the book.
This collection of stories sets out to demolish the myth of a
single homogenised identity of the Muslims in India, a myth
built up and reinforced gradually after Partition when Muslims
came to be perceived as the "other" community. As a result.
the diversity within this community became invisible in
popular perception.
Talking of the 110 million Muslims living in different parts
of the country, with their own long histories, it would be
grossly simplistic and even unfatr to confine and fix their
existence within a single frame. Stories from at least twelve
Indian languages have been picked to bring together the livtng
plurality of Muslim identity in this country. This is in itself a
commendable task, and the editors have met this challenge
squarely and competently. The representation of the Muslim
through stereotypical images often bulldozes the richness of
the fine cultural distinctions between the Muslims of one
region and another, thereby erecting the notion of a single
Original from
DE-TROPINC 'l1f& MUSLIM
47
unified Muslim identity. This anthology presents the

multicultural reality of Muslim societies captured In the local
culture (of the region) of each of the languages from which
the stories have been selected. The variety of perceptions
gets further accentuated by the time-span covered In the
volume, which In Its linearity, covers almost the whole of the
twentieth century.
In the Introduction to the book, the editors spell out the
logic behind the selection of the stories In this book:
The real task, one that has eluded the grasp of many
historians of medieval and modem lndla, ls to bring to
attention the enormous dlveralUes and the variety of
beliefs and practices, the multiple levels at which a
Muslim relates to the temporal and spiritual world In
day to day IMng (5).
Rather than reinforcing the narrow and sometimes

misleading theories on Islam and Muslim identity, the editors
of the book recognise the different hues of Muslim lives and
the dynamism of Islam, and wish to Illuminate our
understanding through Its living demonstration In the stories
of their volume. The acknowledgement of the pluralistic visions
that have shaped Muslim communities In India dismantle
the Orientalist construction of Islam. The thrust of this
collection of short stories Is to help comprehend the complexity
of Muslim societies from outside the traditionally restricted
framework that produces biases and rigid notions. The
changing and diverse Images of Muslim communities In the
subcontinent could not be better reflected In any discourse
other than that of literature.
Why literature? The question posed by the editors In the
Introduction gives them an opportunity to offer their rationale
for choosing fictional discourse for purposes of socio-historical
documentation. Fiction Is a privileged site, they say. because
in It, perhaps better than In other forms of discourse, one
can see the workings of Ideology In the lived experience of
society. The editors of the volume assert the role of literature
in making space for a variety of voices that offer multiple
versions of "truth."
Original from
NAIIMIUIO PAR1T11011
The three writers chosen from the pre-Partition era In the

book are Sarat Chandra Chatterjee. Munshi Premchand and
Rabindranath Tagore. all of them writing when Hindu Musltm
relations were at a rather low ebb. Interestingly. like many
others In the volume. these writers agonise over the tensions
between the two communities and are non-Musltms. Though
this Issue ts not problematised by the editors, what comes
across by virtue of this. Is the sensitive sharing of the anguish
experienced by the "other." stressing thereby the bonding
between the two communities.
, realised both In life as well as
In the creative sphere.
Perceiving the writer's role as a social reformer, Premchand
built conscious visions of Hindu-Muslim unity on a
humanistic plane. Whtie for the elite Bengali thinkers the
Muslims stood as an external proletariat. Tagore seems to
juxtapose Muslim characters With caste Hindu polemics.
Ashfaq Ahmad's Urdu story. "Stony-Hearted," dismantles the
notion of cultural tncompatlbtltty. and tn Jogtnder Paul's
"Asylum," the word Pakistan becomes symbolic of "home" for
the agonised and the displaced. The story of continual
partitions ts told through Kurban Bhat In Swayam Prakash's
Hindi story. "Partition." Inter-community tensions. separate
cultural spheres and moments of harmony emerge alongside
an atmosphere of terror In the stories by Amarkant, Ramesh
Dave and Mohan Parmar. It Is the variety of suffering that
seems to define Muslim existence tn these stories, and this,
in tum, tells on the level of harmony, or the lack of tt. In the
larger context wtthin society.
At times suspected of being Bangladeshi tnftltrators, the
fate of the Indian Muslim tn N. S. Madhavan's Malayalam
story "Mumbai" reveals yet another painful context of Muslim
existence. In Homen Borgohatn's Assamese story, "In Search
of Ismail Sheikh," the poignant anxieties of the Muslim
immigrants reveal themselves. Bihari Muslims have their own
tale to tell In "Alefa," a story by Shauhat Osman from
Bangladesh. Besides, there are internal dissensions wtthtn
the Muslim community too.
Original from
OE·TROPINC 11IZ MUSI.IM
49
Whether it is the Muslim tn Kashmir (Padma Sachdev's

"Where has my Gulla Gone?") or the story of Muslim life in
coastal Kamataka (Fakir Mohammad Katpadt's "Nombu"), or
the tale of the Muslim woman tn lsmat Chugtat, the stories
in this book unravel different aspects of Muslim lives. The
Image of the Muslim could be that of a natural member of the
same famtly in a culturally composite society, or tt could be
one of a suffering victim of communal conflict. The complexity
of Muslim identities becomes even more pointed when
questions regarding appropriation, self-images and
representation are further problematised. This volume
presents ample material for many potentially useful research
projects. The plethora of questions raised tn the Introduction
come alive and become disturbing as one comes to the end of
the book: Does living beside each other mean living with each
other? Is meeting ceremonially on Dtwali or Id enough to
obviate the exclusivist mindset built Into the collective psyche
of the people? If not, what is the way out for the two
communities in a conflict-ridden situation? These are some
of the questions this volume raises in the mind of the reader.
Image and Representation. though primarily a book of short
stories. ts a collection with a difference. It offers a selection
made with a purpose, which has been articulated perceptively
tn the Introduction by Mushirul Hasan and M. Asaduddin.
Reaffirming our faith in the story as a sensitive site for the
understanding of social formations and identities, the editors
present crucial Issues for further intellectual debates.
Hasan, Mushirul and M. Asaduddtn. Image and

Representation: Stories on the Partition of India. New Delhi:
UBS, 1995.
Original from
ON NARRATIVISING PARTITION
THE EXPERIENCE OF HUMAN suffering and the gruesome process

of the division of the country got recorded In a variety of
ways, through diaries and memoirs as well as through
historical and official documentation. All those tropes of
forgetting, exclusion, and silence, as also marginalisation,
have been consistently dealt with by sensitive narratives
produced by writers deeply affected by the Partition. These
".
,.. narratives offer insights into the new sense of subjectivity,
the profound sense of rupture and the deep personal
meanings emerging from the grotesque human massacre
and mass exodus of panic-stricken people from one side of
the newly erected border to the other Just in order to be
close to their own religious group. The long-awaited Mfreedom"
brought to a whole people not merely an exhilarating political
freedom, but a rather tragic snapping of their roots that
had developed over centuries, within specific geographical.
cultural and social boundaries.
The province of Punjab went berserk with one of the
greatest migrations in all human history . Strangely. an 1
irrational savagery was demonstrated by the very same people
who had set out to prove to the world how Mcolonialism" could ,
be defeated by non-violent Gandhian means. Indeed. such
historical contradictions offer tremendous creative
potentialities and possibilities. Whether it be in Hindi, Urdu,
Original from
ON IWUIA'l'MlllNC PMl'ITl10N
51
Punjabi or even Engltsh or Bengali, the aesthetic distillation

of the horrendous experiences of Partition ls found in
abundance. An account of the same 1n history can perhaps
be summed up 1n objective terms 1n Just one or two volumes.
But the scope of exploration of the range of experiences in
creative arts seems to be almost 11mttless.
The new mental landscape of India and Pakistan was
now characterised by hatred, mutual suspicion between
Hindus and Muslims. arson, loot, abduction of women ,
mass hysteria, homelessness and insecurity. In but a few
years, the sheer primitive bestiality demonstrated by the
people of the subcontinent ripped open the very social fabric
woven by traditional values, religious faith and a steady
sense of protection yielded by commitment to one's mohalla
(neighbourhood). It ls perhaps the incomprehensibility of
the situation that has been energising the creative
sensibility of a large number of writers here. No official
history can offer any understanding of the complex and
strange workings of the human mind in those moments
when relationships suddenly collapsed. and perfectly
normal human beings began to display a completely
incomprehensible bestiality. The writer's intrigued
sensitivity is repeatedly led into exploring the phenomenon
of Partition in experiential terms, a partition which is much
more than a political divide.
In fact , creative literature focusing on the theme of
Partition presents the underside of history, the continuities
in time, and human consciousness. And Partition is not
historicised as an event of the past. In actuality, that "past"
has been perpetually digging into the present. The present
condition of the Indian mind ls gauged by the writer
narrating stories and recreating the reality of a whole people
who had gone through apocalyptic experiences. Clearly,
what emerges is a redefining of the contours of human
consciousness. The creative writer in the sub-continent has
been working and reworking Partition in fiction if only to
come to grips with the dynamic thrust of human
Original from
NARMflNO PARilli014
consciousness struck by both, the collective as well as

indivtduar level tragedy. For the relation between the actual
social conditions and the reality of the individual ·s
experience to be understood, the writer has had to constantly
evolve a new strategy to confront the actuality of the
historical and cultural ·accident· of Partition. Human
relationships were re-evaluated, values were re-examined
and a new sensibility emerged.
Apart from giving rise to macabre scenes of death, the
Radcliffe axe, as It was called, caused a complete dislocation,
whether It be of places of pilgrimage, sources of Irrigation,
historical associations or economic activities. Radcliffe
realised of course, the extent to which the people of the Punjab
were aggrieved: ·People sometimes ask me whether I would
like to go back and see India as It really is. God forbid, not
even 1f they asked me. I'd suspect they'd shoot me out of hand
both sides· (Mosley 200).
Partition, In fact, did not merely mean two new
geographical dominions. As the examination of creative
literature proves, It gav~ birth to a new psychic dominion as
.
1. well. For the expression of this new sensibility, the traditional
literary forms had to be modified, and the short story was
adopted as the most suitable form of expression. Incidentally,
.' ft is important to point out that the turning point in the
history of the short story is not to be ascribed just to the
reception of Western ideas. As Ganesh Devy suggests,
concepts and ideas evolved in Europe's ·mono-lingual, non-
colonfsed, non-balkanised cultures are bound to undergo
important ideological mutations when employed in an
essentially tolerant polytheistic and eclectic Indian culture·
(Devy 137). Various aspects of modernism, as ft shaped Itself
in Western literature, emerged from a cultural crisis. In the
Indian situation too, ft was the cultural crisis created by
Partition that easily hosted new ideas, along with a sptrtt of
resurgence that accompanied the process of rebuilding the
nation and rehabilitating the dislocated people. Western ideas
on modernism were imbibed and indtgenfsed, and fresh
Original from
ON NARMTIVISNC PAll'TfflON
elements located for an authentic and creative expression

of new ideas and experiences.
Ashfaque Ahmed's story. "Gadarta" ts a classic example
of a narrative capturing a very poignant moment from
modem Indian history - when a sturdy and robust communal
integration ts assaulted by an insane and ignorant mob
provoked by the announcement of the division of the country.
It ts a powerful reminder of the irony that the backdrop of
the violent communal riots of 1947 was that of cultural
harmony and shared religious concerns. The essentially
"tolerant, eclectic and polytheistic" society ts encapsulated,
as it were, tn the psyche of Daujt whose knowledge of Islamic
religion. history and culture makes him a thorough insider
of the Muslim culture, even though he is very much a
conscious Hindu . The grotesque and irrational violence
directed at him by Muslim gangsters during the rioting that
occurred on the eve of Independence ts absurd. Daujt, who
ts a perfect example of communal synthesis, becomes the
victim of frenzied Muslim gangsterism. His chott, which
stands for his Hindu identity, is clipped and he is made to
read the Kalma. He of course knows the Kalma better than
those Muslims. But all his Islamic scholarship ts reduced
to nullity in the face of his own represented identity as a
Hindu. His lifelong commitment and learnedness may have
diffused his own insulated Hindu self-consciousness, but
that happy capacity to participate in the other's religion
becomes quite meaningless in the face of the fanatical and
crude proclamations of the rowdy rioters who were bent on
sifting the public into Hindus and Muslims. The story ends
With the powerful image of Daujt, condemned to become a
shepherd, walking like the long-hatred Fartda behind the
goats.
Although Daujt never forfeited his formal identity as a
Hindu, he was engrossed in Islamic studies, and imbued
with Muslim faith. He often recalled amidst ecstasies of
reverential Joy and gratitude that all his knowledge was a
gift from Hazrat Maulana, his benevolent ailing teacher.
Original from
NARIIAlUIC l'AlnTTION
whom he carried on his back daily to show him around In

their small town. It was a miracle of Hazrat Maulana, said
Dauji. that he became Munshi Chantram from a mere
Chanto, the ignorant and savage goatherd of the family of
Abu Jehel. Interestingly. the image of DauJI as a goatherd
emerges off and on In the story. The gadaria has been
(perhaps unwtttingly) assigned his original vocation by the
rioters. But then this new gadarta could not be the same as
what he had been before he had gone through his Islamic
scholarship. The symbolic connotation of the role of having
to tend the goats would not be missed by him now.
Nevertheless. the humiliation undergone by him - With the
clipping of his chott - is a painful reality. In fact. his humble
and stark simplicity is a formidable front against all those
assaults on his physical and psychological self. He has to
confront the present somewhere in his consciousness. The
fact of the Partition. the separating line between the Hindus
and the Muslims. has to be cognised Within his own psyche .
•
' Or does he transcend this need by going the way of Fartda,
'' .
. the Sufi saint, whose image haunts the reader till long after
. the story ls over?
In as far as the immediate effect on the human psyche of
the declaration of the Partition ls concerned, Sa'adat Hasan
.
.' Manto's well-known story -roba Tek Singh" seems to take off
from the point where the story "Gadarta" ends. There seems
to be much more lunacy outside the lunatic asylum than
inside. When one of the lunatics climbing high up a tree is
asked to come down, he says, "I don't want to live in Hindustan
or Pakistan. They mean nothing to me. I am going to make
my abode right here on this tree" (Manto 21). When he finally
comes down, he cannot bear the thought of his Hindu and
Sikh friends deserting him and going away to Hindustan.
The emphasis on shared inter-community life made the
"rigmarole' of Pakistan and Hindustan" appear absurd even
to the lunatics: "Were they in Hindustan or Pakistan? If they
were in Pakistan how could it be possible that only a short
while ago they were in Hindustan? How could they be in two
Original from
ON NARRAltlllSINC PAll'TfflON
55
places at the same time? In Hindustan a short while ago and

now suddenly in Pakistan" (21).
As though with an x-ray vision, Manto's presentation of
the mad delicately brings out the painful psychic reception
of the idea of Partition and what the drawing of the boundaries
evoked: utter panic and insecurity amongst the people. When
Bishan Singh, now called Toba Tek Singh, asks an inmate of
the asylum, who considered himself God, where Toba Tek
Singh was, in Hindustan or Pakistan, the "God" claims not to
have taken any decision about its location. Immediately,
Bishan Singh places him in the enemy's camp as being merely
a God of the Muslims, or else, he thinks, he would surely
have given him the information. In a sense, the reality of the
new boundaries is obviously getting injected into their
perception.
Therefore, when the exchange of lunatics takes place and
the police ascertains that 1oba Tek Singh." the village. is in
Pakistan, and that Bishan (who came to be called Toba Tek
Singh) has to be handed over to India: "the man who had
always stood erect on his legs for the last fifteen years was
now lying on his face .... On one side behind him stood together
the lunatics of Hindustan and on the other side across the
road the lunatics of Pakistan. Between them on no-man's
land Toba Tek Singh lay stretched" (27). Manto manages to
project a total identification of the person of Bishan Singh
with his homeland, Toba Tek Singh, simply and naturally.
The last scene of the story rejects the the dividing line by
making Bishan Singh (as a picture of "sanity") lie flat on no-
man's land, while those who seem to accept the new
boundaries by migrating, even though under pressure,
appear lunatics. It is a well-known fact that people, in their
simplicity and lack of awareness of the extent of political force,
had never anticipated such havoc. The in-built resistance to
leaving one's home and the desire to believe in the transient
nature of the disturbances had made some of them linger in
their homes and lands, only to be annihilated and gruesomely
massacred in thousands in the wake of the Partition.
Original from
NARIIA11NO PARTTnON
So then, wherein was sanity? In resisting the uprootment

and dying, or in risking the slaughter. and fleeing as a refugee?
"Toba Tek SinghN offers a fine perception of the thin line
between what may be perceived as lunacy and sanity. Dying
on no-man's land seems to be Bhlshan Singh's final gesture
of rejecting the borders. Becoming a refugee could
undoubtedly devastate the psyche. The experience of total
uprootment could incapacitate one from ever leading a normal
life. What was important was to ftnd a way to come to terms
with the big loss ... the loss of a homeland, property. a familiar
environment and the security of one's family and friends.
The trauma of losing all sense of belonging could not be
overcome easily.
Partition has been articulated in sensitive and artistic
narratives over and over again in the last fifty years. as an
evolving tragedy operating at various levels of consciousness
.
•,
in diverse contexts. To narrativlse an event from the distant

past demands a very strong use of imagination that can
transform historical fact into artistic truth, with all its rights
of autonomous literary existence. How a literary text may help
".
I. in perceiving the reallty of the phenomenon in objective terms .
would depend on the power of the narrative content and the
.. truth it strives to explore .
...
.•. Since Partition is recent history, and many from amongst
the affected masses are still alive. to narrativlse Partition is
not really a re-construction of the past, but rather. a
recording of a continuous present. In that sense Partition
is a living fact. as much in the present as in the past.
Nostalgia on the one hand, and a feverish desire to build up
a new life, on the other, generated a host of emotional as
well as socio-eultural orientations. Partition also created a
new political consciousness in Hindu-Muslim community
relationship. The communal strife demonstrated in the last
fifty years in India and Pakistan is a fall -out of the same. All
these fresh contexts of human existence are consistently
captured in literature. The narratives created tell the history
of the emotional make-up of these regions and bring out
Original from
OH NARRATlll1SINC PARTfflON
57
vital dimensions of new life emerging from total devastation.

The continuous present carries within Its folds the
devastated past.
Joglnder Paul's Urdu story. "Darlyaon Pyaas" ("'Ibtrst of
Rivers") unfolds the acute pathos embodied In the personality
of Bebe. the grandmother. The pain Injected In her by the
Partition Is described as follows: "'Ibe bundle of pain lies open
in the womb of mother earth: from which arc born twin
children soaked In blood. causing the death of the mother.
There ts no one to wash and clothe the newborn. And, there • •
ts no one to give them shelter or food." (Paul 18). Now. with
the death of this mother earth, Bebe, the story's most powerful
character, forfeits her present as much as her future. Urged
to go by her dead husband, who Is more than alive In his
haveli through Bebc's hundreds of associative memories,
when Bebe actually leaves, to her the ancestral house seems
populated, as it were, by a long string of relations - husband's
father, his father's father, and so on. Notwithstanding her
physical departure, Bebe, as it is described tn the story, Is in
fact Inwardly stationary. She has taken a decision not to
leave the havelt. She is rooted in the warmth of this house
filled with the presence of live memories and the spirits of
the ancestors.
Tots story was written more than three decades after the
fact of Partition, and the author sensitively records In it the . .
extent to which Bebe's consciousness is stirred by Partition.

The author's perception as well as his style are contemporary,
while the ethos and the orientation of the main character
remain realistically traditional. Bebe's bunch of keys stands
as a symbol of authority presented to Bebe, and It is a
reflection of the confidence posed in her by the family. This is
central to the story. Till decades later, Bebe had always
carried the bunch of keys on her person, tied to one end of
her sari, believing that the keys will once again, at some time
or the other, manage to open the locks of her havelt. In fact,
as the writer puts tt, the constant rubbing of the keys against
her body had yielded a flesh and blood identity to the keys
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58
themselves; the key of the kitchen door urged her to cook on

time, and the one to the office of her husband seemed to
extend a welcome to her. Desperate and unsympathetic, her
son cannot sec why she cannot reconcile to the changed
circumstance and open the locks of her own psyche. But
then, new keys have to be located to match the new locks of
the present. The old ones are redundant. Bebe is found trying
out all her old keys to open the lock of her son·s new bungalow,
which remains closed to her. She never manages to reach
the insides of the new reality represented by the new
bungalow.
Toe story had begun with the image of Bebe brooding alone
outside her son's new house, the wrtnklcs of her face hanging
heavily with the burden of incidents of the past which are
not merely memories to her. The make-up of her mind
conforms to the traditional cultural pattern and cannot be
·-
•' dissociated from her identity as a wife. She defines herself
always in the context of familial relationships within the world
..•
of the haveli that has its own ethics and norms of existence.
To have her come out of that world would mean a total
demolition of herself. By refusing to accept her separation
from that existence, she keeps her past intact through her
attachment with the bunch of keys. Toe suddenness of the
• Partition gives her no time to comprehend the changing
..,
reality, make new psychic adjustments, and in effect,
reconstruct her identity. Her son has moved on in life and
the dynamism of modernisation has pulled him into its folds -
away from the tradition-bound haveli, and into the new
modem bungalow. In locking Bebe outside the bungalow,
there is, perhaps a suggestion that if tradition cannot be
totally destroyed, it can yet be resisted, dismissed or even
ignored.
Since MDariyaon PyaasM is a story written in the late
seventies, it is important to note that the writer has come a
long way from merely recording the sensational hysteria of
the times. Krishna Sobti's story MSikka Badal Gaya, Mwritten
in 1948 in Hindi, has a similar theme of having to leave
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behind the ancestral house. The main character Shahnl

wants to maintain the dignity of her Shahjfs house by
stepping out of the door respectfully and not In tears. The
familial status and dignity of her ancestors. she thought.
was In her custody. Havtng to migrate and leave this havell
meant a kind of betrayal of the family trust bestowed upon
her. From the house Into the refugee camp, she has to move.
While she Is shedding tears In distress, there Is also the
bloodshed In the surrounding Villages. All this Is due to the
rulers taking an about-turn and changing the seal of
• •
authority. Shahnt has to save herself from the very people
she had helped Just a few weeks ago by contributing
generously towards the building of their masjld. In the light
of such harmonious Interaction. Irrespective of what
religious group the people belonged to. the call for the sudden
exodus of the minority community from there Is unjustifiable.
The story focuses on the pangs of separation at the
tndlvtdual level and the utter bafflement of somebody like
..' ..
Daujl Khan who doesn't know how to respond to Shahnl's
departure. Such narratives as this reveal the confusion that
the announcement of Partition caused at the lndtvtdual and
the social plane. The history of the human psyche recorded
through such stories helps one In understanding a lot of
the resultant problems and orientations of modem Indian
society.
Many of the novels written on the Partition theme In English,
such as Khushwant Stngh's Train to Pakistan. Kartar Singh
Duggal's Tu,tce Bom n.utce Dead. B. Rajan's The Dark Dancer,
and Chaman Nahal's Aiadi paint a rather romanticised picture
of communal harmony In pre-Partition days. But Kamla of The
Dark Dancer offers an Interesting clue to the understanding of
the basis of that horrifying Violence. She attributes the sudden
eruption of Violence to prolonged repression:
"You couldn't have brought It out If It wasn't In us. Ifs
all In us, In many many years of occupation, submission
to the state. obedience to the family, every lnch of our
llves completely calculated, every step down to the
rellef of the grave. And lf we wanted to protest, there
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60
was only the plUleaa dlaclpllne of non-violence. Then

all of a sudden, the garden belongs to us, and we
reach up Into the bloaaomtng tree to pluck the ashes.·
(Rajan 74-75)
The poetic truth of such an Interpretation Is unwound In

Mohan Rakesh's ·Malbe ka Malik" ("His Heap of Rubble"),
both In his sensitive presentation of Gani Mlan's visit to
Amrltsar seven and a half years after the Partition, and In
the replaying of the story of his family's fate during the
Partition riots. Gani Mlan's visit to bazaar Mansa, which
had been a locality of poor Muslims In pre-Partition times,
seems to re-Ignite the most ravaging fire which had
swallowed the majority of the Muslims In the area In 194 7.
He goes there in search of his glorious past and his house.
He is shown all that In Its present shape - all debris. with
broken and burnt bricks sticking out here and there in a
heap of soil. Ironically, a half-burnt frame of the door too
sticks out of It as though inviting him to enter and pick out
'. his memories from his own wreckage. With the touch of his
head against it. he only manages to create another refugee:
he disturbs an earthworm who runs In fright to save himself.
It falls to get another hole or a home. The tell-tale debris of
his house is now under the proprietorship of Rakha. who
was the one who had actually murdered his son, with an
• eye on his house. In the background was the so-called Hindu-
Muslim brotherhood and shared community life within that
mohalla.
The self-interest and greed on the part of many ·Rakhas"
had made them barbaric, under the cover of religious
concerns. Strangely. Rakha had even collected the
concorriitants necessary to hold a havan (oblation by fire) to
consecrate the house after acquiring it from the Muslim
family. And now, for the last seven and a half years. he had
regarded himself as the proprietor of that debris which, even
today. stood for something he could cling to as his house. He
would sit on top of It almost as though time had frozen that
moment seven years ago when he had taken the decision
that it belonged to him. When Gant Mian comes back in total
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61
ignorance of the truth of the matter, the good old days of

"brotherhood" seem to get revived. Rakha suffers from pangs
of guilt as Gani declares his persistent faith in him. It is
essential for Gani to confront both, the reality of the
transformation of his house into debris, as also the reality of
the death of his son and the rest of his family. Rakha's
conscience is aroused and he suffers now for the brutality of
the action he had indulged in earlier.
The moral dimension of the situation begins to reveal itself
to him. Towards the night, Instead of teaching people
gambling tricks. he narrates to Lachha, as if in repentance, • •
the story of his pilgrimage to Vaishno Devt. As he approaches

his "debris" and sits on his "doorstep," In the silence of the
.. .
night, a variety of live sounds emerge from the heap of the
wreckage. It Is as though the debris is coming alive. Rakha
feels that the barking of the dog is directed at him, perhaps
reprimanding him. He feels compelled to dislodge himself from
tlle debris, as if to surrender his right over it. Like the
.' . .
earthworm, frustrated, he has to change his direction and
search for a new home.
In narrativislng the pathos of having to accept a drastic
change of circumstance, the writer succeeds in presenting a
delicate aspect of a human sensibility - that of a strong
..
bonding of an individual with the place of birth, a bonding .....'
that makes that place his homeland. Pushed into a state of
permanent exile, the individual remains forever lost and
seeking. The narrative offers moments of relief through
reconciliation with actuality.
In his critical survey in "The Trauma of Independence:
Some Aspects of Hindi Literature. 1945-47," Alok Rat
discusses how rational behaviour breaks down in the face of
a monstrous upsurge of mass violence. And one of the crudest
consequences of this process, he says, is a kind of literary
indulgence in describing the horror of the violence, which he
refers to as the "pornography of violence" (Rai 321). Since the
cataclysmic phenomenon of Partition offered a lot of
sensational stir, scenes of carnage, devastation and utter
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62
chaos, reality Itself became melodramatic. And a mere slavish

imitation of It in fiction or art in general, would mean
indulgence in horror. The artistic representation of
emotionally charged experiences involves composure and
balance. It is in this that the difference between a historical
narrative and a literary narrative becomes obvious. In the
literary narrative, though the historical remains intact. the
experience is likely to transcend historicity and become
universal. The appeal is far-reaching and the event narrated
has an enduring impact rather than merely getting recorded
in memory.
Even though Kamleshwar's story "Kitne Pakistan?· may
here and there demonstrate, as some critics opine, a
hypnotic fascination with horror, it is a story that yields an
insight Into the cause of the horror and the particular kind
of human psyche it creates. Most stories on this theme
remain trapped in mere descriptions of horror. A zone of
silence between two lovers caused by a rupture of
communication is described by Kamleshwar as what may
be represented in the idea of "the birth of Pakistan.· The
author successfully ascribes. in poetic terms, various
shades of meaning to "Pakistan.· The artistic representation
•
of the symbol of Pakistan at one point in the story indicates
an unusual intensity of emotion: "Perhaps the lack caused
...•..• in the power of feeling in itself is Pakistan" (Kamleshwar 34)
(translation mine).
Many "Pakistans" erupt in individual psyches with the
creation of one Pakistan, complicating and disturbing the
harmony of thousands of relationships. Pakistan then Is not
a mere territory for the masses. At times they associate it
with the nightmarish scenes of violence at its birth.
"Supposing the suppressed flames of my Pakistan flare up
and burst from within me?" (41). Burdened with such a
question, the protagonist of the story addresses ·sanno," his
lost love, and says, "In you, another Pakistan sobs. Each of
us is restless for one's own Pakistan. getting it broken.
Incomplete, in bits and pieces" (50). The desperate quest for
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63
a place where there would be no Pakistan ends with the

conclusion that everywhere there is a Pakistan that
constantly haunts, batters and humiliates one. The story
does well in demonstrating the process of internalisation of
the creation of Pakistan, which comes across in the narrator's
monologue. There is a similar suggestion in Mohan Rakesh's
story "Malbe ka Malik" where, while Rakha is murdering
Chirag, he abuses him and says. "Why do you scream? I am
only giving you your Pakistan, here take it" (Rakesh 103).
And, as the writer specifies, the women were given their
• •
Pakistan in another style: they were abducted, their bodies
were mutilated, and so many were also killed. It is interesting
to observe what identity "Pakistan" acquires in different
minds, as it highlights the dehumanising factor associated
with the process of its creation. The creation of a new political
territory, Pakistan, caused massive upheaval, and thus in
this story and elsewhere, it acquires symbolic connotations
of violence and barbarism. "Why a refuge for Muslims
suddenly?" "Why should Hindus and Muslims become
enemies after Hindustan gets free?" asks someone in Gangauli •
of U.P. in Rahl Masoom Raza's Ad.ha Gaon. These questions

of the common man could only be heard through a literary
narrative, not through historical texts. .- .
. .
Krishan Chander's book of short stories called Hum Vaishi ...
, ....
Hain (We Are Barbarians), published in 1948, uses a novel ... .
technique of having unconventional narrators, such as a
"train" in the story entitled "Peshawar Express." It is as though
these stories attempt to relive the shame and guilt of the
times through an imaginative delineation of atrocities
perpetrated by both the communities. This sense of guilt is
more overtly presented at the end of Chaman Nahal's novel
Azodi when Lala Kanshl Ram, a character in the novel. makes
the following statement with reference to two scenes in which
naked women are paraded (Hindu and Sikh women at Narowal
and Muslim women at Amritsar) and massacres happen on
both sides: "We are all equally guilty. Each one of those girls
In that procession at Amritsar was someone's Madhu ... "
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64
(Nahal 339). And one Is reminded of what Queltln says In

Arthur Miller's play, ~ the Falt "Who can be Innocent again
on this mountain of skulls?" ( 119). After living through the
horrors of the Second World War, those who killed as well as
those who didn't, In some way or the other, carried a sense of
guilt for the rest of their lives. Khushwant Singh in his essay.
"Compulsion to Write" makes a personal confession. "The
Partition theme was born out of a sense of guilt that I had
done nothing to save the lives of innocent people and behaved
Uke a coward" (Singh 195). A multitude of stories were written
precisely due to such an awareness, perhaps to exorcise one's
self of the hatred that one felt for humanity for indulging in
such horrors during the Partition.
Agyeya published a collection of stories and poems in Hindi
in 1948 entitled Shamarthi (Refugee), which documents the
deeply felt pain at the rather hysterical and irrational display
.. of violence in 1947. Manto In "The Dog of Tetwal" extends the
representation of such violence to Its logical absurd end. The
.• dog moving around on no-man's land is shot down by both
Hindu and Musltm soldiers. as each is suspicious of which
country the dog belongs to.
Shaken up totally by the experience of Partition, some of
the writers of Partition narratives indulged In fundamental
.
. reflections on human existence. The experience of
•
... . uprootment. for example, leads Munir Ahmed Sheikh's main
character In his story, "Apnl Sha.kl" to ask. "Who am I? Where
have I come from? Where did I start from? Where do I have to
go?" (Mohan 195). Such philosophic questioning was an
inevitable consequence of sudden physical displacement,
causing a paralysed dread, an acute apprehension of what
was to come. and uncertainty. along with a total
Incomprehensibility of the situation. The Irony was that the
independence of the country lay shrouded under communal
upheavals and deaths.
In a story called "Sapoliye," published in Hans in May
1948, the situation reveals an even more complex historical
context. In the backdrop of the World War, two soldiers. one
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Digiti zed by Google UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ON NAIIRA'l1VISINC PAll'l1110N
65
Hindu and the other Muslim, after having won the war for
the Allies, get killed by communal rioters, as they come back
home. International politics combine with the national
political scene and condemn the common man into a state
of helplessness - a confounded moment of history recorded
in "Sapoliye:
Cynicism, helplessness, decaying human values, spiritual
sterility. were all indeed appropriate Ingredients that went
Into the creation of a sense of absurdity amongst the people.
An existentialism of sorts too (as could be seen In the later ..
•
short stories) was bound to emerge from such a psychological
climate. Macabre scenes of massacres led to an extreme
frustration. negating whatever faith that might have been
upheld thus far. Manik Bandopadhyaya In his "Swadh.lnatar
Swad" (lbe Taste of Freedom) refers to this era as a period of
sudden deaths, of lives taken so casually. There Is a lot of '
lfterature available In Bengali which deals with the theme of

the loss of kinship ties, and delineates an all-pervasive
uncertainty and suspicion amongst people. Banaphul's
"Dangar Samay" (When Riot Time Comes) depicts the genesis
of a sudden distrust and communal belligerence. The socio-
poll tical crisis and anxiety crept into every household,
weighing everyone down with moments of dread and ..
instability. Initially, the partition of the country caused a
tremendous political confusion: eventually it hit hard at the
basic values, beliefs and attitudes of the people affected by
it. Also, this triggered off changes in the patterns of human
relationships as newer perspectives and new lifestyles became
available. The aesthetic expression and articulation of these
changes showed up quite clearly about eight or nine years
later in the "new story."
The "new story" - "Nat Kahani" in Hindi and "Naya Afsana"
in Urdu - appears in the sixties as a crystallization of the
writer's need to re-examine and re-evaluate human existence
and relationships in the context of the evolving new reality.
The fragmentation and dispersal of domestic, social as well
as cultural identity caused by the division of the country
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66
made_Jainendra Kumar's philosophical approach, Agyeya's

experimentalism, or Yashpal's progressivism look inadequate
when it comes to the expression or exploration of the people's
new mental landscape in their changed contexts. With the
movement in history. there also grew a need to explore new
ways of expressing and defining the new sensibility.
Gradually. the writer sought to construct a new order frqm
the wreckage of the Partition. Toe beautiful merger of the
past With the present, and a fine treatment of human history
and private sentiment are revealed in Qurratulatn Hyder's
stories in Urdu, such as "Patjhar K1 Awaz" ("The Sound of the
Falling Leaves") and "Saint Flora of Georgia Ke Etrafaat"
("Confessions of Saint Flora of Georgia"). Toe educated young
woman of "Patjhar K1 Awaz" becomes a monument of
indifference. There are subtle hints of the effect of Partition
on her relationships. on her approach to her men. her
aspirations, and 1n the slow dampening of her spirits. To her,
everything now seems absolutely colourless. insignificant.
purposeless and unnecessary.
Toe new realities had not only to be confronted, they were
"
also to be accepted. In Joginder Paul's story, "Those Who
Stayed Behind." no matter what Mohan might have felt for
nearly three and a half decades after the Partition, he has
•
to face the new reality some time or the other. Toe movement
in time is possible only if there is a psychic acceptance of it.
A Hindu migrant from Pakistan, his Sialkot is lodged safely
in his very being. He visits the city of his birth thirty-six
years after having left it. He brings along With himself his
well-preserved dreams and old memories. An actual trip
around his earlier haunts steadily demolishes his warm
associations With them. He does not feel like himself when
he knocks at the door of his old house. Ironically. no-one
opens the door since "the inmates are out." He has Just had
a vision of his own old self opening the door for him, the
present self being an outsider. But then, it is this outsider
whom he has to accept as his own self now. The tnmate-
turned-extle comes face-to-face With this actuality, the truth.
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67
If the uprooted plant fails to take roots tn the new soil, the
writer tells us, that would be the end of the story (Paul 26-
37). Stalkot gradually exposes Its alien and new ethos to his
psyche.
After the Partition, his friend Jamal had occupied a house
that was ortgtnally the temple of Lord Krishna. While Mohan
Is mentally Involved tn that past, with Images of Krishna
festivals floating In his mind, the awareness of the new present
expresses Itself In the way he greets a cockroach crawling In
the wash-basin, "Aslama-ulatkum." Towards the end of the • •
story, he grieves for Lord Krishna, who seems to stand tn
front of him stripped of his flute, his crown, and his glory,
looking lonely and strange. To his utter surprise, all at once,
the Hindu God rushes for namaaz, as though demonstrating
the total surrender and conversion demanded by the changed
ethos.
The pre-Partition Sialkot which has survived In Mohan,
and from which he had earlier drawn sustenance In inter- ..' . .
community amity, now makes him conscious of his own
religious identity, different from the post-Partition Sialkot.
So then Partition, tt Is suggested, did not merely draw new
geographical boundaries, it, in a way, legitimised communal
separatism. There was a need for the cognition of the new
emergent identities, through, first of all, a detachment from ..
•
the comfortable past.

The examination of the stories reveals that the Partition of
the country ts a past that has continued to feed Into our
present in a variety of ways. The present has of course evolved
from the past. And for an understanding of the history of the
people, it would undoubtedly be rewarding to scan the rtch
reservoir of diverse experiences recorded sensitively by the
creative writer tn long and short narratives. These experiences
tell the story of the Partition, both In the past tense, as also
tn the present continuous.
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NARIIA'IUIC PAR'lfflON
68
Wom Cl1m
Devy G. N. ·comparative Uterature - I." New Quest, May-

June 1987: 133-47.
Dhawan R K.. ed. Explorations in Modem Indo-English Fiction.
New Delhi: Bahri Publications. 1982.
Kamleshwar, ·Kttne Pakistan." Bharat Vibhajan: Hindi ki
Shresht Kahaniyan. Ed. Narendra Mohan. Delhi: Nidhi
Prakashan, 1984.
Manto, Sa'adat l-lasan_ "Toba Tek Singh." Modem Urdu Short
St.ones: Ed. Jai Ratan. New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1987.
Miller, Arthur. After the FalL Penguin Books, 1968.
Mosley, Leonard. Last Days of the British Raj. London:
Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1962.
Nahal, Chaman. AzadL Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1975.
Paul, Jogtnder. -ibose Who Stayed Behind." Indian Literature
Nov.-Dec. XXVI. No. 6, 26-37.
, - - . ·Dartyaon Pyaas." Samkaleen Bharatiya Sahitya. Jan-
'
March, 1983.
Rai, Alok. -ibe Trauma of Independence." Myth and Reality:
The Struggle for Freedom in India ( 1945-4 7). Ed. Amit Kumar
Gupta. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Ubrary.
1987.
..• . Rajan, Balachandran. The Dark Dancer. New Delhi: Mayfair
Paperbacks, 1976.
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TRANSLATING INDIA AS THE OTHER:
PARTITION AND AFTER
.
..
I
To TRANSLATE 1s ro carry across. In 194 7. with the actual

transfer of power to two sovereign nations in the Indian
subcontinent, the euphoria of Independence could hardly
be savoured amidst the barbarity of communal frenzy.
Soaked in an atmosphere of suspicion and fear, human
beings went berserk. They beca.me captives of communal
divisions. killing. raping and assaulting. as they migrated
to the other side of the border seeking a life of security.
Perhaps they even actually hoped to come back home
sometime later. In the words of Mushirul Hasan, it was as if
Mthe civilizational rhythm of the subcontinent was being l'
.'
irreparably destroyed" (10). That was Partition. India was
cracking up. On the face of it, it was the end of an era and
the beginning of another. But Radcliffe"s pen could in no
way have clipped human consciousness with the mere
drawing of borders between India and Pakistan.
With the Partition, people carried their old basti(s)
(community dwelling) to the new ones and their past into
their present. As they migrated across the borders, they
gradually went through the process of translation.
assimilation and change, to eventually evolve new stabilities
and identities. By the early twentieth century, as. part of
the process of colonisation by the British. and later, thanks
to the Freedom Movement. different states and regions were
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70
consolidated and India began to be clearly perceived as a

single country - the country that sought freedom from the
British. But then, along with this freedom came the
bloodshed of the division of this country and the dislocation
of several millions of people. Carrying within themselves
shadowy borders, the brick and mortar of their homes, the
gullies and lanes of their cities, the migrants on both sides
of the borders also carried their memories of sorrows and
happiness, their sociology and culture.
•
The protagonist of lntt?.ar Husatn's Urdu novel Bastf., Zakir.
constantly mediates between the past and the present, and
modtftes his past in accordance with the signtftcance and
nature of his present. Zakir teaches history. On the one
hand, he is professionally dealing with, and actually
grappling with the linearity of time flowing uninterruptedly.
On the other hand. psychologically, he confronts the
discontinuities and ruptures exposed by the images and
'· the experiences of the past flashing on the screen of his
.. . mind. His sense of personal history calls for a fundamental
rethinking about historiography. Problematising his
. .
,. experience of history, he thinks. "How boring it is teaching
history to boys. Other people's history can be read
..
.. . - comfortably. the way a novel can be read. But my own
• history? I'm on the run from my own history - and catching
..
my breath in the present. Escapist. But the merciless
present pushes us back again toward our history. The mind
keeps talking· (Husain 83). The stream of his consciousness
oscillates between the so-called past and his present,
blurring all divisions of time.
The inevitable question then is, how is he going to come
out of the hypnotic nostalgia of the past which presents
itself to him repeatedly in the form of Roopnagar, literally
meaning. the city of beauty. The author could have after all
accorded it the actual name of a city in India. But then. he
needed to emphasise the happy memory of the social and
natural harmony of that pre-Partition town through the
name Roopnagar. Partition has disrupted this harmony and
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'IRAN!ll-'flNC INDIA AS nCE ontER
71
ironically. It Is the memory of this disruption that brings him

back to his "now,· connecting him with his present. twenty
five years later.
As evidenced In Rahl Masoom Ra?.a's powerful Hindi novel,
Adha Gaon. many Muslims could not quite understand the
logic behind Muslim nationalism. Nor did the majority of
Hindus and Sikhs have any alJgnmcnt with the two-nation
theory. Trapped In the crossfire of hatred between the two .' .
communities In 1947, thousands fled their homes with no
destination In mind . "Indta· and "Pakistan· were mere
territorial abstractions to people who had no sense of the
newly demarcated frontiers. They had little knowledge of how
Mountbatten's Plan or the Radcliffe Award would change the
destinies of millions and tear them apart from familial, social
and cultural moorings.
In Sleepwalkers, Deewane Maulavl Saheb suffers from no
sense of loss only because he has taken refuge In Insanity.
In Katachl, he Is thoroughly convinced that he Is still living
In Lucknow. While the locale of the novella Is Karachi, It begins
wtth the assertion. "This Is Lucknow . ... • As soon as the
mohajtrs ·recovered their breath after reaching Karachi, the
entire city emerged from their hearts, brick by brick" (Paul
2). In their wakJng hours they come to terms with the new
location, but In their sleep, they throng to the Chowk of .'
Amecnabad of Lucknow. To Zakir In the novel Bastt. reality

appears swathed In an eerie half-light, at times making the
past more real than the present. In both the novels, the
process of the assimilation of the past within the present
passes through, as It were, a twilight zone. It Is a twilight In
which ".there
... are flashes of revelations, a zone where, when
Roopnagar Is actually totally empty. he reflects, "Yar, how
strange It is that the same town becomes more meaningful
for those who had to leave it" (Husain 142). For him too,
Roopnagar became all the more meaningful because he had
come away to Pakistan. In Sleepwalkers, Ishaq Mirza writes
to Hashim projecting a similar position: "Subhan Allah!
Lucknow Is actually here.... Over there, we could never figure
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NARAATUIO PAlfflTION
out where Lucknow had vanished from Lucknow ... Bhat.

the reality of Lucknow after all lies In the elegance of
Lucknow.... Actually you are the genuine Lukhnavts ... settled
here In your Lucknow· (Paul 46).
In both these novels, It Is the second generation - Zak1r 1n
Basti and Ishaq Mirza In Khwabro - who perceive the true
status of the cities from where they had fled along with their
fathers. In his mind, Deewane Maulavt Saheb had never
migrated. He has forever remained 1n Lucknow. It Is the same
with Zakir's father and mother. Their consciousness remains
with their family heirlooms. which are apparently lying locked
In the storeroom of their mansion 1n Roopnagar. They have to
go and get these heirlooms before termites get to them. Zak1r
muses. "Is time a ter11dte, or Is a termite time?· (149). Abbajan
of Basti and Deewane Malauvt Sahib of Khwabro both remain
rooted, attached and static despite their migration. But their
sons Zaktr and Ishaq Mirza are wanderers forever, despite
their settling down in their Pakistan homes. Ishaq marries a
Sindhi girl, as If announcing h1mself to be dlfferenL He then
.
. . becomes responsible for creating another reality, the third
reality born out of a past given to him by Deewane Maulavt
Saheb and a present which is distinctly post-Partition. Basti
and Khwabro, written In 1979 and 1990 respectively. so many
• years after the actual experience of Partition, record the
movement Into time, across time and even beyond time. In
Bastt. Anuni says. "Oh. what does time have to do with IL ...
Time always goes on passing ... • ( 148).
Though the novel Basti seems to cover a span of only a few
months 1n the life of Zaktr. In effect It brings into itself, in
flashbacks, the cultural backdrop of centuries of Muslim
history. The main connecttvttles to be found In modem history
begin from 1857 and move on to 1947. and then to 1965 and
finally to the 1971 disintegration of Pakistan. Gradually.
Roopnagar becomes a vague and distant reality, with the new
slogan. "Crush India" coming tn "like a whirlwind.· India
emerged as the Other. getting defined through hatred. going
beyond translation. Roopnagar gets tdentlfted with Zaktr's
Original from
'IIIAH!l'-'TINO INDIA AS THE ontER
73
beloved. Sabirah - who did not migrate to Pakistan - and the

political entity call~ •1ndla• becomes distant and something
to be reckoned with. For Roopnagar. Zakir at least has a
prayer: "If something happened to this city how could I bear
it?· (167).
In Sleepwalkers, Deewane Maulavi Saheb actually comes
out of his "Lucknow· with the explosion of a bomb in his havelt.
But he comes out only to slip into another false beltef: that
he is in Karachi temporarily, merely on a visit, waiting to go
back to his Lucknow. Not so with the grandson Salim though:
"But this is Lucknow, Bade Abbu1· says the lad, running
after the ball at the end of the novel. This is the Lucknow
which is only a part of Karachi, a Lucknow recreated with a
difference. This Lucknow includes the presence of the Sindhi
cook, bringing another dimension into its culture. These are
the new local dynamics of Karachi which demonstrate the
process of absorption as well as exclusion within the polttics
of Pakistan. There is also an ongoing love-hate relationship
with India.
The seeds of communaltsm sown and nourished by vested
political interests. but not very visible at the ordinary level of
existence prior to Partition, surfaced with an unbounded fury,
capturing cities, qasbas and different locations alike in 1947.
Kamleshwar, in Laute Hue Musa.fir (Ibe Migrants Who Came I'
Back), tells the tale of a qasba in U.P. that had been in the
grip of chaos, In the clutches of communal suspicion. The
novel takes the reader to the cobbler, the cycle-repairer, to
the small craftsmen and the struggling youth, to their
everyday. simple conversation that expresses the faith and
love extstlng between the Hindus and the Muslims of that
small town. Then there is a sudden mental division of that
society into Hindus and Musltms.
The novel begins with the memory of almost dream-like,
but real scenes of what is called Ganga-Jamuni culture. For
instance, on the occasion of Muharru.m. taziya would pass
through a Hindu locality, and Hindus would sprinkle rose-
water on it with utmost reverence. Again, Musltm women came
Original from
74
and peeped out from the chlcs (curtains) hanging on their

doors to have a "darshan," a gUmpse of Ramleela.
But after 1945, this bastt began to simmer wtth communal
feelings. and gradually, the bonds of love and faith 1n people's
hearts began to collapse. Come Partition and there was an
exodus of hordes of them, leaving behind Naseeban and her
mudhouse, the Jhopadi amidst the debris and ruins of old
houses and hutments. which become signs of former life in
that qasba. A large group of Muslim migrants left this bastt
•
with the faith that they will reach Pakistan eventually. But
they could not. They somehow got dispersed here and there
1n that ztlla and would not come back lest the Hindus take
offence to their return. Strangely. the Hindus too had fled
because of the heavy Muslim presence 1n that region. Iftikar,
a character In the novel perceives his fate clearly: "Even If
Pakistan comes to exist, of what use will tt be to us. In
.. Pakistan. too, we will after all be tkkawallahs, pulltng carts
and horses" (Kamleshwar 61).
The real struggle, It Is gently established, Is between the
'. rich and the poor. Though there were no live ftres In that
area, many a heart was consumed by the ftre of hatred. All
those poor migrants had no means of reaJtstng their Pakistan.
Naseeban ts the lonesome witness of the desolation of the
• basti. More Importantly. she Is also the witness years later,
of the scene when grown-up children of the lost migrants
come back to this bastt tn search of labour. Partition had
dispersed the older generation. The basti had disintegrated.
With the emergence of Industry, and with the tubewells coming
up, there were prospects for employment and survival. There
are some signs of development and progress, and the India of
this bastt sees Naseeban smile with hope and good cheer.
Naseeban's eyes twinkle and she cries with happiness: there
Is Instant recognition. They had come back, as the narrative
emphasises, to be housed 1n their homes, on this side of the
border within the geo-polttical entity that Is India. Not as in
l:ntizar Husatn's Basti, where "the city has already burned,
but our tatls are still burning" (Husatn 254).
Original from
--
'111ANSl-'11NC IHDIA AS nc& 011!&11
75
In La1,te Hue Musa.fir. the children of the migrants ftnd old

homes and have new prospects. In a sense, in Basti too Zakir
and Afsal come •home,· even though they actually return to
the graves of the older generation at the end of the novel.
After this, Zaldr detenntnes to wrtte a letter to Sabirah "before
the parting of her hair fills with silver, and before the keys
rust ... • (Husain 253). 'This is in fact the moment of liberation.
of moving on, connecting and rebuilding rather than
rematntng in the framework of the Partition psychosis forever.
•
Obviously. this is not easy since the politics of the country ,I
have kept the atmosphere of strife constantly alive through
sporadic riots and curfews. In Karachi. as in Bhiwandi, in
both Pakistan and India, the legacy of Partition manifested
itself in ethnic and communal tension.
In Alt Imam Naqvt's touching Urdu short story "Dongartvart
ke Gidhh" ("'lbe Vultures of the Parsi Cemetry"), Hormoz and
Pharoz, the two attendants in the Parsi cemetry panic when
they discover that there are no vultures that day to attend to
the corpses in the cemetry. And then Hormoz says:
"The police commissioner saJd the wltures. all of them,
are flocking to the Kharkl, Ravtwar Peth and Somwar
Peth neighbourhood .... Oh these Idiot Hindus and
Muslims are at each other's throats again. There·s been
a riot. The bastards, they've torched everything:
houses, shops. even ambulances and hearses, the
whole lot. The street Is littered with corpses. One right
on top of the other. Plied high. Our wltures - well,
they're having a field day there. And that police
commissioner ... he said after the street's been cleaned
up, the wltures will come back on their own accord:
•Even If the street's cleaned up - so what? What
makes you think the wlturcs will return? This fucking
Ind la ... there's a riot everyday here, everyday a fire,
everyday people die. The vultures"II come back? The
hell they wl.111" (Memon (ed.), "The Vultures" 315)
Whether because of communal tension in India or the

tension between the mohajlrs and the ·natives in Pakistan,·
the idea of Partition stays alive and is being carried through
time, getting translated and articulated in literature. If
translation is dissemination, and a metaphor for travel as
well, one can find pertinent examples in Khushwant Singh's
Original from
NARIIATUIIC PAJl'ITTION
76
A Train to Paktstan. Krtshan Chander's "Peshawar Express,·

Bhisham Sahni's short story, "Amrttsar Aa Gaya· or G11lzar·~
"Khauf." In these, and many other stories, the train becomes
a metaphor for the travel of fear, hatred, vengefulness.
sadness, bewilderment across the borders.
The writers express different forms of ethnic and racial
violence in different ways across and between languages. To
what extent are the geographical spaces merely politically
deftned? How are identities determined and perceived? What
..' are the conceptual formulations at work, 1n contradistinction
to actuality? These are some of the complex questions casting
. .. a shadow on simplistic and homogenised notions of the nation.
. .. There are nations within nations and histories within
histories. As Muhammad Umar Memon remarks in · his
Introduction to Husatn's Bastt. through Zakir. the professor
of history, the writer seems to explore "his entire cultural
identity, extending back, through a millennium and a half of
., .•
Muslim history" (vii). As a citizen of the new nation, his
consciousness of being a Pakistani has to reconcile with the
history he carries from India, both at the personal as well as
.. . ,•
the collective level. In fact, there has to be a negotiation of
the personal with the collective histories of mlgrancy and
exile.
Mtgrancy. It Is evident, also meant mtgrancy of ideas and
..' .
... histories. The new location, thus, became a site for internal
and external conflict between the self and the "other." When
Ghant the Mussalman in Mohan Rakesh's story, "Malbe Ka
Malik" comes to India seven years after Partition to see the
rubble of his house. the walls of his house preserved for so
long in his mind get demolished. He has to come to terms
with new realities. The professed ideology of the nation-state.
which earlier may not have had any meaning for him,
becomes real and we imagine that he goes back to a freshly
defined Pakistan. India translates itself as the Other.
The story of Partition and India, we are aware, will be far
from even half-told if we do not pay attention to the plight of
the innumerable women mauled, raped and abused in every
Original from
111ANSlA11NO INDIA AS 1111£ OTHER
77
way tn the mayhem of Partition. In Rajtnder Singh Bedi's

Urdu story "Lajwanti. • the girl who ts Lajjo to her husband
before Partition, becomes for him the deified Lajwanti (touch-
me-not) after she has been through the gruesome experience
of abduction during Partition. The husband can have
reverence for her. but not love and passion. He can respect
her and deify her but cannot bring himself to have a normal
relationship With a "dishonoured" Wife. The loss of honour of
the woman has transformed their relationship. Lines from
Amrita Pritam's Punjabi poem. "AJ Althan Warts Sah Nun·
suggest the general indifference to the plight of female
consciousness in a male-dominant world: the woman gets .'
translated as the "other.· distanced after getting abused.
"Today I implore Warts
Shah to speak up from his grave
and tum over a page of
the Book of Love
When a daughter of the fabled Pwyab wept
He gave tongue to her silent grief
•
Today a million daughters weep
But where is Warts Shah
To give voice to their woes?" (Pritam 947)
It ts difficult to forget the poignant scene from Bhlsham : I'
Sahni's Hindi novel Tamas In which. In a rioting town. a large

group of Sikh women Jump Into a well one by one to save
their honour. Women pile up In the well till It gets to be so full
that the last few of them cannot Jump into it! Women were so
totally out of both, the political decisions that created the
chaos as well as the horror of violence that foil owed them.
And yet they were the worst targets of brutality from the men
of both the communities. The Pakistani Urdu writer
Farkhanda Lodt's story "Parbati," written soon after the 1965
lndo-Pak war presents a picture of the culturally composite
Identity of women In Parbati/Parveen. suggesting that women
know no frontiers: "she had forgotten that there are countries
on this earth, and countries have borders and borders are
Original from
NARAA11NO PAR11110N
78
guarded" (Lodi 71). On the other hand. as Samina Rahman,

an educatlonJst from Pakistan perceives, there is that mirror
effect between two hostile worlds in which, as each reflects
and Imitates the other - and in fact creates the Other -
humanity is abandoned (Rahman 5).
From Within the existential angst of homelessness. the
Partition-affected writer in India and Pakistan has constantly
been deconstructing that past when India meant home. the
India that has now become the Other. The narrative of the
present reacts wtth, counters and readjusts to the memory
of the past. The idea of the nation has developed now as a
.. major area of academic discussion. Far from remaining
.. confined to a simple geo-political space, It is an entity
constructed by concepts, ideologies and histories. Partition
destabilised the unquestioned legitimacy of the earlier ideals,
further problematising the very idea of nation and identity.
India had now to be seen as distinct from Pakistan. which
In tum got set to work out Its own identity. Gradually, India
I, ."
then. was translated as the Other by all those who had carried
' '
their own India across borders and across time. Indeed, the
relationship between the original Self and the translated
Other is In harmony when the primal connections are
: realised . But the conflict between the earlier identity and
. "
the new one often sharpens with the Imposition of different
.....
..•
political ideologies. People who migrated to Pakistan could
not have esca1-..~d the deep anguish of having to deal with
their past to make place for the new orientations of the
present.
WORKS CJTttD
Hasan, Mushtrul, ed. "Introduction." India Partitioned: The

Other Side of Freedom. New Delhi: Roll Books. 1995.
Husain, lntizar. Bastl Trans. Frances W. Pritchett. New Delhi:
HarperColltns, 1995.
Original from
TRANSV.TING INDIA AS nff: CfflER
79
Naqvi, Alt Imam. "'lbe Vultures of the Parsi Cemetiy.• An Epic

Unwritten. Ed. M. U. Memon. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.
Raza. Rahl Masoom. The Feuding FamUies of Gangauli. Trans.
Gillian Wright. New Delhi: Penguin, 1994. Trans. of Ad.ha
Gaon.
Paul. Jogtnder. Sleepwalkers. Trans. Sunil Trivedi and Sukrita
Paul Kumar. New Delhi: Katha, 1998. Trans of Khwabro.
Pritam, Amrita. Mcxlem Indian Literature - An Anthology. Vol. I.
Ed. K. M. George. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1992.
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III
RAPE AS PARTITION

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INTRODUCTION
• A cuLruRE WHICH DOES not allow Itself to look clearly at the

obvious through the .
universal accessibility of art ts a culture
of tragic delusion, hardly viable," says Cynthia Oztck In her
essay on ·women and Creativity." I quote her to strengthen
my own point of view. For a long time the study of Partition
literature excluded a gender-sensitive scrutiny. The reason
why we are getting rid of what Oztck calls the "tragic delusion"
is the recent focus on the available literary and other
documentation In this regard. It Is not as though the creative
writer failed to reveal or depict the perversions tn sexual
behaviour during the Partition. Rather, those who were
involved In examining the literary works either Ignored this
vital dimension of the Partition experience, or camouflaged It
under some notion of preservation of woman's honour - that
too, more for the sake of her family and her society than for
herself. Thanks to the recent gender-sensitive critical studies,
male bestiality and helpless female victims now lie unmasked,
calling for a deeper understanding of the malfunctioning of
patriarchy and the causes for such largescale sexual abuse.
In the first essay In this section of the book, I have chosen
short fiction to analyse the literary articulation of the silences
around the Inhuman male violence and mutilation of female
bodies during Partition. In this violence, female bodies
became objects for Inexplicable physical and psychological
Original from
NARRA'nNG PAR'ITl10 N
92
dts-membertng. And that, In a society which harbours

mythologies to venerate the woman. But perhaps It Is this
living contradiction In the Identity of a woman that could
tum the victim Into M shaktl. If she survives the male assaults.
She may then emerge wtth a renewed energy to come Into
her own. as though with a vengeance. The act of re-
membering takes her through a new Journey Into a fearless
and stoic struggle to forge her own destiny and emerge as
an Independent entity.
. •I
Given the countless number of rapes during Partition, tt
•
seems to be logical to extend the study and go deeper Into the
exploration of the causes •for such brutal abuse of the female
body. It Is heartening that at least In recent years, there has
been an arousal of awareness and knowledge of the extent of
male Violence. This tn Itself Is a feat of empowerment. At least.
what Oztck calls the Mdeluston· collapses. All Is Indeed not
well between the sexes: this gets repeatedly evidenced In the
sheer number of rapes that take place during riots or war.
.. Vishnu Prabhakar wrote Ardhanartshvara In 1992, forty-five
... years after Partition. And though his point of reference Is not
,. the Partition, he is deeply concerned wtth the nature of female
...
consciousness of rape victims. He picks up the concept of
. ..' . ' androgyny . as an Ideal to bridge sexual polarities.
... . Ardhanartshvara ts a long discursive narrative on the theme
..• . ...•
of androgyny. As the title ·Androgyny In Search of Moderntty·
suggests, this essay explores Prabhakar's novel to look at
androgyny as a progressive concept, related to a mythological
Icon and freshly defined to empower the woman and bring
the two sexes together to carry the project of humanity
forward.
The two essays In this section deal wtth the dislocation
and relocation of victimised women, and with the dis-
membering and re-membertng of women. And the search for
the ideal of androgyny in the 1992 novel Is a tentative
exploration of a possible solution to the continuing assaults
on the female body.
Original from
RE-MEMBERING WOMAN:
PARTITION, GENDER AND REORIENTATIONS
Tiu. RECEtm.Y, hardly any attention being paid to the

ntERE WAS
various ways in which women died or suffered during the
Partition. A closer look at the sufferings of women at that
time raises the curtain on the bizarre male violence on the
one hand and the horrific dismembering of the woman on
the other.
"Death may be considered at one level as essentially
marked by its non-narratabtltty, by its rupture of language"
(qtd. in Das 346). Ironically. it ls precisely this very non-
narratabtltty of death that takes one back to it repeatedly. to
a kind of a death also of one's own self. The phenomenon of
death tends always to remain incomprehensible. Since by
its very deftnttion death means a total end and a cessation,
it snaps the past from the present. The traumatic violence
meted out to the numberless women at the time of Partition
demollshed all sense of self, existential or social, granted to
them by the already rather constrictive patriarchal
consensus. If they did not die a physical death, they died
many a psychological death. They were too preoccupied with
rehabilitating themselves materially to be able to strike a
mental re-engagement with Ufe all anew. Or they remained
stuck in the memory of the harmonious past by obllterating
the ugly present. thereby denying themselves a future.
An attentive scanning of the fictional and personal
Original from
tu..9.MTINO PAkiiiiOrf
94
Partition narratives of the last few decades, with a conscious

focus on women protagonists, helps us towards a sensitive
mapping of the Inner terrain of the female psyche. Many an
aspect of this reality lies under the cover of what is otherwise
perceived as the ·1arger narrative· or the ·ma1n story.· This
essay has woman as Its protagonist. and It attempts to
unearth the complexity of the victim-protagonist who may
either rise from her ashes heroically to keep her battle going,
or be totally annihilated.
Partition meant mass migrations. Women reacted from the
-. '
depths of their being to the Idea of leaving home. Many literary
narratives bring out this anguish. When the entire family
.. .. decided to migrate, no amount of force or persuasion could
make the Amma of lsmat Chughtal's story ·Jadetn· (·Roots1
leave her haveli. ·Every effort was made. but Amma did not
budge from her place. she was like the roots of a giant Oak
that m11ains standing in the face of a fierce storm· (Chughtai
198). But then, after everyone had left, the g1a11t oak sways In
.. distress thinking of her near ones who were in exile. and
'· . .. perhaps in a state of anguish. The old lady. Bebe of ·Dartyaon
Pyaas· carried across the borders - in her mind - her ancestral
haveli. She had mentally stayed back in the haveli. as it were.
. . as she carries the now useless bunch of keys of the haveli to
.
. . ..
... . . .
the new house and keeps them on her person all the time.
Krishna Sobti's Shahni of the Hindi story 'Stkka Badal Gaya •
too resisted the uprootment from her havelt. The writer
poignantly captures the torment of the elderly woman who is
pushed into migration though her very Identity is founded on
her home, and kinship within that home. To her, discarding
this home meant discarding her self.
That is why Amma of lsmat Chughtal's story, ·Roots· is
not at peace at all even when she remains In her havell,
because the people with whom she had made a home of that
haveli, had all migrated. ·aebe. • of the story -nitrst of Rivers·
on the other hand. has her people close to her but she does
not have the haveli she had built up as home; she remains
stuck to the past in her mind, clinging to the keys of the
Original from
u - wgwar:JUNG WOMAN
95
havelt, the keys which open no locks now. As Somavanti,

one of the refugee women said, shartng her personal narrative
with Ritu Menon, decades after the Partition: "Even today
there ts no peace. No peace outside, no peace Inside .. . I
don't sleep. there ts a feeling of being unsettled" (Menon and
Bhastn 204).
In the conventional structure of the society, women are
completely Identified with their homes and have a strong
sense of belonging. It ts not strange then that a woman fixes
her Identity securely within the framework of her family
confined to the four walls of her house. If displaced from such
a format of existence. she ts shorn of the baste marker of her
Identity and with that she dies an unnatural psychic death.
She may use the strategy of forgetting. But here, one Is
reminded of some lines of the narrator from Kamleshwar's
story "Kitne Pakistan": "I am sure that you remember those
days. Women never forget anything. They only pretend to
forget. Otherwise It would be difficult for them to go on living"
(Bhalla, Vol. II 173). Pakistan tn this story becomes a metaphor
'
for the gruesome experiences of Partition. Partition appears
as a huge divide, a fissure filled with abysmal silence, forcing
the woman Into amnesia, a virtual dying to the past.
That ts why tropes such as forgetting, discontinuity,
exclusion and silencing have been used In the historical as
well as many fictional narratives that record the phenomenon
of Partition. One of the most disturbing consequences of this
has been the lnvtslbtllsatlon of woman , of women's
experiences of Partition. Society needs to recover and value
the massive chunk of vital human experience lying repressed
In hundreds of women, disoriented and alienated due to the
wrenching separation from their roots. Remembering Itself
becomes a strategy for relocating one's self. In the last couple
of decades, the countless number of Interviews, and personal
narratives of women recorded by scholars has brought to the
surface what many creative writers had earlier presented
delicately through long and short fiction. While a personal
narrative may be coloured by the blinkers of subjectivity
Original from
JWP.!11..ATUIG MR'ffl'ION
96
changtng over time within the spectflc contexts of narrations,

the writer's perception may bring out reality more objectively.
It Is pertinent that Sa'adat Hasan Manto uses a Jewish
woman 1n his story ·Mozer· to desexualise religious allegiance.
Tirlochan Singh is 1n love with Mozel. who ..gr ees to marry h1m
only when he cuts his hair short, as if demanding out of him a
person who has the courage to rise above his religion. That In
fact could have been 1n Itself the resolution for the CJ1s1s born
out of the communal strife at the time of Partition. Mozel
. . demonstrates the smart boldness of an unlnhiblted person free
'
• of both religious as well as sexual constrictions - she strips
naked and runs, asking Tlrlochan to pretend to pursue her
and then falls, hurttng herself very badly - she pushes away
Ttrlochan's turban from her body and says, 1ake away ... this
religion of yours" (Bhalla, Vol. II 172) before she dies. She is
instrumental 1n uniting 1lrlocha.n Singh and K1rpal Kaur. She
dies, as if she Is leaving the world to let It contlnue with Its
pretensions. She cannot flt lnto such a world. Death for Mozel
. is freedom. Her robustness is presented 1n sharp contrast to
•
. .. the fragility ofTrtlocha.n's convictions and K1rpal Kaur's naivete.
In the communal conflagration, she stands as a symbol of
religious neutrality; as both, an outsider mocking at narrow
bigotry and as an lnslder of the community of lovers. who can
take risks and even die to sustain the love between others. The
• •
story leaves behind the force of a protagonist who suggests the
need for some basic reorientations and liberation from bigoted
religious notions.
What the writer has achieved 1n this story Is a motivation
for change. Mozel Is a very slgntflcant character because her
portrayal Is a testimony to the power of an unattached
woman. She Is a woman whose existence Is not circumscribed
by the need for any physical or psychological security offered
by the sense of ·belonglng," either to a religious sect, a socio-
political community or more importantly, even to a family.
An event that was crippling for thousands of people, it Is
ironic that Partition became 1n some contexts an enabling
phenomenon. Compelled by the pressures of the times and
Original from
U·Maa&RIMI -
97
the force of circumstances, a great number of women were

led into making a huge psychological shift. The upheaval of
migration uprooted them from their domesticity and they
moved to the outside world, wanting to work and once again
reconstruct their homes. In her interview with Rltu Menon.
and K. Bhasln. Bibi Inder Kaur remarks, "Personally I feel
that Partition instigated many people into finding their own
feet," (Menon and Bhasln 207) and, "Partition provided me
with the opportunity to get out of the four walls of my house.
I had the will power, the intelligence, Partition gave me the
chance. In Karachi I would have remained a housewife" (204).
Women such as Bibi Inder Kaur demonstrate a dramatic
change of personality after Partition. They come Into their
own. But for the Partition, Bibi Inder Kaur could very well
have remained the passive Ktrpal Kaur of Manto's story
"Mozel," consenting to be a mere object of desire with no
control over her life.
The thorough shake-up of the society caused by the mayhem
of Partition disturbed many steadfast notions about religious
harmony. The grotesque scenes of violence carried out in the
name of religion were witnessed with shock and bewlldennent.
A thoroughly communaltsed outburst of violence, action and
reaction indicated the need to question such beliefs, such a
faith in religion that could provoke barbarism. To many, Ideals
derived from religion or mythology became suspect at some
level of consciousness. Women's roles had been determined,
sanctioned and promoted firmly by religion - alongside
references to a mythical past - within familial and social
structures of patriarchy. In one sense. the disruption caused
by Partltl.on offered possibilities of a radical recasting of
women's identities. Also, the notion of preserving the "honour"
of women as the paramount value in relation to their lives was
sought to be Interrogated. A predominant form of violence of
one community over the other has been sexual assaults on
women. These acts are perceived as acts of dishonouring the
whole community.
So entrenched Is the notion of protecting the "honour" of
Original from
-
98
~
their women that In both the communities, women were either

forced to commit suicide to pre-empt the humiliation of getting
sexually assaulted and dishonoured, or they were actually
murdered. Ashis Nandy, Vccna Das, Mushirul Hasan and
others narrate the bizarre sexual violence suffered by women -
their bodies mutilated and disfigured, their breasts and
genitalia tattooed and branded "with triumphal slogans,· their
wombs knifed open, foetuses killed, rampant raping (43) - all
this male savagery used the woman's body as an easy site to
- . dishonour the other community. Ironically, to safeguard their
self-respect, the members of the target community too,
prcfci I ed to kill their women. Utcrary memory becomes a fertile
source for the subtle revelations of some deeply ingrained
attitudes operating behind so much of the violence during
the days of Partition. There are indeed sexual politics operating
subtly behind the Inadequate emphasis on the narration of
·pornography of male violence on women.· High politics did
..
t. . • record In history debates about the Inevitability of Partition.
But what was Indeed suppressed was its human aspect. The
. , .. magnitude of this human aspect of the tragedy of Partition
cannot just be reduced to mere statistics - of how many rapes
took place, or how many people became refugees.
. .,
The emotionally insulated Lajo in Rajendra Singh Bedt's
.
' ..
..
story ·Lajwanti" is a victim of abduction. She is rescued by
her husband who is himself one of the leaders of the group
mobilised to recover Partition women-victims and rehabilitate
them in their homes. There is an incipient feminist
consciousness working within this story. The story focuses
on Lajo's consciousness as she suffers quietly, seeing herself
transformed Into a Devi, a goddess, and venerated by her
husband after she is recovered and they come together after
1947. She is no longer Lajo to him. She becomes Lajwanti,
ironically, the one who will withdraw ltke the ·touch-me-not·
with any touch.
This connects very well with how Kamleshwar defines the
catastrophic moment that is Partition In his story ·How Many
Pakistans?": •Aias, Pakistan is the name of that reality which
Original from
RE- MEMBERIHO WOMAN
99
separates the two of us.... It Is that blank void between our

families" (Bhalla. Vol. II 174). In this case, the void emerges
between lovers for whom life could Just not be the same. The
notion of honour and purity of woman ts so deeply Internalised
that even the spokesman for the rehabilitation of women.
Babu Sunder Lal of Bedi's story cannot come to accept "the
defiled l.ajo" back Into their normal relationship. In a way.
venerating her as a goddess becomes a strategy to distance
himself from her. The wife In l.ajo has to die an unnatural
death. Life has to be redefined. Bedt records the popular
sentiment In the story: "There were some amongst these
abducted women. whose husbands. parents. brothers and
sisters refused to recognise them. Why didn't they die? Why
didn't they take poison to preserve their virtue and honour?
Why didn't they jump Into a well? Cowards, clinging to life!"
(Bhalla. Vol. I 58). The writer exposes the hypocrisy as well
as the callousness of the world of men who denied their women
a normal life, either by brutalising them or deifying them.
It is well-known how control over women's sexuality Is
perpetuated through male protection of the community's
honour, which is, of course, inscribed on the bodies of women.
For their own honour and the community's dignity, men forced
their women to die by providing them with weapons. strangling
them. drowning them or burning them. Products of patriarchy
themselves. women often consented. Their eltmtnatton
denoted their martyrdom and their murders acquired social
sanction. since the act of killing had after all the noble purpose
of safe-guarding honour. However, there were women who
resisted the Imposition of such a death and confronted the
possibilities of rape and the stigma of sexual impropriety.
Finally. then, those who survived the riots emerged with a
greater existential autonomy. Not only did they accord space
to themselves for growth, they also created in themselves the
enterprise for independent living.
There was a large number of women who were not
"recovered," women who appai:-ently reconciled themselves
to the new circumstance, but they carried within themselves
Original from
100
a gnawtng sense of the Irreparable loss of a perfect past. To

get a glimpse of the Inner self of such a woman's mind. Jamila
Hashml's oft quoted story. ·Ex11e· comes to one's mind. The
protagonist of the story Is doomed by memory and the
inability to forget. The desirable past is unrecoverable. The
Inner monologue Is a recalling of that past which
counterposes itself with the present. It Is In the present that
she has children from her ·abductor· who has actually
married her. She reacts inwardly to his mother who
addresses her as ·bahu· (daughter-In-law) and creates a
semblance of order. But this Sita. unlike the mythical Sita.
as the story tells us. has had to accept ·Ravana's home.·
Suspended between her past and the present, she is In fact
..
banished from her own selthood. This Is yet another kind of
death, seeking regeneration. a replanting. The story ends
thus: ·ufe too flows on. carrying with It, as It always does,
the smell of death· (Bhalla. Vol. II 53).
Jamila Hashml's protagonist may have the surface-
• appearance of an Inert object, but the writer catches the throb
'
of her consciousness In the sad monologue that runs through
the story. Her tottering personal identity comes together
through her recalling. What Is enshrined In her memory Is
gradually unfolded. as if to recall, readjust and reorder herself
-. .,. In the new context (she has children now). to connect with
..
the new reality. and perhaps to find new roots.
Veena Das, as mentioned earlier In this paper, stresses
the fact that In the absence of any customary forms of sharing
and mourning, the Victimised survivor needs to tell her story
again and again. The exorcising of the haunting past can
perhaps be achieved even by telling her story to herself
repeatedly. This becomes another device used by the psyche
that has suffered from a tortuous process of dehumanization
and effacement of identity. First, she would have to relocate
her own being. The permanently banished Sita of Jamila
Hashmi's story has to reformulate herself after she has been
wrenched from her kinship support.
It is tn Yashpal's Hindi novel Jhootha Such that the evolution
Original from
RE• IH!MBEIIINO WOMAN
101
of selfhood Is clearly traced In Its own Individual capacity.

The woman protagonist may Indeed come out of the
pathological state of mind If she possesses independent Inner
resources. After having suffered humiliation In marriage as
well as outside, In society, during Partition, Tara frees herself
from the ~boos of patriarchal family and carves out a career
for herself. It Is In fact as a direct fall-out of her experience of
Partition that a radical progressive transformation takes place
In Tara . After having seen herself through a series of
demeaning experiences, she gets equipped to take her own
decisions. She learns to chalk out her own destiny, and
steadfast, perseveres In pursuit of her selfhood.
It Is reported In the "Progressive Education Reports" how
massive projects for the education of women were launched
by the Government of India as part of the rehabilitation
programmes soon after the Partition. Ironically, In this respect,
Partition served as a great boost for the education of women,
particularly for the refugee women In Delhi. Education meant
more and more career women and therefore economically
Independent women. In her study entitled, "Partition and
Family Strategies: Gender Educational Linkages among
Punjabi Women In Delhi: Karuna Chanana describes how
the expansion of social space In the years following 1947 led
to a number of cultural re-orientations In society. Women
moved out of their domestic Insularity and underwent
attitudinal changes as well. Mohan Rakesh's story, "Miss Pal"
Is the story of a single woman locating herself heroically In a
society traditionally dominated by kinship norms. She Is not
made out to be a Partition refugee, but she Is a career woman
In Delhi living outside marriage with the fortitude of a person
who has seen It all - a product of a generation of women-
refugees pushed out of their four walls.
Though the Indian Government set up a number of
rehabilitation projects for what were called "unattached"
women, the state support for Partition widows and single
women was certainly not adequate to cope with the sheer
Immensity of the numbers of women seeking support In this
Original from
NMIIA'IINO Plllffl110N
102
context. ·A Leaf In the Storm.• a story written originally in

Malayalam by Laltthamblka Antharjanam captures the fate
of such an ·unattached. woman, an unfortunate victim of
multiple rapes. She Is pregnant and a picture of ·a bundle of
rags crawling up and down, like ghosts let loose from
sepulchers· (Bhalla, Vol. I 137). The story once again Is
predominantly an Internal monologue, revealing Jyotl's
. . different Intensely emotional and reflective responses to the
baby In her womb, the baby conceived In the stupor of her
rape by one of the many abductors. From a state of anger
. ... and deep bitterness, to the moment when she reaches out to
her baby. the movement tells the story of a rape-victim slowly
shedding the gory experiences from her consciousness, and
developing warm feelings towards the child. The little life.
she says to herself, "Is seeking refuge, stirring Its little feet:
and feeling the mass of flesh on her belly, "Oh how warm It
isl Did my body give it so much warmth? I hope Its looks are
like mine.... Perhaps I should look at it, Its small eyes, once ...
., just once1· (144) .
. ...
.
·' .. Towards the end of the story, Jyotl's mind lays claim to the
child. It Is as though the child who has given birth to her
maternal Instincts has fully aroused the mother In her. Her
universe becomes positive and the "dimmed stars beam from
•. "
- the heavens· (145). The triumph of motherhood, of having
acquired something. of relating and providing for another
life define Jyotl's life with fresh affirmations. The complex
struggle of living gets support from the strength of
spontaneous maternal instincts. Not only has the new life
been given refuge by the mother, the woman herself acquires
a fresh life and sustenance from her pregnancy which she
had earlier abhorred. It is not as If the violence and sexual
assault on her is thus legitimised, but the woman has moved
on - the denigrated woman enters the world of positive
motherhood rather than getting stuck In the mire of
vlctimhood. She will perhaps soon be prepared to defy all
social norms to safeguard her child and keep the stars shining
in the heavens! In this case, motherhood In itself becomes
Original from
RE-lftMB&IUNO -
103
the source of strength for the woman - the experience not

coming to her externally but from within, from her own
biological existence. The writer, Lalithambika Antharjanam.
In fact articulates the silence of the woman and portrays the
quiet process whereby the woman exorcises the rapists from
her mind. and this process culminates In the moment she
awakens to the biological reality of the baby within her.
The historiography of Partition demands the cognition of
claims for personal identity which have been lost In high
political discourses. In such discourses. the diversity of
Individual experiences got homogenised and the Intense
stlences of women remained Ignored for a long time. Though
women are present In several official and unofficial
documentation of Partition history. they have been primarily
perceived as objects, not "subjects." Their experience of
Partition Is not only significant for the understanding of their
own identities, but It also presents a perspective on the socio-
cultural re-orientations In modem India.
Women who had lost their husbands and families had to
perforce acquire economic worth. For this they could not
remain confined to the traditional norms of behaviour
prescribed for widows. The rehabilitation of widows meant
suspension of many social constraints on them. The fetters
Imposed on widows by patriarchy had to loosen to re-
assimilate them Into society. A special section within the
government was set up to help their rehabtlitatlon and they
were referred to as "unattached women" rather than widows.
Supported by such an official gesture, these victims of the
national catastrophe mustered extraordinary courage and
enterprise to renegotiate their mode of existence in the post-
Partition scenario. This Is not to undermine the tragedy of
hundreds of women who suffered Irreparable damage and
were totally Incapacitated both physically and
psychologically. Manto's story "Khol Do" Is a horrific
revelation of a woman who has· become Insensate after
undergoing the experience of multiple rapes . She has
Inwardly resigned herself to becoming a robotic object. At
Original from
- N O PAR'lfflON
104
the sight of a man, even when It Is her own father, she

automatically readies herself for yet another assault.
Banto of Yashpal's Jhootha Such. rejected by her family
and husband, commits suicide, while Tara takes up the new
challenge of survival and docs not seek any male sanction
for the reformulations of her life and action. Either there Is a
total standstill and complete cessation of life, or there ls a
splrlt for complete regeneration. Many men and women were
compelled to locate fresh psychic and material situations as
a consequence of the disruption caused by Partition.
- Elise Bouldlng·s essay on ·women and Social Violence·
published In the UNESCO book, entitled Violence and Its
Causes (1981), dwells on how the ·institution of rape· is based
on the definition of woman as object and woman as non-
person. With this kind ofa perception of woman in the society,
the male desire unleashes itself in utmost barbaric
proportions and exploits the mass hysteria of dislocation. The
study of the Partition riots through a gender perspective gives
an insight into sexual politics as much as into communal
. ..
., .. politics. exposing some deeply internalised notions and social
orientations. What is demanded in such a situation is a
fundamental reordering of the approach of an individual to
the Other i.e. the Other of the other community as much as
... ,,.
.• ..• the Other of the other sex. Partition riots demonstrated the
...
ugly coming together of gender politics and communal
hostilities.
Both in literary and in personal narratives, a number of
examples can be found of women giving refuge to members of
the other community at the time of riots. Rajo, in Bhtsharn
Sahni's well-known novel, Tamas, takes a risky lnitiattve and
offers shelter to an old Hindu couple while her own
communally-motivated son wants to kill them. Rajo's decision
and its effective execution can be seen as a gesture of courage.
salvaging human values, and in this context, the value of
harmonious inter-connectedness in particular. The recording
and examination of such incidents stress on some cherished
human values upheld essentially by women. Tilis also becomes
Original from
RE•MEMlll:NNO ~
105
a signtflcant area for study, which can bring out the positive
role of women in moments of social crisis. In fact, such findings
can provide appropriate directions to the Women's Movement.
As Flavia Agnes points out. ihe women's movement does not
stand in isolation and is an integral part of other social
movements. The agenda of women's movement has to get
redefined within the dynamics of social contradictions and
ideological shifts" (106).
At the individual level, while for some, the erasure of the
violent past from memory was in itself an empowering
experience, for others, confrontation with the horror of the
past helped a re-membering of their identities. From the
perspective of general health of the society, the significance
of the narratives of thousands of brutalised women cannot
be undermined. What cannot be shared through reports,
can only be narrativised. The absences, silences and
different kinds of psychological deaths of women find voice
in these narratives. It is understandable that, of late,
historians and social scientists have been closely examining
Partition literature in order to rework and comprehend the
socio-psychic and political dimensions of the complex history
of those times.
The greater the anguish of the woman, the greater the
need to make this almost Inexpressible pain accessible. The
consequences of such a large-scale experience of Partition is
bound to be far-reaching and compelling. Women's Studies
curriculum can bring to bear on the theme of Partition,
Insights from various disciplines such as literature, history,
sociology, psychology and culture through a gendered
perspective. This would help one to understand some of the
cultural re-orientations of women in modem India.
Partition had affected women deeply. The deconstructed
and demolished selfhood would have to be re-membered. The
story would have to be told again and again to locate fresh
connections, for life to move on, for the hearts and heads to
be In their assigned place for directions and resolutions, for
history to not repeat Itself.
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N..-11NC PAR11110N
106
WomCt1a>
Agnes, Flavia . ·Redefining the Agenda of the Women's

Movement Within a Secular Framework." Politics of
Violence. Ed. John McGuire. Peter Reaves and Howard
Brasted. Delhi: Sage. 1996.
Bhalla. Alok. ed. Stories about the Partttton of India. Vol I. New
Delhi: lndus, 1994.
Chanana. Karuna. ·Partttton and Family Strategies: Gender
Educational Linkages among Punjabi Women In Delhi."
Economic and Poltttcal Weekly. Vol. XXVIII. No. 17. April
24, 1993.
Chughtat. lsmat. · Roots..• An Epic Unwritten. Ed. Muhammad
Umar Menon. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.
•
Das. Vecna. ·0ur Work to Cry: Your Work to Usten.• Mirrors of
Violence. OUP, 1990. (Qtd. by Das in her essay as ··0n
the non-narratabtlity of Death,' see Freud (1973), Poulet
(1977), Todorov (1967) and Stewart (1984)").
Hashmi, Jamila. "Exile." Memon M. U., trans. and ed. An Epi.c
.. . .. Unwritten. New Delhi: Penguin, 1998.
Kamlcshwar. "How Many Pakistans?" Stories about the Partition
ofIndia. Vol 11. Ed. Alok Bhalla. Delhi: HarperColllns. 1994.
Menon. Rltu and Kamla Bhastn. Borders and Boundaries:
- . Women in India's Partition. New Delhi: Kali for Women.
• · ..
1998.
Paul, Joginder. '1blrst of Rivers." Translating Partition. Eds.
Ravtkant and Tarun K. Saint. New Delhi: · Katha, 2001 .
Original from
ANDROGYNY IN SEARCH OF MODERNITY
PATRIARCHY HAS VES'IED INTERESTS In sustaining gender polarities

and maintaining masculinity and femininity as distinct and
separate. It is perhaps for this reason that while looking for a
reference to "androgyny" in an encyclopaedia, I could locate
it only in Barbara Walker's 1lte Woman's Encyclopaedia of
Myths and Secrets. I quote from it the explanation of
"androgyny:"
"Many lndo-European religions trted to combine male
and female In the Primal Androgyne, both sexes In one
body, often with two heads and four arms ... Shiva
and Shaktl-Kall appeared as the androgyne
Ardhanarlshvara, the right side male, the left side
female. Rudra the older form of ShJva was known as
'the Lord who Is Half Woman' ... Chinese Taoists held
the mandala ofYang and Yin to represent the androgyne.
Western myths also assigned androgyny to the elder
gods or the first human beings. The Orphic Myth of
the Creation says the first born deity was a double-
sexed Phancs or Eros, whose female half was psyche,
the soul ...•
We must remember that myths are not Just simple tales.

they modify, re-contextualise, evolve different meanings in
different ages and reveal more and more dimensions of human
consciousness over time. The symbiotic duality between the
male and the female that is captured In the iconographical
image of "ardhanartshvara" evokes a sense of both awe and
wonder. and calls for a participation In the mystery of being.
Original from
NARRATING PAR'ITTION
108
The image ls a concrete manifestation of a philosophical

lmaglnatlon, a rendering of a mythopoelc vision rather than
a historical reality. To go back to the mythical narratives
suggested by this beautiful icon would really mean
discovering newer and wider meanings embedded in it. Its
appeal is aesthetically valuable and epistemologically
significant.
There are many culture-specific stories recollected and
recorded about androgyny and ardhanarishvara. many of
.' .
them highlighting the differences between the two. But I would
choose to go with Barbara Walker's understanding of these
two mythic symbols. which suggest an interchangeability of
.' the two terms. both of which denote a coming together of the
male and the female, fonnlng a oneness that does not dissolve
the duality but embraces it. The ongoing debate and the
.. . controversy about the deftnltlon of the word ·androgyny" has
been arousing the interest of many scholars. Some have
I. . •
situated androgyny in the context of words and concepts such
•
as hermaphrodite, transgender or even trans-sexual. Others
take it as a neutral or transcendental category through which
. . . ..
.. .. sexual differences are homogenised.
Evelyn J. Hinz enumerates various responses to androgyny
.. and points out how ·whereas some critics see androgyny as
. ,·
a mode of resistance to established sexual norms and a
.• . .• '
t • • • •
positive and liberating concept, for others it is a nefarious
anodyne and a 'myth' that must be resisted." In the early
days of feminism, the well-known British writer Virginia Woolf
championed androgyny as a strategy to combat the unequal
status of men and women. since the inequality emerges out
of an aggressive imposition of gender differences. The chains
of gender restrictions have led to a stifling of both the sexes.
making them live pre-determined and socially scripted roles
generated by patriarchal notions.
It is in such a context that I invoke the concept of
ardhanarishvara, one of the major images in the Indian
pantheon. The consortship of Shiva and Parvati becomes the
realisation of duality in ardhanarishvara. The two. aspects of
Original from
ANDROGYNY IN SEAIICH OF IIOOUNnY
109
consciousness are so distinct and yet as undivided as the

sabda (word) from its artha (meaning). It is known that the
myth of the biuntty of Shiva (an anthropomorphic symbol of
unbounded consciousness) and Parvati (a yogtni and form of
Shakti) Is pregnant with many socio-psychological insights
and ramlftcations. The Ideology of gender polarisation can be
deconstructed by exploring the prtmal reality of this myth, thus
eventually clearing the path for a reconstruction of gender
identity.
Sexual essenttaJtsm upheld by many femlntst theories in
modern times has in effect unwittingly and ironically
supported gender stereotyping through its creation of the
rhetoric of compulsory masculin1ty 1n a man and femin1ntty
in a woman. Inevitably, this maintains the imbalance of the
sexual order nurtured through centuries of male domination.
What we are talking about is the socio-psychological
orientations inculcated both 1n men and women, so that they
grow up with clearly defined male or female identities. Indeed.
the hierarchical power relations between the sexes has been
the status quo for a long time.
In his novel, Ardhanartshvara, Vishnu Prabhakar, the
eminent writer in Hindi, skillfully probes the possibility of
installing the androgynous ideal 1n man-woman relationships
and the evolving of the same within an individual gender
identity. He explores this at different levels through an
Intensive research of the individual a s well as s ocial
consciousness. He also provides a peep into the subconscious
terrain of his characters 1n a section called ·Anterman" where
he narrates their dreams. When one of the most sensible
characters of the novel. Ajlt, articulates his ambition in the
following dialogue, he is actually helping Sumita, his wife to
define ardhanartshvara: ·1 wtll give Sumtta her freedom from
being my slave. And I wtll free myself from her slavery. Only
then, can we truly become man and wife" (Prabhakar 92).
Ardhanarishvara is repeatedly described as a positive and
liberating concept in this novel. And women characters in
Ardhanartshvara are constantly found questioning socially
Original from
NAltllATIN0 IWC ii I ION
110
cherished gender assumptions. They seek to come out of the

·suicidal. chakravyuha of morality and notions of honour
constructed by the prejudices of the male dominated society.
The novel begins with the memory of rape that oppresses
Sumlta's life. Sumlta, her husband Ajlt, and Vlbha, his sister -
all three of them are trapped In the horror of the event when
Sumlta had offered herself to the rapists to save Vlbha. The
auth->r deftly Indicates the psychological and the socio-
economic complexities In which such a tragic event Is
. .
grounded. In fact, the rapist's words, •rve to take revenge on
- these white-collared people,· Is a telling reminder that it is
woman who becomes an easy prey of both, unbridled male
sexuality as well as capitalism. Sumlta has to retrieve her
own Individual dignity, and also the dignity of womanhood In
•
general. She attempts to do so through extensive research
and reflection, and wants to understand her own Individual
experience, and also similar experiences of other rape victims.
She perceives how the binary opposition generated by socio-
psychic orientations Is at its farthest extreme when the potent
. - male Imposes his manhood brutally on the helpless female
target. Any lack or Inadequacy In the male psyche may find
a convenient vent In the act of rape.
. .
In one of her letters, Sumlta says. ·1 have not just been the
. ..- victim of the rapist's desire, but also a victim of his
.. .
•·
vengefulness against the upper class" (146). She Is shaken
out of all taken-for -granted beliefs about human sexuality
and relationships and commits herself, on the existential
plane, to redefine sexuality and freedom. In effect, the author
actually uses what has come to be known as gender dialectics.
Sumlta grapples with the .rather arbitrary confusion of the
prevalent gender concepts and wishes to move towards
reconstructing fresh perspectives to the idea of being a woman
or a man and their mutual relationship.
This process Implies exploring the dynamics of gender and
gender-roles operating within the socio-cultural arena, as also
the context of the individual being. It ls pertinent to the
argument to quote the well-known ~holar, Harsha Dehejia's
Original from
ANDROGYNY IN SEAACK OF MOOERHl'TY
111
words from his essay, ·Parvatl: Goddess of Love·: • ... when

Shiva Identifies himself with Parvatt as If saying aham idarn
I.e. 'I am this' ... Shiva and Parvatt arc now engrossed in each
other, even reside In each other. like the two halves of
ardhanarishvara ....• Sumlta's dialogues with Ajlt capture
moments of authentic engagement that man and woman can
have as two complimentary beings. On one occasion she says
to him, • ... That's what I am .. . and that's what11 remain ...
what was Imagined In Shankar In the Image of
Ardhanarishvara· (Prabhakar 390). Sumlta has succeeded in
moving beyond the confines of her self as ·femtntne· woman.
Virginia Woolfs character Orlando goes through similar
experiences. Discussing Orlando the novel. George Plggford
concludes: "The character Orlando who gatns insights into
both maleness and femaleness throughout his extended life
provides an example of ... a great mind which ls
androgynous· (48). It ls precisely such an idea that Vishnu
Prabhakar too sec111s to establish in his novel.
The novel meanders through various levels of consciousness
of a number of its women characters. For a male writer to come
to grips with all those diverse streams of female complexities ls
In Itself a feat of androgynous awakening. The creative mind
demolishes dichotomies and identifies harmoniously with
sexual binaries. Another writer who vouches for such a position,
both theoretically and in practice, ls Krishna Sobtt. While writing
Hum Hushmat. she deliberately uses the male voice, particularly
when she writes personal essays. This Is to transcend the
constraints of a single gender perspective. In her essay,
·Muiaquaat Hushmat se Sobtl kl. (A Meeting between Hushmat
and Sobtt}, she brings her male and female selves together into
an androgynous whole, revealing the writer In herself: ·on1y
me. Me. me an experience, an apparel. Just one entrance
through which only my shadow comes in, Just mine . .. and
then It goes out. The morning begins with me. So does the
eventng· (254).
It is this sense of totality or completion that the symbol of
ardhanartshvara represents. But then in her essay ·oaawat
Original from
IWUIATIJIIO PAR'ffl10N
112
Mat Shirkat." Krishna Sobtl writes: "If only Hushmat were not
to be a creative writer but were to be running some small factory
or business, at least then he could have decorated his Begum's
beautiful. fine nose with a diamond rtngl" (105). Indeed.
conforming to the mainstream Is convenient and attractive
because It Is easily accepted. But then, an authentic life
demands stoicism, courage, persistence and an ability to
demolish the smoke-screen of pretension. Just as Sumtta. In
Vishnu Prabhakar's novel, agonises over sexual Inequality and
the imbalance of power between man and woman In modem
times. Vlbha too Is compelled to salvage her dignity by
committing herself to searching for a new code for gender
relations. Vlbha, for whose sake Sumtta had offered herself to
the rapists. goes through a niggling suspicion Initially: "Did
Sumlta wtsh to be rapedr Sumlta examines and analyses her
own mind too. She docs not let this lurking doubt be swept
aside. When Vlbha shares her suspicions with her husband
I,
,
Anltya. his response Is Insightful and dispassionate: "'Ibe guilt
'
Is not that of any Vlbha's or Nlsha's. The whole of humanity
•
,
stands In the witness box ... man as well as woman"
L • ••
'
(Prabhakar 129). This corroborates with what Sumlta says: It
. .'
Is the society that has made her the sinner, not the rapist.
." .. What saves Sumtta and later Vtbha Is the feminist self-
. .
•
.
•
... . . .
awareness that protects them from getting stuck In a warped
sense of honour and morality so oppressive for women.
The privileging of the male Is possible only when there Is a
rigidly exclusive sexual categorisation conforming to the
gendered norms of behaviour. The culturally coded trap of
the masculine/feminine binary Imposes notions of untsexual
Ideals of "the strong virile man" and "the beautiful chaste
woman." While virginity ts sacrosanct In the case of a woman.
for a man to lose It, In the words of Tolstoy In his story, "'The
Kreutzer Sonata," Is looked upon as a natural form of
amusement. I quote from •the confessional narration of the
protagonist, Pozdnyshev: "True, the ten commandments tell
us It Is wrong, but the only reason we have to know the ten
commandments Is so that we can give the correct answer to
Original from
ANDIIOCMft' IN SEARCH OF ~ I f
113
the priest when we talce our examinations in the Bible study·

O'olstoy 180). A little later. he says. "I was wallowing tn the
muck of fornication: .. . I sinned because of the society in
which I lived: . .. people around me looked upon my sin as a
proper means for insuring my health" (181).
As if endorsing the above perception. while talking to
Shahida and arousing her subconscious. Sumita comments:
"Man can buy over ten women and remain morally upright.
Have you even considered this: if we women buy ten men.
we'd be abused as prostitutes· (Prabhakar 337). What
Tolstoy portrayed more than a century ago. holds good even
today despite the world-wide spread of the feminist
movements. Quite a few women characters in
Ardhanarishvara are rape victims who confront their
gruesome experiences squarely, without any hypocrisy. It
Is_ in such a backdrop that Vibha proposes to produce a new
"Smrttl" for man-woman relationship to destabtlise the well-
entrenched patriarchy and revolutionise the social scenario.
The writer is able to generate an urgency regarding this by
merely telling the truth, as it were, about all those women
victimised by rape. He narrates the case studies of women
like Shalini who was raped when she was seven by a seventy-
year-old man. of Rajkali who is raped by the custodians of
Justice themselves - the police, of Shyamala. Kiran, and
indeed. of Sumita herself.
These women belong to different strata of society and each
one of them has a wounded psyche. As targets of male Violence
and desire. they transcend all class. religious or caste
differences and unite in their anguish. The reader cannot
but be struck by the horror of their lives as women. Each one
strives to rehabilitate herself. struggling to repair her own
psyche and redefine her life. Rajkali. for instance. manages
to find someone like William to marry: William. an adivasi,
tells Sumita, "Our language does not have such a word as
'rape.· The word after all. comes to be born later. first. there's
the meaning. And, as we know, meantng is culture itself. My
culture does not even conceive. leave aside accept. the idea
Original from
NARIIA11NO PAll'lfflON
114
of rape. So there's no question of this word existing in our

language· (172).
'lllis is a pointer to the fact that the resolution lies in rooting
out the very basis of male-female relationship by a revtstontng
of gender identity. To overcome dualism and develop ways of
creating a paradigm shift in this direction. some femlnlsts tn
the West have been discussing an effective use of gender
dialectics by aclmowledging the many interacting factors and
connections between the male and the female. The social and
cultural orientation of gender polarisation needs to be dissolved
first and foremost. Many symbols, myths and allegories come
to us from the distant past. indicating the points of identtftcation
between the two sexes.
Commenting on a relief from Bengal representing Shiva with
his consort. Joseph Campbell notices how the two
countenances. rigtd and mask-like, regard each other with
intense emotion: ·aaztng with a deep and ever-lasting rapture.
they are Imbued with the secret lmowledge that, seemingly
I
. two, they are fundamentally one· (137) . This Is the kind of
'
.
•
gaze that realises the androgynous Ideal, bringing the male
.
' ..
. and the female on the same plane and dissoMng the Idea of
the distanced other sex. There ls no room for any hierarchical
positioning of the sexes. nor Is there any scope for exclusionary
..-.. . ..,. categories to emerge In such an experience of unity. The image
of ardhanartshvara Illustrates ·the penultimate stage of perfect
cognition, the dynamic harmony· (Dehejla 52) of the self and
the other, the male and the female. The epistemic amnesia of
this experience accentuated by the deeply Internalised
perspectives on male-female dichotomies has been one of the
major failings of the modem feminist traditions.
In fact, the radical feminists who have furthered the cause
of binary oppositions have actually generated more of male
backlash than a constructive feminist awareness.
Ardhanartshvara demonstrates how Intense conceptual
rethinking helped bring Sumita and Ajit Into their
Individually autonomous positions as well as, ultimately,
closer to each other. Their togetherness builds on mutual
Original from
Google
. Digitized by UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANDROOYNY u, SEARCH OF MOOUNl'IY
115
respect. indiVidual freedom and an unmasked sharing of

thoughts and emotions. They do not wish to possess each
other. in fact they realise they need to be free of each other
to come together meaningfully. In that they know they have
to first free themselves from their own selves as products of
fixed ideas.
In her speech at a Mahlla Kalyan Sa.mitt gathering. Vibha
offers her critique of the position of women in contemporary
society. Attacking the double standards of morality. she spells
out the need to clear the path for the free woman both at home
and outside. in the mind as much as in action. She echoes
Sumita when she recommends the androgyi1ous ideal of
ardhanarishvara for a healthy social order: M But I also wish to
give a warning to my sisters . .. the independent identity of a
woman has no relation with her sex-image. which means that
in building a healthy society both man and woman must
participate on an equal footing. with equal rights and equal
accountability. The symbol of Ardhanartshvara. she concludes.
Mis a concrete representation of this very imaginative conceptM
(Prabhakar 321). Man and woman. not indifferent or opposed
to each other. each independent of each other and yet united
in splrtt. She emphasises that the woman's goal is to realise
herself as a woman. and not as a mere sexual object focused
mainly on becoming attr·actlve for the male hunter.
Vishnu Prabhakar's intellectually provocative and well -
researched novel provides the r eader with well-worked
arguments for a radical change in viewing gender. Knitted
into the narrative of the novel are long letters. articles,
speeches and exhaustive discussions interspersed with
Incidents and episodes. The novel also functions as a
sociological treatise in which the hypothes is is supported by
extensive research evidence. It makes an impressive case for
the liberation of the self from the stereotypical notion of one's
self. The veneer of social conditioning built s teadily over
centuries of patriarchy needs to be cracked to recognise
primal realities: fixed and familiar modes of perception and
unnatural strictures require to be erased.
Original from
NAll.!!ATINC PAR'IT110N
l 16
When cultural imperatives become so oppressive. then

· women of conviction. such as Sumtta. Vibha or Vartika. have
to come forward to steer feminism into the track of rethinking
womanhood. These are women who possess the so-called
masculine features: they are proactive and protective, and
they cross over gender constraints. Also, they possess an
existential self-awareness. They are capable of taking
decisions as well as Implementing them. In doing so, they
have no scruples tn overthrowing the prevalent gender
assumptions of their culture. But till they become stgntftcant
voices through sheer persistence and defiance. they are
looked at with disdain, and rejected by their society.
Vishnu Prabhakar's approach to the concept of
ardhanartshvara conforms to the Jungian psychology of the
unconscious, within which individuals possess Inner
personalities that are the opposite of their conscious gendered
ego: antma. the female component withirl males. and animus,
r. the male element withirl the females. Accordirlg to Jung. the
. .
..
.. . .....
,;
ideal self ts neither masculine nor feminirle but an androgyne
:) . .. blurring gender distinctions. The self seeks to achieve
wholeness by uniting with the Other. In Ardhanarishvara.
Vibha's unconscious surfaces tn the section M Anterman." Here
she gets a glimpse of that dream world where she is projected
.
.., . . .
.. as a total and complete persona; and when she exclaims,
MBut that's our God Ardhanartshvara," the guard tells her,
MYou people make a God out of everything and by doing that,
you escape trying to become what in actuality he or she
represents" (419). Vtbha is tn dialogue with her unconscious
and she declares that her search will continue to find that
something which will complete her.
The authoritarian gender fixities are deliberately confused
and even erased in a move toward resisting the socially
constructed, mechanical moulds. We need to remember that
the most terrifying aspect of Shakti ls represented In the
mythical story of Kalt slaughtering the demons, and Shiva
Intervening eventually to stop the killing. Such a powerful
vision of the feminine merger with the masculine Image of
•
Original from
ANDIIOCYNV IN SBNICH 0, ~
117
power and strength evokes a shift In sexual Identities.

Interestingly. the following saying from Svatantryadarpanah
In a way explains this phenomenon: ·shakti ts the Shivahood
of Shiva and Shiva alone Is the Shaktlhood of Shakti. (Pandit
32). Shiva and Shaktl realise themselves In each other and
their androgynous coming together reflects a state of an
awakened consciousness In which all polarities dissolve. As
Dehejta puts It, ·tt Is a oneness .that embraces duality and
yet feels the oneness· (91).
Ardhanarishvara, Interestingly. end~ with a note of
sympathy for man who too Is a slave, of his own desire and
therefore of woman. To pursue the ideal of ardhanartshvara
or androgyny, for self-fulftllment and release from the tension
of pretension, both man and woman have to first of all realise
their own Individual autonomy. To enable feminism to deflate
the fully blown-up patriarchal formulations of gender
polarities, androgyny/ardhanarlshvara could serve as a very
useful and liberating conceptual Intervention.
For one, this would Immediately Involve both man and
woman In a progressive project for the whole of humanity.
The mythical narratives around this concept demand more
scholarly attention for a deeper understanding of their
philosophic essence. Only then can It become a truly
liberating experience.
If •perceived with a linear perspective, modernity as
progress becomes a myth. More so when one notices the
rampant commodtflcatlon of woman and constant
politicisation of gender relations In today's world. Both the
oppressor and the oppressed are actually victims of a
degenerate humanity . Exploitation Is an Inevitable
consequence of Imbalance of power. To salvage the dignity of
being human. It Is Imperative that we examine the Insights
lying hidden In collective thinking - behind mythology - and
not dismiss It all as mere fantasy or fanciful thtnktng.
Modernity, I believe, Is a moment of realisation and
revelation of progressive thought experienced as much In the
past as It may be In the present. In one sense modernity
Original from
NAIIIIA'TINO l'All'ITT10N
118
captures the dynamism of tradition whether through rejection

or acceptance. But the notion of modernity cannot merely be
restricted to visions of industrial progress or feats in
technology. Nor does modernity mean pulling the veil off the
face of the woman merely to project her as a sexual object for
an ad in a predominantly consumerist society. The veil has
to be pulled off the psyche of both man and woman. gtven
that both are ltvtng primartly in a male-dominated society.
•
The icon of Ardhanarishvara captures such moments of
cognition and revelation and beckons one towards the bliss
of togetherness and integrality for individual liberation.
Wom C1TZD
Campbell, Joseph, ed. Myths and Symbolism in Indian Art.

Bollingen Series. Pantheon Books. 1946.
Dehejia, Harsha V. Parvatt: Goddess of Love. New Delhi: Maptn
Publishers Pvt. Ltd. 1999.
- - . Parvatidarpana. Delhi: Motllal Banarsidas, 1997.
Hinz, Evelyn J. Nlntroductlon: 'All That Glitters.'" Mozatc Vol.
30, No. 3, 1997.
Jung, Carl Gustav. The Integration of the Personality, Trans.
.• '
Stanley Dell. London: Routledge, 1950.
..
•
Ptggford, George. N'Who's That Girl?': Annie Lennox, Woolfs

Orlando, and Female Camp Androgyny." Mozatc Vol. 30.
No. 3 , 1997.
Prabhakar. Vishnu. Ardhanartshvara. Delhi: Shabdkar, 1992.
Sobti, Krishna. Hum Hushmat. New Delhi: Rajkamal
Prakashan, 1977.
Svatantryadarpanah, The Mirror of Self Supremacy. Trans.
B.N. Pandit. Delhi: Munshi Manoharlal, 1993.
Tolstoy, Lev. ~e Kreutzer Sonata." Short Stories. Moscow:
Progress Publishers.
Walker, Barbara. The Women's Encyclopaedia of Myths and
Secrets. HarperCollins, 1983.
Original from
N
THROUGH PARTITION:
HINDHJRDU AND ENGLISH

UNIVERSITI OF MICHIGAN
HUNDRED MILLION,MUSL!MS dF INDIA
RENEW TDDIJ
,,
This Pledge
of
PAKISTAN :
u l Nthtn1mt"o(AJ/1/l,tllt8fti,ficlftt, flltMerc/ful , .,, :
My Pf•Ytr and my ucri(ice •nd my 1,vlnt and dylnt
,re all ( rlr All•h, 1he'Lord;r;1 ( the wr;1r/d,.".:AL QUU N
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lit onl y In the adtJt¥rtnflll of Pa•irttn which l1 UII

one fi!U it.1blt, honourable and Just ,o/utfon of tlle
,: '··
C con1t/1u1lon1/ prob/Hn1nd which will &rinf peace,
! J .• ( rffdom 1nd prost,tric y 10 the ur/ous natlot11/ftl•
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" / most solemnly affirm 11!,1 / s/!11fwi/li11fy 111diinflin-

chinfly u rryo11t 1/1 1he directforu 1nd instructions whlcl'I
may be itwf(/bythtAJ/.Jndi1Minl_lml.tafutinpur1111tct
of any movtl'Mci l11M1chcd by it for llw atulnment r,f
the chtrind n1tion1I fHI of P1k/JW1, and, kllnlnf a,
/J do in the riff,cllfJS 1nd the ·Just/« of my u 1111, I
Pltdp myJtl( to uiiderro .iny Janpr, tt/1/ or ucrlfl~
; I whld! may be demanded of tnt. ;
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THE\' OFFER HOMA~E to THE ~IEM
Original from
Oig,h,ed "' Google UNIVERSITI OF MICHIGAN
INTRODUCTION
IN BOTH INDIA AND Paldstan. where. at the ground level linguistic

pluralism flourtshcs happily. politics has played a stgntftcant
role tn creating a ltngutstlc hierarchy and an atmosphere of
sb1fe and struggle for power amongst languages. If Urdu and
Hindi had not been partitioned In 194 7 and the close
relationship between the two languages had been politically
recognised. there would have been an unimpeded natural
give-and-take between them, and each would have evolved
the richer for tt. But the process of distancing them from each
other had been Initiated long before the Partition. When the
Muslim or the Hindu identity asserted itself, Urdu was claimed
by the Muslims and Hindi by the Hindus, resulting In the rise
of separatism within the thus-far shared domain of Hindi-
Urdu 1n the subcontinent.
With the Partition. Urdu lost Its territorial rights In Its
birthplace on this side of the border. but acquired an official
.recognition In exile as It were, In Pakistan, where the
supporters of Pakistani nationalism used both religion and
language as tools of integration. In order to push the case for
national unity. Hindi in India and Urdu In Pakistan were
declared as state languages. The resistance to such a position
from the different language groups In different regions of both
the countries was strong and the tension Is not resolved to
date.
Original from
NARRATING PAR'ITT10N
122
But cultural realities often do not match political stances.

1bis Is evidenced amply In the creative writing that has been
going on In Urdu and Hindi In India and Pakistan. Drawing
of lines and borders on the map does not In any way inscribe
them In people's mtnd-scapes. Thus, the shared history and
linguistic culture thrived In spite of the Partition. Even the
experiences of Partition are shared with a similar sensibility
across the borders. As presented in the essays In this section
of the book, Urdu fiction demonstratively reveals the shared
history and culture of the two peoples of India and Pakistan
. In depicting common concerns In an Idiom which can hardly
•
be distinguished as specifically belonging to either India or
Pakistan. The essay, ·1n and Out of Partition: The Hindi-Urdu
Story" discusses how the Urdu language has continued to
nourish the writer's sensibtllty with the richness of Its literary
heritage. And some of the bountiful fiction that reflects, at
the people's level, a range of experience without borders is
taken up In the essay, ·Jn Midstream: The Urdu Short Story
In India and Pakistan."
' .. .. While indigenous Indian languages struggled for their
'. '' ... rightful space even after Independence, English had already
secured a veritable foothold in this region. The hegemonic
' '
presence of English as the privileged colonial language had
.•. . ..• been so strong, and for so long that not only did it come to
.. . . . stay on as a facilitator for social mobility, but It gradually
developed its own body of Indian literature In an idiom which
may be referred to as the language of translation. The essay.
"Negotiating the Original: India's Kinship with English"
engages with the owning of English on the one hand, and on
the other, it hints also at the stiff resistance to it as a language
of power. The self-consciousness of the writer in English In
India is quite different from the one who writes in any other
Indian language.
The political turmoil of 1947 dictated the post-Independence
language policies in India and Pakistan. But whether it is
Urdu or Hindi or English literature, there is deflntte evidence
of continuities rather than a rupture In literary traditions.
Original from
IN AND our OF PAR'l"tl10N:
THE HINDI-URDU SI'ORY
I
THE MunJALnY OF cuLTIJRE as well as the common sources of
vocabulary and other linguistic features of Hindi and Urdu
do not really permit an exclusive study of Just Hindi or Urdu
literature. To study each of these in isolation of the other
leads to a significant loss of meaning and experience. The
strong current of biculturalism evtdent in Hindi and Urdu
literatures has its source as much in the common origins of
these languages, as in the common cultural contexts of their
evolution.
A glance at the history of Urdu language immediately
explains the presence of a plurality of cultural nuances in
its literature. The word Urdu means "camp" and is ortginally
a Turkish term for army camp. While the language of the
durbar used to be Persian, Urdu (or "Hindvt" as it was called
then) emerged from Khadiboli, which had evolved from
Apabransh and Prakrit spoken all around Delhi by the
common people. Persian had the status of being the language
of the durbar till as late as 1934, when the Brttish declared
Urdu as the official language. Urdu had also come to be known
as "Rekhta," meaning mixing of words. The reason for this,
as explained by a school of thought supported by such crttics
as Gopi Chand Narang and some others, is that each time
Original from
NA,_lg,\11NQ PAR1fflON
124
the Moghuls shifted their capital, the language spoken in

the new locale got assimilated into their spoken language
and in this way Urdu picked up its varied vocabulary and
styles.
In literature. there are two simultaneous traditions. One
is that of Urdu poetry. which is sophisticated, with its
language chiseled and refined and the words brilliantly
Juxtaposed. That tradition is still available and alive. It evinces
a concern with language. and an interest in intellectual
reftnement and word play. The other tradition is that of Urdu
fiction. Here the language is connected with life as it is or as
it may be. The tradition of storytelling. dastaangot and ldssagot
- that of long intricate tales told with a strong sense of drama
and imagination - acquired a variety of versions with the
changing tmagtnation of the people. The art lay in the telling
of the tale. when even magic would seem real. and fantasy as
convincing as an actual happening. There was a strong
., Persian tnfluence on this tradition of storytelling. and many
.'· narratives had actually travelled here from Persia and Iran.
'
., . . ..
. The sentence structure of Urdu comes from Khadiboli, and
. . , . while the script is Persian, the vocabulary is Arabic, Haryanvt,
'.
Turkish and Persian. Urdu was also heavily influenced by
the Sufi tradition of HUcayat aur Rtvayat i.e. preaching or
.. -·
moralising through tales, narration and imitation. Thus there
were Sanskrit texts getting translated into Hindvt, the famous
ones being Tota Kahan( and Panchatantra.
There was a strong bond between Htndvt and what came
to be known as Hindi and Urdu. While official work was
required to be done in Persian, general conversation took
place in Hindvt. In 1803, in Fort William College, a very crucial
and historic decision was taken: instead of one language,
Hindvt, there were to be now two languages, with two different
scripts - Hindi, with Devnagrt script, and Urdu, with Persian
script. In one sense, then, Urdu and Hindi thus acquired
their separate official recognition, but the unfortunate
consequence was the polemics that subsequently aros e
between the two languages.
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The difference in the script, however, could In no way divide

the sturdy cultural base evolved over time from within the
same society. Thus despite the difference in form, It Is the
same spirit that thrived in both Hindi and Urdu for a long
time to come.
The ftrst story in Hindi, MRanl Kctak1 Id Kahani" was written
In the Persian script, by Insha Allah. Khan In 1803. Both
Hindi and Urdu litteratcurs claim this to be their ftrst story.
Written In the dastaan style, this story was really an
experiment by Insha Allah Khan who decided to write the
entire narrative without Arabic or Persian words. As Ralph
Russell points out, to think of this story as a milestone In the
development of Hindi language would be wrong. It was an
experiment in language skills and the author had no mottve
of establishing a separate identity of Hindi.
By 1857, Urdu acquired a variety of styles , most
predominantly, the Dilll and the Lukhnawt schools of Urdu.
Earlier, the Deccanl school had already made Its Impact.
There Is enough evidence by this time of the diversity within
the same Urdu language. Interestingly, while studying modem
twentieth century writers like Sa'adat Hasan Manto and Ismat
Chughtat, the difference in the linguistic ambience becomes
quite obvious; while Manto's language has a Punjabi colour,
Ismat Chughtat's Is c_loser to the U.P. style. Ghallb's letters
written around 1857 are a perfect example of one of the earliest
aesthetic and sensitive uses of Rekhta, and they pave the
way for the modem Urdu art of narration. It was not long
after that the ftrst novel In Urdu started to appear serially in
Awadh. a newspaper from Lucknow, from December 1878.
This was Ratan Nath Sarshar's Fasana-e-Azad Obe Story of
Azad) published as a novel in 1880. This novel was also a
source of Inspiration for Premchand. So much so that
Premchand translated It into Hindi as Azad Katha. In his
authentic representation of social reality, Premchand was
greatly Influenced by Sarshar.
According to the well-known Urdu scholar Malik Ram, the
earliest signs of the modem story can be discerned In MNarang-
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128
e-Khayal," an allegory by Maulana Mohammed Hasan Azad

(1836-1910). As for the first modem story 1n Urdu, Professor
Sadique. a contemporary critic regards Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan's story, "Guzra Hua Zamana" (1870) to be modem, both
in Its technique and in its content, and his research
establishes it as the ftrst modem story 1n Urdu. Soon after
this, a formidable body of literature 1n forty volumes, Dastaan-
e-AmLr Hamza. was written by Mohammad Hussain Jah,
Ahmed Hussain Qamar, Tasadduq H11ssatn and others over
a period of 24 years, between 1881 and 1917. Forty thousand
pages long, this was a powerful discourse on Imaginative
prose In Urdu and It went a long way In creating an
understanding of Imaginative fiction, consolidating varied
perspectives on narrative literature. The reputed critic
Kaltmuddtn Ahmed wished he could get these volumes
translated Into English so that there could be wider
readership for this unique work.
.. ,. . In Hindi, the same fervour for narrative prose projected
Itself through the publication of Klshori Lal Goswaml's
Pranaytnt Partnay (1887) and Devkt Nandan Khatrt's
. .
Chandrakanta (1891). novels that raised debates as well as
,. ..
motivated Interest •~ fiction. Dastaans appeared In
. H1ndustan1. while the Panchatantra came out In Urdu. A
...... ;"
strong didactic tone and moraltsation characterised the
.. "
... . . stories being Written at this time. The novel and not the short
story was the literary form of the day.
With Mirza Hadt Ruswa's Umrao Jaan. the Urdu novel
brought alive the realistic world of the courtesan, gtvtng a
touch of social realtsm to fiction. This was at a time when, as
the Urdu Writer Jogtnder Paul points out 1n his article, "Urdu
ka Aaga Peechha" Obe Context of Urdu Fiction), even tn the
late 19th and early 20th century, people generally liked the
magical and Innocent tales of ldssagot and dastaangot. A
strong element of unrealtty and escape was easily accepted
by the readers of fiction then.
In 1907, something very stgntftcant happened 1n the Hindi-
Urdu literary world. A collection of five short stories by Nawab
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127
RaJ, entitled Soz-e-Watan (Anguish of One's Land) was

published. The book was banned by the British as ft
represented a nationalist zeal and was radical .In Its tone. It
can be considered to be the pioneering collection of modem
short stories. Thereafter, Nawab Rat published his stories as
Pre111chand. These stories were written in the Persian script
and later, Premchand wrote stories In Hindi as well. A close
study of Plei11chand's Hindi and Urdu stories reveals not just
a difference In the script - there Is a difference In language
too. Premchand appeared on the scene as a simple presence
amidst a surfeit of moralising on the one hand, and on the
other. there were lmtiaz All's decorattve writing and Yaldaram's
dream-like stories and philosophic discourses. Rashld-ul-
Khairf, Sultan Hyder Josh and Sajjad Hyder Yaldarum were
Premchand's contemporaries, contributing to the growth of
short fiction. In effect. from Soz-e-Watan to his last story "Kafan"
(lbe Shroud"), Premchand created the language of modem
Hindi-Urdu fiction . With him, socially sensitive and
psychologically convincing dimensions got built Into literature.
Prea11chand's stories evoke a deep compassion for humanity.
His relatedness with ordinary people was Inspired by what he
found In Russian literature. "Kafan" has acquired the status
of a classic. The modem sensibility finds Its stark expression
for the first time In Premchand. He creates a new language to
express the pain, the sordid life and the plight of the common
man. Uterature's journey from the durbar to the street, and
then to the village ls effectively accomplished by Pre1nchand.
He divorces romanticism from the short story and plants his
narratives In life itself. The best of his stories are experiential,
not didactic In their tone. His compassion ls such that readers
feel commiseration even for sinners. With Premchand ft
became clear that a story could think as well as feel, that it
need not be restricted to the imagination, that social, political
and economic realities are an important concomitant of the
fictional word, and that the common person could be portt ayed
exactly as he/she ls.
Premchand sympathised with the Progressives who were
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making a concerted effort to work out their ideological

convictions and build them into the world of literature. They
brought out a volume of short stories. Angaare. in 1932. Angaare
was an important milestone in the history of modem flctton in
Urdu. It brought the short story out of dtdacticism and
romanticism. Ahmed Alt, Rashid Jehan, Mahmud uz 7.afar and
Sajjad Zaheer were all associated With this movement. In 1936,
the first Progressive Writers' Association conference was held
at Lucknow, and it was presided over by Premchand. The
freedom movement. tndustrtaltsation and the new woman
became important subjects for creative narratives. Social
realism stepped into fiction.
The volume Angaare had brought about a revolution in
fiction. The golden age of the Urdu short story commenced
from this point of time. Alt Abbas Hosatn, Sudershan, Ahmad
Alt, Rajtnder Singh Bedt, Sa'adat Hasan Manto, lsmat
Chughtat, Upendranath Ashk, Krtshan Chander, Ahmad
Nadeem Qasmt and Qunatulatn Hyder were some of the writers
actively writing at this time. After the Partition, these authors
.... . - became even more prominent. If a short story written in their
. "
.. .. .. Urdu is produced in the Devnagrt script. It could be mistaken
for a Hindi story. Similarly. Bhisham Sahni, Mohan Rakesh
and some other Hindi writers could well be mistaken for Urdu
.
. . ... writers if presented In the Persian script. These writers did
... . . not enter into the politics of Partition. Their ways of thinking.
their Ideology, their idiom of expression remained very stmilar
to each other's. The Progressive writers connected life with
literature. Although village life was an Important theme.
another crucial theme for these writers was migration to the
city. Gandhi was a great influence on them. They discovered
strange contradictions in the working of the human psyche -
things were no longer Just black and white. people weren't
Just heroes or villains.
In the Introduction to the two volumes of Urdu stories
published in Devnagrt script (1998), Kamleshwar. the eminent
modern Hindi writer, borrows the wordjugalbandi from Indian
music and uses it to explain the process of gtve-and-take, or
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IN AND Ot1T OP' PAll'ITTION
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the perpetual dialogulng that takes place between Hindi and

Urdu. Whether In terms of literary movements or linguistic
elements, this ongoing Jugalbandi enriched each of these
languages and their literatures. There was' an absorption of
Hindi Into Urdu and vice-versa. It was at the time of Partition
that Hindi and Urdu actually suffered a divide. Urdu became
homeless In India. while In Pakistan It was declared to be the
official language. It Is Ironic that Urdu acquired a refugee
status In India - the place of Its genesis and growth. After
moving to Pakistan. Sa'adat Hasan Manto wrote a letter to
Pandit Nehru, In which he accused Nehru of ousting Urdu
from India. He found this particularly perplexing In a man
who spoke Urdu with such finesse and knowledge. Listening
to Nehru's post-Independence Hindi speeches , Manto
comments. "'Ibey sound as If some Hindu Mahasabha person
has written them.· Manto Is one of the few people who
protested actively about the division of Hindi and Urdu. The
Increased Sanskrltlsatlon of Hindi was probably a move
towards establishing a distinct Identity for the Hindi language.
But the mask cannot take the place of the face and so the
murmur of protests from the users of the language.
Even though there are a number of Urdu academies in
India, there Is not a single state in the country that owns
Urdu as its primary language. Politicisation of the issue and
biases against and for the language are rampant. The census
of 1991, for Instance, shows that Punjab does not have a
single Urdu speaker. Amazing as this sounds, one should
remember that policies are formulated on the basis of the
census findings. even if they are inaccurate. That this
language is now getting more and more associated with a
religious group is a tragic development. In such a situation.
it is under a serious threat of dying an unnatural death in
the land of its birth.
When Premchand wrote in Urdu. some critics said that
even though he could write a story in Urdu, he could not
really write the correct Urdu language. This is typical of a
purist's or Pandit's approach to ·language. which tends to
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130
distance the language from the people. While the linguists

and the purists wanted Urdu to look Impressive, Prcmchand
eschewed this. He was Influenced by Russian writers like
Gorky and Chckov. and he wrote the language of the peasant
and the common man. The political consciousness that had
entered Into the domain of both Hindi and Urdu hampered
their growth. Sanskrit In the case of Hindi and Persian for
Urdu came to be seen as source languages, but as history
demonstrates, the sources of both the languages were
common for a long time.
- Sanskrltlscd Hindi and Pcrslanlscd Urdu arc both distinctly
different from the language commonly used by people. In
recognition of this fact, Mahatma Gandhi had Insisted on
the appropriateness of Hlndustani as the language of this
nation. He advocated Hlndustani, a mixture of Hindi and
Urdu, and two scripts for the two languages. He did not want
the Jugalbandt between Hindi and Urdu to stop. Pandlts,
scholars or politicians cannot totally take over the growth of
a language. The development of a language has to correspond
with the dynamics of the society In which It ls used.
It ls fiction, It may be noticed, that has kept alive the
mutuality between Hindi and Urdu. Unlike politics and
criticism. there arc no vested Interests or political agendas
. . .. at work In a good story. If the language of the people ls
. . Hindustanl, no amount of persuasion from the Pandlts will
make It Sanskrit or Persian.
II
An Important critical resource on the modem Urdu short
story ls Devendra lssar's book Urdu Kahaant ka AdhunUc
Bodh (Modem Sensibility In the Urdu Story). Issar's book In
Hindi and 1lte New Story (Sukrtta Paul Kumar, IIAS. Shlmla,
1991) In English explore literary modernism and Its socio-
cultural roots In the context of Hindi and Urdu fiction.
The Partition holds great significance for the evolution of
the modem Urdu short story, yet criticism In these languages
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does not link the emergence of modernism to this

phenomenon. Partition, In fact, Is what provided the socio-
cultural reason for modernism to emerge. In the late '50s
and '60s there was a movement called ·Naya Afsana• In Urdu
and ·Nayl Kaharu· (the New Story) In Hindi. Kamleshwar,
Mohan Rakesh, Ntrmal Verma. Krishna Sobtl were all part of
the movement In Hindi. In Urdu there was. of course. Manto
to begin with. He was at the time Just beginning to be
recognised as a stgnUlcant writer. He died In 1953, an alcoholic
and a pauper. Krlshan Chandar. RaJlnder Singh Bedl,
Qurratulaln Hyder, Ismat Chughtal and later In the late '60s
and '70s, Surendra Prakash and Jogtnder Paul, among others,
are some of the other modem writers In Urdu. Magazines
such as Shabkhoon. Shalr, Afktu, Naqoosh. Aurak and Aq/ Kal.
In which these authors published were, and are. widely read.
Of these Aurak. Naqoosh and l\fkar publish from Pakistan.
These magazines, which are In fact serious literary Journals
edited by eminent critics and writers have contributed
stgntflcantly In creating a wide readership for the short story
In Hindi and Urdu. The '60s saw a mushrooming of Urdu
short stories. Today the scene Is different. The education
system encourages the linguistic hierarchy perpetuated by
neo-colontsatlon. That Is why now, English and then Hindi
get far more attention and Importance.
Partition triggered Manto's creativity Into producing hordes
of stories portraying the grotesque experience of mass
migration , violence and rape. His contemporary, Ismat
Chughtal. though pained by Partition, chose to write very
little on the theme. ·Jadetn· (Roots) Is her only story on It.
Manto and Ismat wrote before, during and after Partition.
There Is a marked tone of protest In their stories. They posed
fundamental questions regarding equality and social Justice.
Manto Is not Interested In the comfortable life of the
prosperous. He enters brothels. the minds of criminals, and
the minds of the oppressed In society. and presents the
marginalised with a lot of compassion. .
RaJlnder Singh Bedt once asked, "Why does Manto have to
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be so dramatic In his stories?· Manto retorted. ·What ls

sensatlonalism to one. Is reality to another.· Manto explored
the essential beauty of the prostitute and her dignity as a
woman In stories like ·Hatak· and ·KaJ1 Shalwar. • He takes
us sensuously close to the woman. His ls not a superficial
examination of the Institution of prostitution. His perceptions
arc not that of an outsider or bystander and he takes the
reader into the minds of the prostitute without any
exhibitionism or melodrama. His portrayal Is honest. powerful
and straightforward. When reality Itself Is bizarre, the
rcprcsentatlon of It Is bound to be the same.
In his Partition stories, Manto's realism takes the form of
obscene Violence. Manto was even sued for obscenity. A
number of his stories were banned. While readers waited for
his stories, critics paid him little attention. They considered
Upcndranath Ashq to be a much better writer. a man who is
today not given that status at all. In his article on Manto,
Narendra Mohan describes Partition as a nail In the soul of
.
' Manto. Manto's stories generate a desire to explore, to know
life in terms of specifics. to Identify With specific men and
women, society and Partition. In Mushlrul Hasan's translation
of Manto's Siyah Hashlye (Black Margins), there are glimpses
of the grotesque and bizarre scenes of Partition. The story
. - ·J<hol no· (Open It) presents the gory experience of the multiple
" . rape of a girl. Men and women seem completely dehumanised.
Manto's expression of Partition experiences ts very different
as compared to the journalistic descriptions of the Violence
and atrocities at that time. The latter were long narratives
Without any sense of perspective. psychological insight or
grace afforded to humanity.
.Another stgntficant writer who powerfully articulates the
experience of Partition is Bhtsham Sahni, whose story In Hindi
•Amrltsar Aa Gaya Hat· (Arrival at Amrltsar) captures the
tragedy of the exodus from Lahore to Amrltsar tn 1947. Sahni,
like Manto, was one of the first to write about the Partition
with such sensitivity and poignancy. People running for life
end up as corpses on a train when the train finally arrives at
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133
their destination, Amrttsar. 1b9usands of people, after being

suddenly rendered homeless and country-less, are in a state
of suspension In the train. neither here nor there. The
journey, through which one seeks security, Is a metaphor.
But where Is the security? The destination proves to be not
Amrttsar but death. Death Is the only security. Is this story
symbolic, metaphoric or realistic? It transcends all categories,
•
presenting various shades of experience, suggesting various
ways of understanding It. Sahnt's language Is as much Urdu
as Hindi although It Is written In the Devnagrt script, while
Manta's language Is as much Hindi as Urdu, although It Is
written in the Persian script.
In the evolution of the modem short story. Rajinder Singh
Bedt's role has to be specially mentioned. In his story
"Lajwantt," the woman Lajjo returns to her husband as
Lajwantl after having been lost in the chaos of Partition. She
suffers a tremendous alienation from her husband, but
cannot even think of a separation. This character too Is In a
state of suspension. After what has happened to her during
Partition, she Is not able to relate to her husband any more.
Again. another self loses Its Identity with the uprooting and
violence suffered by It. This Is what the experience of Partition
did to so many. Millions died and millions more were affected
by the massive migration and violence. Obviously. the mwlng
of geo-poltttcal boundaries and the entailing migration.
violence, rape and death scenes created so much havoc that
s ooner or later life had to be r eorganised. The spirit of
resurgence and rehabilitation was Inevitable. There had to
be a striving for stabtltty. The socio-cultural crisis suffered
by the people sought to locate a new axts, fresh balances and
new forms of creative expression. Literary modernism In the
Hindi and Urdu short story was born out of such a sptrtt.
Earlier we were a nation of mohallas. The Joint family, the
community, the mohalla - these were Important to the Indian
society. The psyche emerging from such a base did not care
for tndtvtdualtsm. But with Partition. the whole fabric of society
was ripped apart, the social knitting undone. The Immediate
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134
sensation was one of shock, of alienation and of uprootedness.

The refugee culture came up as an Immediate consequence
of Partition. But gtve the people ten to fifteen years and the
creative imagination seeks rehabilitation, resurgence.
stability. security and expertmentatlon wtth life. In northern
India, enterprise, commerctaltsatlon and education took over
to reconstruct the self and the society. Earlier certitudes of
the Joint family and the mohalla collapsed after the social
fabric had been tom apart and there were no easy alternatives
available.
. . The new story projects a definite concern for the new
woman - the educated and the self-aware urban woman.
Mohan Rakesh's ·Miss Pal· sketches such a woman who
wants to locate her own bearings. She finds it very difficult to
·,
do so, whether in the city or in the hills. To pay attention to
.. .
the new aspirations of women and to present their new
Identity was a new phenomenon In literature. Krishna Sobtl's
.. ." . Hindi novel Mitro MarjanL draws one's attention to the natural
urges and desire in women - in this case an uneducated
...
' woman. The novel Is a bold celebration of female sexuality.
. .. The woman Is the active lover here, not Just a beloved. Sobti"s
..
.'. .
feminism grants legitimacy to a woman's natural urges and
.. individuality. Such a stance Is at once progressive as well as
.
"
"
•'
modem.
. .
.. . . 4
The modem short story articulates many of those silences

which have oppressed men and women for a long time. Joginder
Paul's Urdu story. ·paray1· Obe Alien) Is the story of a woman
talking to a mound of mud. She sings to It the song of her
destiny, complaining about her husband and her existence.
Sharing her woes with a mound of mud, the woman of rural
Punjab is known to find relief this way, when she may sing to
the mound and narrate her life experience, her anguish, her
loves and betrayals. It serves as a kind of therapy for the woman.
The story is in the form of a monologue. The woman talks in
the third person about herself and speaks of how she never
had a home of her own. In her childhood, her mother would
reprimand her, saying, ·vou can do that in your own home,
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135
not here.· After marriage her husband would tell her, ·You
should have done that In your own house, not here.· The story
brings out the pathos of this woman as the plight of every
woman. She Is alienated from everyone. her own self, too - an
Inevitable fallout of patriarchy. She asks God what he11 tell
her when she ftnally reaches the heavens - will God too echo
her mother and her husband? Does she have any hope after
death?
Another classic story of this phase - the modem period -
Is "Patjhad kl Awaaz" by Qurratulaln Hyder. The translated
title. "1be Sound of Falling Leaves,· Is also the name of the
collection of her stories published by Sahitya Akademt.
Partition agatn forms the backdrop of this story in which the
female protagonist tries to assert her own Individuality
through socially unacceptable relationships. She Is fully
conscious of her rebellton. But after the prime of her youth,
like a tree shedding Its leaves, she compromises completely.
The energy for rebellton In her seems to exist only when she
Is young. The sound of the falling leaves reminds the woman
of her mechanical, energy-less existence. The story Is a
masterpiece In Its quiet portrayal of a strong woman
character. One should not miss the powerful desire for
assertion that Is demonstrated by the woman despite the
compromise at the end.
Mohan Rakesh's story "Malbe ka Malik" (·His Own Heap of
Rubble") Is an example of the writer's constant and sustained
engagement with home, nostalgia and security as a lingering
post-Partition preoccupation. Seven years after Partition, a
character comes from Lahore to Amrttsar - two cities twenty
miles apart but In two different countries - to see his home.
Today perhaps the experience may not be so Intense. but In
those days people were very rooted In their hometowns. l11ttzar
Hussain has a number of stories demonstrating an ardent
yearning and curiosity felt by people about the land on the
other side of the border, the land of their birth.
With so much change In the air, the concerns of the writers
too were bound to be affected. And when the themes are new.
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NAR.ll!A11IIO l'AR'ITl'ION
136
the forms of expression also change. There is evidence of a

lot of formal experimentation during the '70s and '80s. Balraj
Manra's abstract stories. "Composition One" and
"Composition Two" are obvious examples. They try to capture
the confusion of a sensibility trying to settle down. There is
an obsession with the idea of stability. Ironically. this in itself
becomes a source of restlessness and further psychic
instability.
. Another feature of the new story worth attending to is the
. ' use of myths to interpret the present. The new story used
ancient myths In entirely new contexts. Old myths were
reinterpreted. demythlfled and new myths created. This
...
happens. for example. In Rajendra Yadav's "Abhlmanyu ki
Atmahatya" ("Abhlmanyu's Suicide"). The story yields the
experience of the rather tangled and complicated m<?dern
.. .
existence - an existence that Is like the chakravyuha - in
which one lies trapped unless the point of exit is revealed.
The hopelessness and helplessness of the modern man, his
sense of being caught in a trap from which there is no escape.
"' . -- is articulated here without any direct reference being made
. . .
!. :
-
. •
· to Abhlmanyu. the heroic character from the Mahabharata.
' . . To finally come to Manto's story. "Toba Tek Singh" would be
. . '
,. well in keeping with the conviction that this story crystalUses
. . .-
.. the entire temper and ethos of a turning point in the life of not
just Toba Tek Singh the man, but society as whole. It concretlses
the concept of watan. This word means more than just
homeland or even motherland. The word has a very strong
emotive nuance; it expresses an intense longing for roots. a
deep desire to belong. When geography and human psyche
identify .and an emotional relationship builds up at an
unconscious plane. a separation between the two can cause a
psychic disorder. unless handled delicately. Toba Tek Singh
is not just the name of a character. This story demonstrates
how the concept of watan is lived by the person who comes to
acquire the name of his land. He becomes the land he/she
comes from. Toba Tek Singh is the experience of homeland
incarnate. Bishan Singh's madness is an expression of the
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137
revolt of the partitioned psyche. The tone of the story is ironical

and the reader wonders whether this is madness at all. The
irrational actions of the people outside the asylum reflect far
greater madness. Toba Tele Singh's so-called nonsense makes
much more sense than the so-called sense of the sane. Toba
Tek Singh presents a perfect vision. an x-ray of a person's
psyche. Toba Tek Singh perceives the chaos within the mind
and articulates this chaos as it is rather than tidying it up
into any semblance of sense. In our desire to accord sanity to
the reality around us we tend to deny its existence rather
than face it squarely to come to terms with it. Ordinary speech
'
may not be adeq'1ate' to express such a reality authentically.
What should one speak then? It is out of such a creative tension
that the story of Toba Tek Singh is born.
Even though Toba Tek Singh breaks the laws of syntax, of
punctuation or of diction. his words sound more sane than
the sanity outside the asylum. Toba Tek Singh dies on no-
man's land because he refuses to go to the other side of the.
border. He alone has the strength to deny and question the
artificially drawn political boundaries. In its profound
presentation of the understanding of Partition at a very
fundamental level, this story is a masterpiece.
The deep impact of Partition on the human psyche also
finds expression in Sleepwalkers. which too makes a creative
use of insanity or deewanapa.n as a metaphor. It is the story
of a Maulavi Sahib who at the time of Partition. physically
travels from Lucknow to Karachi but never moves out of
Lucknow mentally . His wife refuses to disturb his
d.eewanapa.n because she knows he will die if he realises that
he is not in Lucknow.
With all the examples cited. it is obvious that the short
story evolved as the most effective creative expression of the
modem sensibility in the '60s and '70s in Hindi and Urdu.
But Ismat Chughtai, whose sensibility identlfted so well with
the bold aesthetics of this period. had made her mark way
back in the forties. She continued to be an active contributor
to the body of modem fiction, both in Hindi and Urdu. Even
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•
though she wrote In Urdu. each of her stortes got transcrtbed
and published In Hindi almost Immediately. Born In 1911 Into
a large family. she gi ew up observing low and middle class
Muslim women In combat with an oppressive patriarchal set-
up. Her elder brother, Azeem Beg Chughtal, a well-known
wrtter of satire, was a great Influence on lsmat. Thomas Hardy
and Chckov were her favourite authors. Bold and progressive
In her Ideas, she rebelled against purdah and resented the
Indignities heaped on woman both at home and outside It.
Her story. •IJhaaf' (-Toe Qullt1. published In 1942, created a
•
stir In the Urdu world. She plumbs the depths of the
marginalised female psyche. and creattvely exploits the power
that the psyche has to express Itself. The gieater the societal
repression, Chughtal argues, the stronger the need for
expression and rebellion. -Toe Quilt· Is a perfect example of
.. the tradlUonal woman's rebellion wtthln an oppressive
environment. Denial or repression of sexual urges may lead
to unconventional relationships. In this story we see the
'.
woman becoming a lover herself. This story was wrttten over
•. .- fifty years ago and yet the theme Is so contemporary. It was
revolutionary at the time. The story builds up a dream-like,
. .
almost nightmarish atmosphere, and yet It Is so realistic. The
story unfolds Itself through the eyes of a child, a very
percepttve child. Just as the madman In "Toba Tck Singh· Is
very sane In his essential responses, the child In ·Lthaaf. •
though Innocent, Is very perceptive.
The power of Chughtat's language Is such that willy-nilly
one Is drawn deeply into the story. One cannot remain an
indifferent bystander. Often her stories are set in that
particular part of the Muslim house called the sahadrt. which
is reserved only for women, where women sit, chat, embroider,
and where men do not have access. Class barrters break
down within this space. Women relate to each other better
within this area. In many of Chughtat's stortes, Including
her autobiography Kaghazi Hat Palrahan (Paper-thin Is the
Apparel) and her novel Tedht Lakeer (The Crooked Linet. there
is a very alert and sensitive porbayal of varied layers of life
Original from
IN AHO OUT 01' l'All'ITIION
139
lived by women within the four walls of the house and from
Within purdah. lsmat Chughtafs use of a unique idiom and
metaphor has received a lot of acclaim 1n Urdu.
The modem short story displayed a sense of resurgence
and renewal tn Its effort to redefine human existence 1n the
estranged post-Partition world . The modernist temper
expressed Itself as much through myth, symbol and
abstrac tion, as through social realism. Fresh avenues of
creative articulation 1n short fiction opened up. which 1n tum
led lo fresh realisations about human existence and Its varied
contexts. Today. the short story In Urdu ts a highly developed
and sophisticated literary form enriched by linguistic as well
as cultural plurality.
Wnas• C.11:u
Paul, Jogtnder. "Urdu ka Aaga Peechha." Vaichartkt. April.

1998.
Bismtllah, Abdul. "A Reading of 'Pandit' Manto's Letter to
Pandit Nehru." Ed. Alok Bhalla. The Ufe and Works of
Manto. Shimla: IIAS. 1998.
Bhalla. Alok. ed. The Ufe and Works of Manto. Shimla, llAS,
1998.
Original from
IN MIDSTREAM: THE URDU SHORT STORY IN
INDIA AND PAKISTAN
..
OvEa CENnJRJES IN 11-IE subcontinent, Urdu has been chiselled

and polished as a language for fine aesthetic articulation of
the human spirit. A rich repository of what is called a Ganga-
Jamuni culture flows within its stream on the plains of India
. .
and Pakistan. This is a culture of assimilation. negotiation
and of a coming together of a variety of ways of living and of
•.
'.
·-
.-
storytelling.
Urdu is traditionally known for its shairi.. Lines from the
Urdu ghazal and nazm, whether by Ghalib, Iqbal. Firaq or
Faiz, are recited even by non-Urdu literates. But little does
the world outside the Urdu community know of the highly
..• . .•
developed art of the short story in this language. In both
Pakistan and India, writers in Urdu have created a very
significant and Vibrant body of short fiction in the last fifty
years. This is really a continuation of the tradition evidenced
in pre-Partition times. The Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic
cultures pooled themselves into dastaangot.. the Indo-Persian
art of story-telling. which. coming down to the present times.
also came under the influence of western cultures With the
colonial rule and gradually evolved into Jadeed afsana. the
modem short story.
On both sides of the borders, literature in Urdu has
prospered through extensive publication of journals and
books. Unfortunately , there has not been a very easy
Original from
IN-
141
exchange of these materials between India and Pakistan due

to the intCJ 111Jttent political tensions. But how can we have a
Mpolitical division of Urdu," as the eminent Hindi writer
Kamleshwar so succinctly put it.
Short stories from India and Pakistan selected for the
volume, Mapping Memories (1998) capture vital dimensions
of the human predicament in the subcontinent. The
immediacy with which the narration affects the reader's mind
speaks for the stark authenticity of the experience presented.
While they are all so deeply rooted in their specific socio-
cultural contexts, the spirit of these stories belong to a realm
where human connections are easily perceived.
Both in the fabulist form and the mythopoeic content, Inttzar
Husaln's story, "The Pale Dog," Surendra Prakash's MBijooka"
and Jogtnder Paul's MKhodu Baba's Tomb" directly narrate the
tale of the shared cultures nourished by India and Pakistan.
They could have been written by writers of only India or
Pakistan, not by a writer from, say, Latin America or from
even closer home, Sri Lanka. Again, Zahida Hina's story
MMirage on Waters," Farkhanda Lodhi's MRemains of Desire"
and Qurratulain Hyder's MHonour" delve into gender
orientations typical in our societies. They evoke stereotypical
ideas of female beauty, the cherishing of female honour in the
changing world and the new quest of women in relationships.
In Mansha Yad's MFireflies in a Clenched Fist," the urban
woman reacts existentially to the staleness of her routine
metropolitan life. This finds its match in the absurd fate of the
incarcerated man in Salim Agha Qazilbash's "The Unit." The
man has to choose his own punishment for a crime he did not
commit. Another story told with a sensitive contemporary
temper, "The Man Hanging in the Chauraha" by Anwar Qamar
snares the reader into its nightmarish captivity. In Syed
Mohammad Ashrafs "Aadmt," the man becomes a captive -
not of animals, but of man. On the other hand, interestingly,
Umrao Tartq's "The Last Station" accords to people an equally
frightening freedom, Ironically, not only to become fugitives
but also to remain in that state, perhaps forever.
Original from
- l'All'ffl10N
142
Both Enver Sajjad's "'Ibe Cow" and Jcclani Bano's "Joy·

arc wcll-lmown stories. They dclicatcly portray the diminishing
compassion tn modem life. A quiet message lies woven tn the
narrative of Bano Qudsta's story. "'Ibe Son's Letter." The
solitary old man tn the story goes on and marries his maid ...
life moves on. Life moves on even when Raffu becomes
prepared to stake his life to get ftve rupees, 1n Gyas Ahmed
Gaddi's story, "'Ibe Sun that Sets."
• The Urdu stories of India and Pakistan reveal a variety of
dimensions of life 1n the subcontinent through diverse styles,
ranging from the fable to the abstract, · from the realistic to
the symbolic and the absurd. What Impresses one about the
book, Mapping Memories, Is how the diversity of the stories
collected In It tends to In fact suggest a commonality of
concerns. Boundaries collapse when ftctton explores the truth
of living contexts 1n India and Pakistan.
•.
:,.
.·-
. ..
. ..
. .'
1.
. .
. ..
Original from
NEGOTIATING THE ORIGINAL:
LANGUAGE/CULTURE INTERFACE IN
ENGLISH IN INDIA
IN WHICH INDIA oo the Naipauls and the Rushdtes discern mimic

men or translated men? Whtie they have the advantage of
distance which may accord them an objective perspective,
the disadvantage of the same ts a narrow focusing on the
urban and over-articulate westernised Indian - just a
minuscule percentage of the millions of people existing in
the much larger and culturally rich rural and semi-urban
territories of India. Multilingualism as well as pluralism
flourish when each linguistic group can retain its identity
and yet co-exist with the other in harmony. The uniqueness
of any language, in fact, ls an expression of the cultural
particularity of the people who have been using it. Its specific
gestures and signs evolve from the way people may relate
with nature, with the world and with each other. The
philosophy of existence of a people then weaves Itself
inextricably tnto the pattern of communication practised by
them. Such dynamics of relationship between culture and
language leads to the evolvtng of suitable metaphors, idioms
and the very syntax of the language.
A one-to-one, non-hegemonic interaction between two
languages offers a boost to the churning that can give birth
to fresh Ideas and experiences. If there Is movement in a
people's language, there Is a movement tn the culture they
grow Into, In their approach to life, to God. A quiet and gradual
Original from
NNUIATING PAlfflTION
144
dialectics of neighbourly languages is demonstrated in a

variety of ways. Let us take the example of the two languages.
Urdu and Marathi - languages that have had a long history
of co-existence in Aurangabad (Maharashtra) . While the
culture of Urdu has crept into everyday Marathi in that
region, Marathi too has entered the world of Urdu with its
cultural paraphernalia of Ganesh. Laxmi and tamasha. The
. Urdu poet Qazi Saleem. for example , frequently uses
•
vocabulary that is strictly Marathi . Urdu and Marathi
literature from that region then are bound to reflect a culture
of assimilation - an ongoing gtve and take in ideas. a sharing
•
of linguistic frames through common metaphors, idioms and
vocabulary. There is a constant process of cultural
translation going on at an unconscious plane. The meaning
of translation obviously goes beyond that of language transfer.
Here it includes adaptation, modification. appropriation and
assimilation of both culture as well as language. The inter-
language and intra -lingual exchanges happen non-
aggressively at the people's level, and not through any political
. .. or linguistic power structures. No freeze frames get used. All
.' ..
that goes on, happens through living experience rather than
strategic planning. Each of the languages is a receiver as
well as a giver, each getting enriched rather than subverted.
• •
and functioning without any worked out agenda.
On the other hand. the history of the Indian subcontinent
shows us how the colonial enterprise here calculated the
chances of controlling a whole society through its very culture.
The imperialistic intervention used language and literature
as tools of self-definition and division. slowly creating gaps
between ·ourselves and other selves,· our world and the other
world. The most important area of colonial domination was
the mental domain of the colonised. It would be most
appropriate to quote Ngugi wa Thiong'o here. While describing
the hegemony of English, he says:
But since the new, Imposed language could never
completely.break the naUve languagea as spoken. their
most eft'ecUve area of domination was .. . the written.
Original from
NEOOTIA11NO THE ORIOINAL
145
The language for an African child's formal education

was foreign. The language of the books he read was
foreign . The language of his conceptuallsaUon was
foreign . Thought, In him, took the visible form of a
foreign language. So the written language of a child's
upbringing In the school became divorced from his
spoken language at home. (442)
In the Indian context too, the Imposition of a foreign language

and the prestige value associated with It created a hegemonic
position for English. The privileged classes patronised English,
leaving the masses to struggle for survival, and fortunately,
these masses got left alone In seeking creative expression In
their own tongues, In folklore and folk arts. Their earthiness
and rootedness are In themselves a necessary condition for
authentic expression. That Is how the colonial subaltern
managed to remain heterogeneous. While some varieties of
the elite may at best be, to borrow Spivak's words, "native
informants for the first world Intellectuals" (76), tt Is the
heterogeneous majority that has kept the culture of plurality
alive in regional literatures, which are so nakedly local and so
meaningfully universal.
When Spivak asks. "Can the Subaltern speak?" the answer
I would think is: Yes, it's actually the subaltern who can
speak. Because when she speaks it will not be to juggle with
words or to merely exhibit her knowledge of the language,
but she will want to say something and express a felt
experience. The elite, on the other hand, may operate in the
language of the mind and evolve theoretical premises for
action and speech. It is the subaltern who may have a greater
compulsion to speak and act. Uterary words get "constructed"
rather than created by those for whom there is a gap between
language and real life. In a perceptive article on this theme.
Rajt Narasimhan discusses the difference between Indian
writing in English and creative writing in other Indian
languages: " .. . the assumption cum ideal of western
godfathership of Indian English writing creates an essential
difference ... a_sense of otherness in that writing." The status
and power of the language are so strong that the otherness
Original from
148
gets more venerated than resisted. Some wrttcrs find It

tempting to make an entry Into the world of what she calls
·Englophtlcs:· they become cager to have their works
translated Into English and quite often may not protest
against bad or even unfaithful translations of their works.
The readership targeted Is not necessarily the one sitting
abroad In the West. lt Is that of the first world right here In
the minds of the people, the elite, the English-speaking group
.
of people wielding the Jargon power of western salesmanship
.' and sitting tn Judgement on their poor cousins. Ironically.
- the approval from this class of Indians, more often than not,
assures the writer canonisation within her own language as
well.
• There are thankfully a few crttlcal minds In each of the
Indian literatures making serious attempts to develop
Indigenous critical traditions to discern the good from the
bad and place the work of art within the socto-ltngutstlc
context of Its creation. Hindi, for Instance, needed a Ha:rart
I' •
Prasad Dwtvedt with his historical vision and acute sense of

contemporaneity to consolidate and critically cogntse Its
' ..
literary traditions. For him, being Indigenous meant being
original. not parochial, and being modern meant being
. . progressive. not westernised.
-.
' .
. ,.,
- When Subra.mantam Bharathl generated new coinages In
... - ' Tamil vocabulary to express new ideas, he was really
demonstrating both progress as well as ortgtna11ty. The easier
way could have been to borrow and use alien words. accept
the otherness of the language along with the context and let
tim_e either assimilate them or reject them. Cultural
encounters begin with emphasis on differences, but they can
end up in moments of communication irrespective of linguistic
structures or vocabulary. The crossing of boundaries is
inevitable when the points of human identification get
realised, however momentary they might be. What is of
immense value to humanity in good literature is its power to
resist cultural homogenisation and simultaneously establish
contact through flashes of understanding.
Original from
NECO'l1A11NC ntE ORICINAL
147
However, a mature interpenetration of cultures Is possible

only If they are operational on the same plane, without any
hierarchical positions. In the case of a dominating culture,
what Is created, In A. K. Ramanujan's words, Is a -meta-
language· (139) for the passive culture. It Is through this
meta-language that the colonised receive a whole thought
pattern for their self-perception. This Is evidenced In the way
angllclsed Indian minds respond to the colonial English
translations of seminal cultural texts such as the Gita and
the Upanishads. As is well acknowledged now, these
translations are really cultural appropriations. When English
or American models were acceptable without any questions,
there was bound to be a change in self-definition based on
half-perceived and half-created notions of the other. The
much-debated East-West encounters must be examined
carefully, with adequate attention paid to the political
slgntftcance of the languages Implicated In these exchanges.
A parable narrated at a conference seems very relevant
here: The British put up a bridge over Coom river in Tamil
Nadu and called it Hamilton Bridge. The Tamils have no initial
H's in their language, or consonant clusters like the -it· In
Hamilton. So they pronounce It -Amittan- which Is close to
the Tamil word -amattan• which means -barber.· So the name
was translated wholly Into Tamil as -Amattan Katavat1-
(brtdge) and local barbers, thtnking It a convenient Invitation
began hanging around there for anyone to call. Thus the
words Invited another reality In. Now the name has been
translated back into English as -Barber's Bridge· (138).
Reality can get transformed, moulded and even created
through such Inter-cultural and linguistic trafficking. When
the English language and literature gradually settled down
as the magic formula to colonial elitedom, more and more
people aspired to reach that social plane. For that they would
readily own not only the alien language In its entirety, but
also the culture that it brought along with itself.
Companionship with Dickensian and Shakespearian
characters, more than those from Kalldas and Premchand,
Original from
IWUIA11NO PAR1fflON
148
offered a greater sense of worth to them, an imaginary rather

than an imagtnative one. To feign an alien sensibility became
an art everybody sought to acquire, and a nod of approval
•
from the West would immediately gtve a person a place in the
exclusive world of the privileged few. The mask would then
fix itself more firmly on the face, smothering the original
features totally or maintaining a very awkward gap between
the real and itself. Appropriation of the Mlocal" or the culturally
spectflc. reflects itself back to the dependant culture as the
Morigtnal" through English translations. This has gone a long
way ln manipulating whole societies into creating alien self-
perceptions, divorcing themselves from their own reality and
living up to the orientalist paradigm.
Translations of literary works done through hegemonic
colonial positions. played a vital role in controlling cultures.
The indigenous would either be subverted or exoticiscd. What
may be delineated as irreverent in the original regt.onai
; . . language may become overwhelmingly sptrttual in the'Engllsh
•' . translation in order to fulfil the expectations of western
' ....
'.
readers. N. S. Madhavan gtves the example of the Malayalam
...- author 0. V. Vijayan's own translation of his novel The Saga
Of Khossak. In English, the content of the novel becomes
highly spiritual. The white man's burden gets carried by the
brown writer through "translation" as refraction.
... . .
That history inscribes itself in the very process of
translation is evidenced in the kind of interventions that the
translator makes while mediating the transference of the text
from one socio-linguistic frame to another. Hasan Shah's novel
published in 1790 was written in "Htndi-ised Farsi" and was
rendered into Urdu in 1893 by Sajjad Hussain Kasmandavt.
Hasan Shah had simply called it ~e Story of Beauty and
Love" while a century later Kasmandavi chose to call it
Nashtar and emphasise on the then socially more appealing
and romantic aspect of love - the pain of separation in love.
A century later, when Nashtar was "translated" into English.
Qurratulain Hyder called it The Nautch Girl (1992). In the
change of the title, what is implicit is an inevitable shift 1n
Original from
IIEG011A11MG T1fl!i OIUOINAL
149
the thematic stress - the extraordinariness of the female

protagonist stands accentuated. From "Hindl-lsed Farsl" of
the 18th century to Urdu In the 19th century and then to
English In the 20th century, the texts acquire different
linguistic and thematic variations and patterns conforming
to the historical context. Does this merely give us the history
of the translations of that original Hasan Shah's text? Indeed,
each translation actually seems to acquire the shape of an
"original."
Omitting the "ornate· passages and most of the gttazals of
Hafiz, the new version went through a subtle colonial
acculturation and arrived as a standard "modem" text
stripped of Its dastaan style. Hyder adds an intermittent
humorous commentary on Hasan Shah's views and actions
In the text, causing a distancing from the original form of
personal narrative and building Into It a critical stance. The
"strange and different Orient" gets moulded and homogenised
for ready acceptance by the occidental elite In English. The
translation Inventively Intervenes l.n the meaning of the text,
overriding conventional representation and embedding
contemporary historicity In the production of the new text.
On the other hand, how translation as subversion could
and did work very well In the reverse order finds a very
Interesting and slgniftcant example In Godavartsh Mlshra's
novel Athara Sa Satara (Eighteen Hundred Seventeen)
composed In the 1940s and published serially between 1946
and 1951. This Is an adaptation/ trans lation of a canonical
English novel by Charles Dickens. A Tale of n.vo Cities.
Jatinder K. Nayak and H. S. Mohapatra point out how the
Oriya version assumes significance because of ·the way in
which , under the guise of translation , "it ena bles the
colonised subject to appropriate the techniques and
conventions of the text, belonging to the hegemonic mode, in
order to effect a break with the hegemonic practice itself"
(217). A politically and ideologically inspired project, this novel
presents the author's a nti-colonial, anti-English stance.
The Oriya title of the novel refers to the year in which an
Original from
- Pllll'ffl10II
150
uprising against the British had been organised by the

dispossessed Oriya militia at Khurda In Orlssa. Mishra
changed 1789 to 1817 and Dickens' novel Is completely
metamorphosed through subverstve strategies of translation.
As Nayak and Mahapatra say. "what SCCIUS to be happening
Jn Atham Sa Satara Is not a naturalisation of the dominant.
Imperial text, but a process of emptying It of Its Imperial
assumptions with a view to filling It with a radical anti-
colonial, nationalist content· (222) . While the French
revolution of 1789 was an anti-feudal, anti-aristocratic
revolution, the 1817 Oriya uprising was anti-British - the
two were absolutely different. SJnce the translation of one
Jnto the other context does rest on equivalences. the points
of departure clearly demonstrate a conscious effort on the
part of the translator to weave a local and politically radical
agenda Jnto the otherwise hegemonic text from the Occident.
The example given above shows how translation can be
used to transform a whole cultural context through a kind of
adaptation, through which a translator can exploit the canon
•.
' -· from the dominating language to explore her own culture and
history. The canonical text, through translation, acquires
an altogether different set of historical and socio-political
terms of reference, before being experienced and owned as a
• • text Jn the target language. Such a form of translation offers
.... . .
an Implicit resistance to the power position of the canon by
changing the context. The strategy Is to use the canon in
order to create an entry point for the reader who Is lured into
reading the canonised English text only to end up exploring
his own reality.
Interestingly, such a text as Athara Sa Satara could easily
be seen as a post-colonial translation, while a post-
Independence text written much later may appear typically
colonial. So Internalised and deep is the colonial experience,
that long after political independence, dependence on the
other's prescriptions for self-affirmation continues.
When language does not evolve through a pressure for
communication from within a culture at the grass-root level.
Original from
NEOOTIATINO nt& ORIGINAL
151
lt becomes more a language of the mind than of the heart.

The imposition of Queen's English from above and its alien
cultural load came to stay initially because of its political
hegemony, and eventually because of its status value. The
almost obsessive concern for the ·correct· language, the
touchstone being the · standard· imperial English, did not
allow for a long time a free and natural negotiation of the
language with the native local cultures.
Without the freedom to play with the language, the writer
would not be able to mould it to the compulsive expression of
the native experience. The range of experience for his
expression then did not get prescribed by the dictates of his
own native life but by the language in which he brought
himself to communicate. If the monolithic structure of the
language is to be given a scriptural reverence and adherence,
creativity is bound to be stunted, the themes limited and the
scope of creative adventure reduced. Also, it ls not as if the
Indian writers were to function in a vacuum without any
literary traditions. Each Indian language is situated in a long
literary tradition, written or oral or both. Since the Africans
did not have their own developed tradition of written
literatures, they were perhaps in a position to make a more
free use of English. The Indian writer had to reckon with the
existence of a massive body of classical literature as well.
By his own admissions, the sensitive Indian poet in English,
R Parthasarthy got alienated from his culture because he
wrote in English. It seemed to him that he could never master
English totally, nor could he be totally at home with it. He
speaks of his predicament in a poem:
Tamil
my tongue in English chains
I return. after
a generation to you,
I am at the end
of my drastic tether
hunger for you unassuaged. (49)
Original from
NAIIRAnNC PAR'ITT10N
In E. M. Forster·s much dtscussed novel. A Passage to India,

the complexity of non-communication between the East and
the West emerges as an assault or rape. and ·connecting" seems
to mean getting misunderstood. Both In Parthasarthy and
E. M. Forster. while the attraction to connect remains strong.
the effort to do so In fact highlights the disconnections. No
wonder then, as A. K. Ramanujan comments, cultural
encounters lead to definition, redefinition, and a dtalogue With
the other where each returns to himself, reflected, refracted,
. ' .
even alienated. and thereby redefined ( 142). NI rad
•
. .. C. Chaudhurl's A Passage to England Is a very blatant reflection
of colonial enchantinent with the English. while Parthasarthy's
experience reveals a different historical positioning of the
Indian. In the latter, there Is a restless need to define one's
self with reference to one's own language and reality.
Literary self-description has taken many shapes and forms
in India. The need to affirm one's Identity becomes all the
more compulsive when confronted by the dominant Other.
Indian writers writing In English find themselves caught in a
double bind: not only do they have to define their cultural
..
' identity. they also have to work out an indigenous identity
for the English language for authentic use In their writing.
· Raja Rao's Kwtthapura excels in locating an appropriate idiom
In English to delineate one kind of Indian reality without
..•... . creating the effect of caricature. The following sample from
Kwtthapura makes a very specific Indian context - a context
that is emotionally owned - accessible in an English which
is smooth, readable and unpretentious. creating a text in
the language of the heart:
... and Moorthy then said. ·we shall hold a gods'
procession and then a bhajan. and then we shall elect
the Committee.· And as evening came. Moorthy and
Seenu and Ramu and KJttu were all busy washing the
gods and knitting the flowers and oiling the wicks and
fixing the crowns. and as night fell the procession
moved on and people came out with camphor and
coconuts. and Seenu took them and offered them to
the gods. and Ramu shouted out. "this evening there's
bhajan." and everybody was so happy that before the
procession was back In the temple. Range Gowde was
Original from
NE0 011A11NO 11tE ORIOINAL
153
already seated In the mandap explaining to Elder

Ramayya and to Elder Slddayya and to others around
them about weaving and ahtmsa and the great Congress.
And they all listened to him wtth respect. When Moorthy
entered they all stood up, but Moorthy said, "Oh, not
this for me!" and Range Gowda said, "You are our
Gandhi." and .... (Rao 106)
While 1n 'The Serpent and the Rope, the same writer seems
to be philosophically and hypothetically working towards the
merger of the East wtth the West, in Kanthapura. Raja Rao
succeeds 1n exploring a very local social reality in a language
which is not local. It is with the courage of an artist that he
charges his language wtth a fresh and appropriate cultural
tone, moulding it to a new rhythm to suit the context of the
experience particular to the novel. To one brought up and
conditioned on •standard· English novels from the West,
Kanthapura may read like a translation, a good translation
which retains the particularity of the culture projected in it.
After all , the novel "translates culture" and the writer's
bilingualism becomes very much the content of the text. From
this point of view, for the reader, this novel offers the same
experience as would a good English translation of regional
Indian ftctlon. The followtng passage is a good sample of a
good translation:
Sulja Sahu"s house was surrounded at night. Surja
Sahu had brought out his gun. S urja was Ued up wtth
cow rope. His whitish eyeballs turned and turned, he
was Incontinent again and again. Dulna had said, I'll
have the first blow, brothers. My great grandfather
took a bit of paddy from him. and I still give him free
labour to repay that debt.
DopU had said, His mouth watered when he looked
at me. I'll pull out his eyes.
Surja Sahu. Then a telegraphic message from Shlurl.
Specfal train. Army. The Jeep didn't come up to Bakull.
March·march·march. That crunch·crunch·crunch of
gravel under hobnailed boots. Cordon up. Commands
on the mJke. Jugal Mandal; SaUsh Manda!, Rana alias
Prablr altas Dlpak , Dulna Majhl-Doptl Mejhen
surrender surrender surrender. No surrender surrender.
Mow-mow-mow down the village. Putt-putt putt-putt-
cordtte ln the air - putt-putt - round the clock - putt·
putt. F1ame thrower. BakuII Is burning.· (Mahasveta
Dev! 99)
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154
The colonial mind Judged "Indian English" as ludicrous

and regarded It as a pejorative term. Ntsslm Ezekiel played It
up for humour In his poetry. The Inability to communicate In
what was called ·standard English" was frequently
lampooned. But on the other hand, we have someone like
G. V. Desanl, who flouted the notion of standard English and
employed the English language as a medium of defiance. He
•
. even used Pidgin which was perceived as an Irreverent form
of English, In his novel AU About H. Haterr way back In 1948.
- .
This he did, as though to question the rigid frames of language
set up by Imperial dictates. Linguistic Jugglery In Desanl
becomes an act of defiance and courage, creatively explored
. . for self-affirmation. There Is thus a deep socio-historical
context within which such self-consciousness about language
surfaces. •
•.
From the position of being a mere caricature, the Indian
•
English gentleman acquires some acceptance when his
< •- • English Is allowed to retain his lndlanness. He Is no longer
'' ' . necessarily perceived as an entertainer, while on his part,
he may be trying to find expression for his sadness. He does
not have to get defensive about the presence of his first-
language identity In the English he has acquired.
Examining Rushdle's easy code-switching between
.
. .. ,-
..
, .. . . .
standard English and Its local variant of Pidgin English In
,
The Moor's Lost: Sigh. Shoma Choudhary makes a pertinent
point: "The only notes of seriousness or psychological
Intimacy in the book, are struck In the reported narrative
which Is written by Moor (alias Rushdie) always in a very
competent, sophisticated received standard English. In a
stark contrast to this, Is the exaggerated Pidgin In which all
the other characters speak." By not participating in that
Pidgin, Rushdle sticks to the position of the superior coloniser
on the one hand and on the other, he ls the Midnight's Child
of the Independent Indian subcontinent caught In the
compulsive need to work out his identity with the new socio-
political terms of reference. Carrying the weight of the earlier
power relations, he stands at the threshold of resistance/
Original from
NE0011A11NG nu: ORIOtNIU.
defiance as well as new self-affirmations. In Rushdie's

writings there is a problematised interface of various
Englishes, languages and cultures. No wonder then, that
he called himself ·a translated man.·
The Indian writer in English may indeed have a stubborn
coloniser inscribed in himself. What is disconcerting is that
the same disposition may also be present in the writers of
other Indian languages. Raji Narasimhan describes it as the
"English disposition.· Having been brought up in the shadow
of a strong British tradition and public school education, the
sensibility of many an Indian writer evolves from the mediation
between two languages and two cultures.
A writer with lesser strength may allow the so-called
"English disposition· to take over and overshadow the
indigenous self, and maintain the hierarchical socio-linguistic
structure rather than negotiate the difference or resist the
alien elements. The works of these writers finds an easy
translatability into English. That makes them more accessible
to the western patrons who inflate the value of these works
quite out of proportion through aggressive publicity and
salesmanship. Translations of Indian literatures into English
have been more often than not, · transactions between two
uneven cultures/traditions. The Indian product would
generally be recast, as it were, in a mould that would gtve it
an English face, with the Indian soul either universalised, or
distanced as the exotic.
How such translations lead to "occlusion of the
heterogeneity" (Challappan 212) is demonstrated by
Tejaswini Niranjana when she gives the example of the
modern English rendering of Allama Prabhu's Kannada
Satvtte poems. These poems are said to be an attempt to
assimilate Satvete poetry into the discourses of Christianity,
as though to make them worthy of the attention of the
western world.
Expatriate writers find themselves actively negotiating
between two cultures: their own, which they bring from their
home country, and the one in which they seek to have a
Original from
NARIIATINO PAll'ITl10N
156
home. Through a dysfunction In their own collective cultural

history. what emerges Is a search for cultural tropes. In her
discussion on the problematics of cultural representation
In Immigrant writing. Malashrl Lal speaks of hyperspace
and metaflctlon. She argues a case for translating ·an
amorphous code of culture differentials.· The author's own
cultural affiliation, she remarks. gives an illusion of
comprehensive understanding (239). Self-reflexivity includes
cultural referentiality, which then becomes a mode of creative
exploration of one's reality as an Immigrant. When
differentiality Is acknowledged. a sociology of lnterculturality
Is evolved. For the self-preservation of an Immigrant. self-
definition Is Imperative. The process of give and take. of
cultural negotiation. then follows.
In Raja Rao's The Serpent and the Rope. as the author
himself puts It. ·India Is wherever you see, touch. taste.
.. smell" (146). There Is a total assimilation of India into the
geography, atmosphere and culture of England. In the
.. process of assimilation, there can be an inevitable loss of
.
,·
. ... . '
specificity. The post-colonial consciousness, In contrast.
presents extraordinary attentiveness to alterlty creatively
expressed In cultural tropes In a large number of texts. These
. . works. then. celebrate and demonstrate cultural specificity
not merely through difference In the content but also In the
,. . ..
... .,. .. language they use. A compulsive but Judicious Infiltration
of Marathi, Hindi or any other regional language , or
sometimes the literal .translations of metaphors, proverbs
and Idioms from the first language actually Indicate the
concern for the cultural particularity of the experience
expressed.
Be It writing in English in India, or translating from a
regional Indian language into English, both the processes call
for a proactive transference of cultural specificity. English in
India has been acquiring its own shape and identity. The
language has had to create space and develop an indigenous
idiom for an authentic expression of the emotional as well as
the street reality of India. Recourse to pldginisation, or an
Original from
N£C011ATINC THE ORJCINAL
157
impatient and large-scale borrowing from regional languages

demonstrate sheer laziness rather than a confident choice for
articulation. There can be no short cuts for connecting a
language Imposed from above with the ground reality of a
society. It takes centuries for it to percolate down to the person
on the street, to wander around In the back-lanes, to move
from drawing rooms to the bedrooms and kitchens, from the
lawns to the courtyards. For a language to eventually get owned
by a society, It has to go through a long process of re-
orientations, humiliations, embarrassments as well as
adventure and defiance.
The socio-linguistic mediations that take place In literary
translations call for improvisations, manipulations and
Insights. The target language Is at first fully explored for
equivalents, after which its scope for accommodation of the
difference Is explored and stretched. It is through such
tensions that the translator arrives at a good translation.
And each good translation, thanks to the creativity of the
translator, enriches the target language both with cultural
as well as linguistic Inputs. In fact, translations of regional
Indian literature in a creative English moulded adequately
to the subject of translation can go a long way In evolving an
indigenous English in India.
As a translated text gets to be more and more -original"
a.nd locates its own language, it discovers its own poetics
and exists In its autonomy. It Is as much a translation as the
text that is called -original writing, - and in practice, it
translates the cultural contexts and dialogues to represent
a society alien to the language of that writing. Indian wrttlng
In English amply showcases the truth of such an
understanding. In a convincing translation as well as in
creative writing, the boundaries between the original and
the translated diminish, making the experience of the text in
Itself primary.
Original from
NARRA11NO PARffllON
158
Wom Clrm
Challappan. K. "Translation as Assimilation/ Appropriation. w
Translation and Multilingualism. Ed. Shanta Rama.krishna.
Delhi: Pencraft International, 1997.
Choudhary. Shoma. Pioneer. Sept. 27, 1997.
Lal, Malashri. "Translating the Indian: Michael Ondaatje's
The English Patient and Bharatt Mukherjee's Darkness. w
Translation and Multtltngualtsm. Ed . Shanta
Ramakrishna. Delhi: Pencraft International. 1997.
Madhavan, N. S . MLanguage barriers.- Review of Vintage Book
of Indian Writing. Btbl.io. July-Aug. 1997. Vol. II, Nos. 7-8.
Devi, Mahasveta. MDraupadi. - The Inner Courtyard. Lakshmi
Holmstrom. Delhi: Rupa. 1960.
Narasimhan. Raj i. MMore a Language of the Mind . - The
Hindustan Times. Sept. 16, 1997.
Nayak, Jatinder K. and Mohapatra, H. S . "Translation as
Subversion: The Case of an Oriya Adaptation of Charles
Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. - Translation and
Multilingualism. Ed. Shanta Ramakrishna. Delhi: Pencraft
International, 1997.
Parthasarthy. R. MHomecoming. - Rough Passage. Delhi: Three
Crowns Books. 1977.
Ramanujan, A. K. MParables and Commonplaces. - Writers tn
East-West Encounter. Ed . Guy Amirthanayagam. Hong
Kong: The Macmillan Press Ud.. 1982.
Rao, Raja. Kanthapura. Madras: OUP. 1974.
Spivak. Gayatri Chakravorty. Mean the Subaltern Speak?-
Colontal Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. A Reader. Eds.
Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf, 1993.
Thtong'O, Ngugt wa. ~ e Language of African Literature. w
Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory, A Reader. Eds.
Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman. London: Harvester
Wheatsheaf. 1993.
Original from
V
CONVERSATIONS
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INTRODUCTION
THE GENERATION n!AT ACTIJALLY went through the shock of Partition

has found it very difficult to come to terms with the rupture
and the renewal of life integral to the whole phenomenon on
both the sides of the border. The writer's sensitivity and
creative energy called for a constant churning of the conscious
and the subconscious for over half a century, in a search for
a narrative that could come close to comprehending the
irrational Violence and insanity aroused by the declaration
of Partition. Even though by now there is a large corpus of
literature available on various aspects of Partition and its
impact, no comprehensive understanding has developed that
can resolve the questions regarding the large-scale
meaningless killing, abduction of women and the sudden
spurts of Violence in 1947. The intennittent communal riots
in India subsequently, whether in Bhiwandi earlier or in
Gujarat later, revive those ugly memories of the past and
refuel insecurities that may have led to the gory bloodbath
suffered by both Hindus as well as Muslims during Partition.
The Indira Gandhi National Open University showed
interest in my desire to capture the writers' voice on Partition,
of those who have carried the chamel-house of memories of
their experiences and articulated their insights through their
narratives off and on in the last fifty years. The project was
to make video films on the writers' lived experience and
Original from
NARIIAflNO PAlffl'110N
162
writings on Partition. Only three films saw their completion

when the University decided to discontinue with the scheme.
They were on and with Bhlsham Sahni, Kamleshwar and
Guizar. Those to be Interviewed next were Krishna Sobti.
Jogtnder Paul and Khushwant Singh, but unfortunately the
project was discontinued.
The following conversations are the edited versions of the
transcriptions of the video cassettes completed under the
title, -Partttion through the Eyes of the Writer.- The purpose
was to put the writer's voice on record, alongside his/her
creative writing on the obsessive theme of Partition. How direct
was the writer's experience? What happens to It when it ls
narrattvtsed? What role does the imagination play? ls the
memory intact or does it play tricks? What is the purpose of
delineating a bygone past that could be so easily left behind
in favour of the enterprise of modernity?
The popularity of the writer's creative outpourings on
Partition ls evidence of the reader's involvement in the theme
too. We place the writer under the spotlight here ...
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BHISHAM SAHNI
In the subconscious of our nation, looking at history from

below, there lie nightmares, experiences ofthousands ofmen
and women as helpless victims, gory scenes of daughters
and wives being raped. males running for their lives or digging
knives into the hearts of their own friends, mothers killing
their babies to save them.from something worse than death,
dismembered bodies - that was 194 7, the partition of the
country. The same Partition that drowned theJoy offreedom
tn its screaming violence. For a long time as a nation, we
remained in amnesia if only to avoid corifronting the reality
of the experience ofPartition. But for a healthy catharsis, not
only do we need to face what happened, we also need to
Wld.erstand the way tt happened and why tt happened the
way tt did. If we wish to Wlderstand the phenomenon that
was Partition. we wtll have to tum to literature. Literature
that reveals the human face and records the experiential
history both at the sul?}ective as well as ol:yective levels.
We are fortunate to have an opportunity to talk to
Bhtsham Sahni. an eminent writer in Hindi, known also in
the world outside Hindi for his sensitive obseroatiDn and
a.rticulation of the experience of Partition.
Sukrlta: Much of your writing seems to have a nodal point -

Partition, to which your writing keeps going back
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NARAATINC PARTmON
164
repeatedly, each time exposing a different dimension of

the horrendous phenomenon . . . Partition not Just in
relation to the physical aspect of the division of the land
but also its impact on the psychological, religious and
various other planes of existence. Am I right if I say that
your consciousness does not, even now, seem to be free
of the horror of the experience?
Bhlabam Sahni: I would not say that my mind only revolves
around the issue of Partition, but of course that was a
very big and disturbing event and it has kept me in its
grip for a long time. Yet, I would say, one does not wish to
live in the past all the time. One essentially grapples with
one's destiny as it may emerge in the future. By nature,
a human being wishes to move on.
While literature transcends time, tts roots are in the soU

and the time in which it is born. A writer such as Bhisham
Sahni could not skip his times even though he may have
wished to. Bhishanyt was bom in Rawalpindt in 1915 and
passed away in 2003; his life and wrtttng are soaked in
the soctDlogy and the history of 20th century India.
SuJtrlta: Bhishamji, I wonder if you have consciously thought

about how much you have been affected by the experience
of Partition as rupture and renewal?
Bhlsham Sahni: Partition has affected my life in a big way.
Many incidents took place before my eyes. The society in
which I lived got more and more tense .everyday, and I
saw the growing bitterness among people. When l was a
child, I witnessed the first Hindu-Muslim riot in my own
place. I was Just eleven-twelve years old. The onion
market caught fire and it was so wild that almost half the
sky turned red. We used to sleep on the .terrace of our
house. Though my father tried to dismiss it as nothing,
there was that red sky which I saw wher, I was lying on
my bed . . . that left a deep scar in my mind.
In your childhood you do not hold any hard feelings for
Original from
BHISHAM SAHNI
165
anyone for long. Most of my friends were Muslims. I liked

to play hockey and most of my player friends were Muslims.
My father was an Arya Samajlst. We were brought up on
Arya Samaj ethical principles - simple life. fear of God,
havan. and sandhya. Our house had Muslim neighbours
on all sides, since we lived In an area predominantly
Muslim. On the streets we played with Muslim boys.
Occasionally my mother would peep over the wall and the
lady in the neighbourhood would also look out for her and
they would both chat for a long ttme together.
I remember the Ramzan months. the Fakir coming
and waking the people in the area to observe the Roza
(Fast). I used to beat a tin to wake people up. My neighbour
used to complain to my mother )Jlughingly and say. "All
the year round. your son wakes us up early in the morning
to observe the Roza."
When I look back. I am not too conscious of the fact
that there was any emphasis on the communal identity
of the people. It was there but in a very vague way. Later
I went to Lahore to study and there too I played hockey.
The Muslim boys were excellent players. Some of them
became Olympic players.
In 1947, Bhlshamji came to Delhi to witness the

Independence Day. Little did he realise when he came here
that he had lost his home forever. to the other side of the
border. 'The riots had erupted. He could not go back.
Memories ofPartitlon stored in a sensitive mind surfaced
gradually. and Bhisliam SahnifeU compelled to produce a
novel such as Tamas and stories such as "Amritsar Aa
Gaya." He thus Joined an interesting gallery of Hindi. Urdu
and Punjabi writers - Manto, Krishan Chander. Amrita
Pritam, Mohan Rakesh, Rq/endra Singh Bedi and many
others - all of them anguished by the division, pained by
the insane violence of the Partitlon riots.
Bhlaham Sahni: When I grew up. the kinds of books that I

read. writings by Premchand, Sudarshan's writings and
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Digitized by G 0 0 8 Ie UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
NARRA'ffllO PAR11TION
166
other similar literature did have a considerable Influence

on my thinking. It may be that It was my own sensibility
that drew me towards Premchand. That may Indeed be
possible. But It cannot be denied that the literary
environment In which you live and breathe does mould
your way of looking at things to a considerable extent.
You cannot keep yourself aloof from the situation through
which your country Is passing.
An active member of IPI'A, Bhishanyt thoroughly eryoyed

acting, too. He played small roles tn several television
serials. But he always s4ffered.from an anxiety ... The fear
tn his early Ufe specially was not to trn1t.ate his brother Balrqj
Sahnt whom he loved dearly - BalrqJ Sahnt of the powerji..d
partition film Garam Hawa, the BalraJ Sahnt of
Kabullwalah.
B~ham Sebnl'. My brother also played a big role In shaping

my sensibility. He was only two years older and had a
very Independent and Innovative mind. He also had a
very sensitive understanding of literature. I began to hero
worship him at a very young age.
Sukrlta: You once said somewhere that you've always resisted
this influence but are not sure that you succeeded In
keeping yourself away from the Impact he had on you.
Bhlsharn Sahni: That Is true but I kept resisting his Influence
because I was convinced that It was necessary to go my
own way. That feeling began to grow stronger In me as I
grew up.
Bhisharryt's novel Tamas moves like a camera over the entire

scenario of 1947. No wonder a director of the stature of
Govtnd Nthalani picked it up to serialise it for television.
The writer looks back at the Partition twenty:ftve years after
tt happened, and almost photographically, incidents,
characters, dialogues creep tnto the narrative - so naturally
and so simply. Bhisharryt's writerly eye captured the realtty
Original from
BHISHAM SAHNI
167
of the times wtth a human insight that transcended all

communal biases.
SaJrrlta: The novel Tamas begins with a tense moment when

Nathu Is trying to kill the pig. The Intensity Is poetic and
the reader can sense the consequence of such an act
near a masjld. The deliberate creation of communal
tension Is given special attention at the very outset In
the novel, Indirectly Indicating how the relationship
between the two communities was otherwise quite
relaxed. At this point, I would like to pick up the question
that comes up several times In the novel: To what extent
do you think the British were responsible for the division
of the country - the Partition Itself and the way It
happened.
Bblebam Sehnl: I wish I could cite a particular letter written
by one of the British viceroys In which he says, "1be day
Hindus and Muslims come together, the day of our
departure from the shores of India will have arrived." It
was a clear enough Indication that the empire flourished
so long as the Hindus and Muslims were flying at one
another's throat. The leaders of the movement, Gandhi
Included, all along put forth this view that a policy of
"divide and rule" was being followed by the British. It was
a consciously evolved policy. They did not cover only the
political aspect but also the cultural aspect of life. They
would pat the Hindus at the back at one time and the
Muslims at another time and this went on for quite
sometime.
Surita: I would like to go back to Tamas now and pick up
one incident - the well incident. in which women drowned
themselves. Does this relate to any real-life situation
witnessed by you during the Partition riots? ·
Bblaham Sahni: Of course. When the riots subsided in the
towns and villages of Rawalpindi where more than a
hundred villages were involved, this incident took place
Original from
NA.._UTINO PAlfflTION
168
in one of the villages. It just so happened that I was working

In the Congress In a Relief Committee and the health
officer of the town was asked by the Deputy Commissioner
to go to that particular village and put some disinfectant
Into that well In which the heap of dead bodies was
decomposing. The health officer was a neighbour of ours
and I requested him to take me along and he agreed.
What I saw was horrendous! It was so full that the bodies
had come up to the surface; now that was a very painful
experience. It has been very dlftlcult to get over It even
today. I still hear anguished voices like someone next to
me pointing out to a corpse and saytng, "That ls my wife,·
"That child entangled between her legs ls my son.·
Sakrlta: Speaking about Tamas, the insanity In the character
of Jarnall Singh which you portray so poignantly
corresponds with Manto's character Toba Tek Singh. Were
you In any way Inspired by Toba Tek Singh in the
delineation of Jamail?
Bhlaham Sahni: I don't know. It ls very difficult to say. 1oba
Tek Singh· ls one of the greatest stories written on
Partition. Besides this story. Manto had written a few
others too which were very moving and Insightful stories.
But this character Jarnall was based on the life of a
character with whom I had worked in the Congress and
with whom I had quarrelled a number of times. He was
very vividly present In my mind. When a film was made
on this novel , I received a letter from Patna, from
somebody who belonged to my home town and after
Partition had settled there. He wrote to me saying, UWhat
business did you have to kill that man? That man is livtng
and is now in Ambala.· It was rather amusing but whether
the person ls living today or not, he assumed some
significance through the Writer. It ls a strange thing.
Many people were for the struggle for freedom, but
the lower middle class people had a role peculiar to their
own creed. They had no personal ambitions. They
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BHISHAM SAHNI
169
neither cherished ambitions of becoming leaders during

the freedom period, nor after the freedom was won. They
came from poor backgrounds. 1 think of a carpenter, a
Sardarji, who was not very healthy. Whenever ajalsa of
the Congress was organised before freedom, his Job was
to sing songs with his harmonium and attract the
audience. He was neither a singer nor anything else
really. But he could say witty things and make people
laugh. The man had been to Jail several times. He was
ill and poor and yet there was a certain commitment.
Such characters were impressive in their own way for
their sheer selflessness.
Bhagya Rekha, Pehla Path, Nishachar, Wang Choo, and

other volumes of short stories, novels such as Maiyadas K1
Madi, Basanti, and plays Wee Kadhiya, Hanush, Kabira
Khada Baazar Mein, are some of Bhisham Sahnt's works
that came year after year; offering characters and narratives
from Ufe, with starkly realtsttc perceptions delicately and
sensitively woven into stories. Combating the abstract,
Bhlsham Sahni's stories grounded themselves in social
realism. Not surprising therefore, is his rich bonding with
the Progressive Writers' Association and the Afro-Asian
Writers' Organisation.
Jlhleham Sahnt: While working in the literary sphere, I made

many friends. In MNayi Kahani Movement" there were
Mohan Ra.kesh, Kamleshwar, Rajendra Yadav and others
and in the Progressive Writers' Movement there were
Sa.ljad Zahir and others. I felt enriched by what they had
Written. It is wrong to think that progressive Writing was
a uni-dimensional kind of movement. The objectives were
very positive and healthy. They brought Writers from all
languages together on the basis of equality and mutual
respect. The social orientation In art had already started
taking place In Premchand's time and even earlier; only,
they gave It yet another dimension.
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NAIUIAllNO PAR1TT10N
170
Talking about BhtshanJlt's languages, Pu.,yabi gently

rolled down hts tongue, being hts mother tongue. Urdu,
Hindi. and Engltsh (in which he had hts Ph.D.) flow out
of hts Ups with equal ease. He edited Nayt Kahant, an
important Hindi magazine for nearly two and half years.
leaving hts mark as an ed.Uor. Wh1le Bhtshcuryl taught
Engltsh and translated. from the Russian, he chose to
write in a Hindi that reflects the common cultt.tral heritage
of Urdu, Hindi and PurJjabL
Bblebam fle!:nl· My mother tongue ls Punjabi and I write in

Hindi. I have been educated in Urdu and all these three
languages have a lot in common. I may write in Hindi,
but If a person speaks to me in Urdu or Punjabi. I feel
equally at home. I believe that we have been very short-
sighted in our linguistic planning. about our own culture.
in realising the contribution of Urdu to our culture. Urdu
has enriched India's treasure house of literatures. as
very few languages have done. Therefore, it is a thousand
pities that sufficient attention has not been paid to Urdu:
on the contrary. a very negative attitude has been adopted
towards the Urdu language which was somehow, with
Partition. communalised. Urdu is not the language of one
community, it is the language of the entire north of India.
It had its birth in India, it flowered in India and it has left
behind its rich legacy for our entire country.
11-.e quiet wisdom of a sage on the one hand and on the

other the innocence of a chtld, Bhlshcuryi's personality
reached out to eueryone. Besides the Sahttya Aka.demi
Award, he was bestowed several literary laurels. He
remained the humble and gentle torch-bearer; someone for
the younger writers to emulate.
Sukrlta: I would like to know, Bhishamji, if you have

anything more which you may wish to articulate about
Partition. Do you still feel the need to say something or
are you done with it?
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171
Bhleham ••bnl· I do not think that I am done with it but it

depends. It is the subconscious that suddenly becomes
active. Some things may surface at any point of time
and that may upset you. I have written a number of
stories, decades after the Partition all over again. I
cannot rule out the possibility, but at present I do not
have anything in my mind.
Anltrlta: Your life and writings insightfully highlight not
only an aspect of history that happened at a particular
time, but the way it left a kind of scar In each one of us
and the way It has affected your and our lives. Thank
you very much Bhlshamjl for giving us the opportunity
to know your life as much as your writings about
Partition.
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l<AMLEsHWAR
The eminent Hindi writer; Kamleshwar. has to his credit a

number ofnovels, short stories, travelogues and collections
ofessays. If literature was to have ·aharanas" as in Indian
music, Kamleshwar can be slotted in the Prem Chand,
Yashpal and Amrttlal Nagar gharana. Kamleshwar himself
declares his affiliation with this •gharana" of Indian
literature. Kamleshwar has also been a writer for more
than seventy:ftve feature films and many 1V serials such
as Darpan and Chandrakanta, and has insightful
experiences to offer not only on Partition but also many
other themes related to communal riots and the division of
the country.
Sukrlta: Kamleshwarji, though you have not really been

through the experience of Partition directly, you seem
to have been in the grip of this theme from the very
beginning of your writing career. A large part of your
writing seems to be focusing in some way or the other
on the theme of Partition and its continuities - the
similar experiences of communal disharmony in the
country. Are there any personal reasons for this?
Kamleahwar: For me Partition has not been a merely
geographical partition. I saw in my own small town of
Mainpuri in U.P. how the community got silently divided
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173
at the time of Partition. Suddenly there emerged a kind

of a strain between Hindus and Muslims. They were
still friends and they did speak to each other but the
warmth had evaporated. I took that to be a matter of
personal loss that told heavily on me and It remained
predominant In my mind. When I shifted to Allahabad
for my graduation at the University, It surfaced
aggressively when I witnessed the Inflow of refugees from
the partitioned Punjab, Slndh and the adjoining areas.
Unknown friends who came from there were to be
received by us personally since we were volunteers at
the camps put up specially for them. I saw them closely -
they were totally devastated.
Sllkrlta: Talking about Malnpurl and Uttar Pradesh, would
you say that your not much talked about novel, Laute
Hue Musqfir Is actually located there, considering that
it too has Partition looming behind It? Would you then
relate It with the Malnpurl experience? Could you tell
us a little about the theme of this novel?
Kamleahwar: At the time I wrote this narrative, that Is
around 1957-58, it was not actually intended , to be a
historical record of Partition, but about the reality of
Partition as it affected the essential relationship between
man and man. Thematically, it is a very simple novel.
To begln with, there was some propaganda going on in
the "Kasba." There 'wasn't any fight or communal riot in
the area. One day we saw written on the wall, "Leke
Rahenge Pakistan" and the next day was seen "Pakistan
Murdabad" on the opposite wall. The other day the Neem
tree bore a "green" flag while on the Peepal tree soon
would be the "Saffron" flag. Nobody knew who did this.
But gradually that created a peculiar tension amongst
the people and the warmth between them began to
vanish even in their greetings. There was a small, settled
basti of the Muslims on the way to the Matnpurl railway
station, vibrant and alive. Suddenly they were not there.
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174
Everybody left overnight. Perhaps because someone

asked them to come to Aligarh from where they could
board a train to Pakistan.
They did leave for Allgarh but after reaching there.
they found no one there to receive them. They couldn't
even come back to their town in shame, and perhaps
also in fear. Hence they spread themselves in the nearby
small towns, totally uprooted from their trade and
status. When the development work started all around
Malnpurt, many of those very young people who had
left our town with their families came back to work as
labour because they had lost all their traditional skills.
There was Just one lady from amongst the Muslims who
had not gone - Naseeman. She recognised those young
labourers who had returned and showed them their
ancestral homes, homes which were now lying as Just
barren land!
Kamleshwar's writing career projects the haunting impact

of the Partition in the Indian sub-continent. "Centuries get
old but pain does rwt, • says Kamleshwar and he keeps
going back to that pain in his .fiction - from his short story
"Kftne Pakistan" to the rwvel with the same title, Kitne
Pakistan, written decades later.
Kamleshwar: In the short story "Kltne Pakistan,· the

composite life and nature of the society In which we
lived and thrived, gets totally disintegrated. I remember
the drillmaster in the short story "Kltne Pakistan.· who
was writing a "Bharatnama. • What actually happened
was this: There was a small romance between a Hindu
boy and a Muslim girl who were deeply in love and
certain people In the community felt more and more
tense about this relationship. There was that increasing
consciousness of being Muslim if one were a Muslim
and of being Hindu if one were a Hindu. Each one began
perceiving one's identity in communal terms. Then I
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175
found this Muslim drillmaster who wrote the

MBharatnama. • within which he wanted to carry his
culture forward and pass it over to the next generation.
But before he could do that, his entire family, under
the undeclared threat of death. had to migrate to the
other state.
I feel that the pain of the Partition is present in each
one's life in some form or the other. Pakistan as a
geographical entity is not the point of focus. What has
been traumatic is the disruption of a rich culture, the
greatest cultural demolition suffered by any community.
The definition of nationalism is understood in different
terms and ways In India and Pakistan. And the
fundamentalists on both the sides constantly take
advantage of the situation.
Sukrlta: In the novel, Kitne Pakistan, while the mythical
character Gilgamesh of Sumeri civilization seeks to
conquer death through the narrative, the novel deals,
ironically, with the continuous stories of partition in
the history of mankind since genesis - partition through
the ages, partitions all over the world in different
countries. The 1947 Partition then seems to merely be
a take-off point to come to an understanding of the
continuum.
Kamle•hwar: I have been intrigued by various styles of
partition but not the theme. I try to examine various
cultures and the points of esteem of different
civilizations. I find there are some all-pervading themes
in all civilizations. Many countries have gone through
partitions. Every civtli?.atlon has tried to stall it but could
not succeed. For me, Pakistan was only a metaphor in
the novel. The division on the basis of fundamentalism
or on the basis of superiority /inferiority of race or
community leads finally to the total demeaning of the
soul of man. Only time spread over centuries can
perhaps heal people who go through this kind of violence
from within and without. With time, we wish solutions
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176
would be sought and people may develop better

understanding of their archaic religions but relatively
liberal cultures.
Mere words cannot help people understand the
pain, but they can to an extent make them experience
the pain of Partition. Memory gets ruptured and the
healing can happen only when the experiential
awareness of the cause of anguish is evolved.
flnknta: Kamleshwarjl, you spearheaded the movement of
the new story In Hindi with your colleagues Mohan
Rakesh and Rajendra Yadav and I always wonder, did
the coming in of the new sensibility In the 1960s have
an~ng to do with the rupture caused by the Partition,
or let me put It this way, do you think that the backdrop
of Partition played a signtftcant role In evolving the fresh
sensibility In the New Story movement?
KamJe•hwar: Of course It Is related. Krishna Sobtl's stories
and Bhlsham Sahnt's stories are the stories of that era.
The artist Ramkumar and Nlrmal Verma's stories are of
those times. These stories are not about Partition but
then these stories are
.
not without the echo of Partition
either. The uprootedness or the alienation which
prevailed In that period was not just confined to people
like you and me but was experienced by a whole lot of
people out there. The new stories - whether they sprang
from the lower middle class, or the upper class or from
amongst the common men of the streets - delineate the
inner feeling of alienation that man experienced even
In his own house. Though the stories may not be about
Partition, they evoke the pain of partition.
Kamleshwar's stories "Kasbe ka Admi" and "Raja

Nirbansiya" created ripples in the world of Hindi fiction
and expanded the very scope of the short story. They
provide poignant glimpses into kasbatc life depicting small
episodes, dusty and broken roads, and images of hungry
and naked children in dark gullies. Kamleshwar emerged
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177
as one of the mq/or writers in 1960 wtw brought in fresh

perspectives tnto the domain of new stories steering the
Nayi Kahani Movement in Hind.L Kamleshwar stepped. tnto
the fllm and television media with progressive ttwughts
and an innovative mind. Carrying within himself the rich
linguistic legacy of both Hindi and Urdu, Kamleshwar's
language is the people's language. A language that is
accessible. It reveals what is called the Ganga-Jamuna
streams in which rests the warmth of a composite culture.
not excessively Sanskrittsed or overly Perslanised. A
Hindustani that assimilates and a language that
hannonises.
Sukrlta: What do you think Partition did to Urdu and to

Hindi and what do you think Is the nature of the existing
relationship between Urdu and Hindi?
K•rnJeahwu: It is said that Urdu was tremendously affected
by Partition. But I would say that it was Hindi that was
most affected after Partition. This is because while Urdu
was soon recognised as the language of Pakistan. in
India, In the absence of Urdu a bookish kind of ·sarkari''
Hindi took over - a language that had actually lost the
natural instinct and ethos of the original language. Its
relation with the common man was not lnstantan~ous
and It had to bear the trauma and burden of being an
official language. In Pakistan It was Hindustan! that
played a major role In keeping the Urdu language alive.
Once when I visited Pakistan for an Interview with
President Zla-ul-Haq, he asked me. which language
would I like to speak to him In? I said: · in my own
language. " He asked me what that meant, which was
my language? When I said Urdu, he smiled a bit and
asked me. how was that my language? I said ·urdu Is
our language, you have Just carried It to Pakistan."
In the last two decades. however. the language
scenario has completely changed. Now again Hindi and
Urdu have begun to cross-fertilise each other. The Urdu
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178
writers of India have merged their language so

beautifully wtth spoken Hindi and the Hindi writers have
merged theirs so well wtth Urdu that a strong common
bonding between Hindi and Urdu has now taken shape
and they have become inseparable, culturally and
creatively. Though these are two independent languages,
both have a common genesis aft.er all.
When Kamleshwar says, •Memories are not Hindus or

Muslims,• he projects h1s seamless vision of the society
In which he Uvedfor so long amidst Hindus and Muslims.
Hts vtston perceives men and women not In terms of
reUgtous identities, but as human beings capable offeeling,
human beings who suffer, who are oppressed as
tndtvtduals, and not Just lying shackled In religious
categories evoktng biases and prejudices against each
other. Kamleshwar's .fiction compels readers to confront
ruptures if only to evolve connections. In corifronting the
dtvtstons, he highlights their absurdity.
Sukrtta: What do you think is the reason for the scanty

presence of Muslim characters 1n the modem Hindi short
story?
K•rnJnhwar: In the Hindi story, Muslims have generally been
absent. Their fate, thetr ltfe-style and their identity do
not fall wtthtn the ken of the Hindi writer easily. After
Partition , there was a distancing between the two
communities. The interaction between the friends of
dtfferent communttles came to a near stand-still for some
time. So the experience of each other's community became
ltmited. Perhaps that's the reason why Htndi writers could
not easily depict Musltm characters. But after a while.
Shani wrote Kala Jal. RahJ wrote the novel Adha Gaon;
then came Badiuzaman's "Chhako ki Wapsi. • Yashpal's
novel Jhoota Sach. Bhisham Sahnt's Tamas and Kazi
Abdul Sattar's Dara Sh.tkhoh. I feel some real authentic
characters have emerged out of these all-time stories and
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179
now the Hindi writers have come out from their earlier
inhibitions and characters are delineated in a very
natural flow whether they be Hindus or Muslims.
Sukrlta: Many from amongst the younger. present-day
generation say that the people who experlenced Partition
remember pre-Partition days with too much of sentimental
nostalgia. They find all those memorles very mushy and
fluffy and they declare -we want to put all of that behind
us and move ahead.· How do you respond to them?
K•mJeabwar: I think they somehow want to also deny the
Partition and what happened in 1947. They want to
escape it all. But the Partition. which happened and
demolished our total personality, disrupted our ethos and
resulted in chaos. cannot be dismissed so easily - we
have to create reminiscences in order to create a new
and a better world where we should not, as a society.
suffer again from that kind of emotional trauma. The new
generation does not understand this because they have
not suffered the pain themselves. But they must identify
and understand the intensity of the sufferings by delving
deep into what was before in contrast to what came later.
In this postmodem era when we may talk about
possessing a fancy scarf. we forget that we need a pocket
to keep it and also a neck to tie it around. Hence the
pain and suffering cannot be forgotten unless we can
internally perceive it all. This could perhaps have
happened easily if we had been given the freedom to
interact freely with the people across the borders. But
then politically this does not appear to be feasible even
at this moment as we talk. Even though a part of my
soul still visits Pakistan. Bosnia and Iraq without of
course any official visa!
Sukrita: When we denounce Partition, there is a danger
also of denying validation of Pakistan as a nation. The
fact is that Pakistan did come into being, it is over half
a century old and has its own identity. How do you think
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180
we can preserve the dignity of the nation called Pakistan

and yet decry the way it emerged?
K■mJe•hwar: Indeed, we should definitely always respect
the dignity and geographical boundaries of Pakistan.
But the political grudges of both the nations imbibe
hatred and keep this flame of extra nationalism alive
by fanning the fire with their politically vested interests.
But the feelings of the common people of both the nations
are the same and there are no hard feelings.
During the lndo-Pak war in 1965, Faiz Saheb was
managing the war propaganda from the Pakistani side
and to some extent was also trying to manage it so that
there were no bad effects of it. I was managing the same
from our country. Both of us knew each other through
literature and the radio link. This went on and the war
ended. After a few years Falz Saheb came to Mumbai
and wanted to meet me. I was overwhelmed by this gesture
and when we met there was no war in between, no
propaganda or any extra nationalism. We met naturally
as if we were complimentary to each other and were
bound to create a better world of mutual understanding.
Sakrlta: Kamleshwarji, you have written many novels and
short stories on Partition and you have always been
perturbed by the communal riots in the country. But
interestingly, the way you connect one kind of partition
to another In your novel Kitne Pakistan. the history of
mankind seems to be littered with divisions and
fragmentation of the world. This indeed is a novel way
of perceiving the world. But after writing this novel, do
you feel free of the haunt of Partition?
K■mleshwar: I think I feel more morose and sad. Whatever
happened in our past matches whatever happened in
the West after the Second World War, in terms of fear of
Identity, anonymity and the loss of the feeling of self.
The violent disruption that was caused by Partition has
been the most Intense experience of my generation of
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KAMU:8HWAR
181
Hindi. Urdu , Punjabi and Bangla writers. We

experienced Partition as tearing us apart from inside.
SaJrrlta: I think Kamleshwarji, the way modernism comes
together with progressivtsm in your writing. has a lot to
do with your sensitive responses to Partition
experiences. On this we shall have to talk at length on
yet another occasion. Thank you for givtng me so much
of your time.
K•rnl~uwu: Thank you Sukrttaji ... Let us talk again. You
know, this might get me out of the Partition trauma and
I may free myself to write about the tragic events of the
Gujarat carnage.
Original from
GuLZAR
Oul•••: Let me read out to you my poem on Partition:
Toba Tek 81n811

(English transliteration of the Urdu Original)
M4/hey Wagah pey Toba Tek Singh vaaley Bhlshan sey

jaakey milna hail
Swiaa hat vah abhi thaJc soojey palron par khadaa hat
Jls Jagah Manto ney chodaa tha
Abhi talc badbadaata ha1, "opad di gurgur df moong di
daal di laltain ... "
Pata.a lenaa hat us paagal ka

Oonchi daal par chadkar Jo kehta thaa:
"Khuda hai vah -
Usko Jalslaa kama hat klskaa gaon kls hlssey meinjayega!"
Woh kab utarega apni daal sey

Usko bataanaa hat
Abhi kuch aur bhi dU hain
Kijinko baantney ka. kaatney ka kaamjaari hai -
Woh batwara toh pehlaa tha
Abhi kuch aur batwarey hain - baaJd ha.in/
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183
M4Jhey Wagah mein Toba Tek Singh oo.aley Bhtshan sey

mtlna hat
Khabar dent hat uskey dost l\{zal ko
Woh Lehna Singh. Badhawa Singh, woh Bheen Amtit,
Woh saarey qatl hokar ts tarcif aaye they -
Unki gardanein saamaan ht mein lut gayee peechey - !
Jabah kardey woh ·ahoort. • ab kot leney na aayega

Woh ladkt ek unglijo badt hott thl. har baarah mahinein mein
Woh ab har ek baras ek pota-pota ghat-tt rehtt haU
Bataana hat Id sab paagal abht pahunchey nahtn apnetn

thikanon par
Bahut sey us tarcif hatn -
Aur bahut sey ts taraf bht hain
M4Jhey Wagah pey Toba Tek Singh uaalaa Bhtshan aksar

yaht kehkar bulaataa hat
·0pac1 dt gurgur di moong di daal dt laUain di Hindustan te
Pakistan dt dur phttey munhl"
Toba Tek Singh

0)-anslated from Urdu by Sukrtta Paul Kumar)
·r must go and meet Bishan ofToba Tek Singh at Wagah!

I hear he stands on his swollen feet
At the very place Manto left him
Even now.
Still muttering:
"opad di gurgur di moong di daal di laltain ... "
I've got to locate that crazy fellow

Sitting up high on the tall branch. announcing:
·tte is God -
Has to decide whtch village goes
to whose share"
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184
When will he climb down?

He has to be told:
there are nwre hearts
being dtvk1ed. being sheared -
That was Just the first Partition
Some nwre are still to comet
I must go meet Blshan of Toba Tek Singh at Wagah

I must give the news to his friend Afsal
That Lehna Singh, Wadhaawa Singh,
and that Bhen Amrtt,
AU reached here butchered -
'Their necks looted on the way
with their belongings -I
Slaughter that "Bhurt."

none wUl come to fetch her now
That girl growing taller by a finger
every twelve nwnths,
Now shrinks
toe by toe each year
I 've got to teU him:

AU the mad men have still not arrived:
Many remain on the other side
And many on this side too
Toba Tek Singh-waUah Blshan beckons to me often;

"Opad di gurgur di moong di daal di laltain di Hindustan
te Pakistan di dur phitey munh."
Sukrlta: Guizar Sahab, that is a beautiful poem and it

carries forward the vision articulated so effecUvely by
Sa'adat Hasan Manto in his great story. "Toba Tek
Singh." I think for a poem to come after 50 years on
the same theme with a response as Intense and
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185
insightful as this. is very commendable. It poignantly

demonstrates not Just a r:nemory, but the experience
of Partition. and the continuity of the anguish to this
date.
Gulzar Sahab was born tn 1934 tn Deena, now tn

Pakistan. He was brought up tn Delhi. and later settled
tn Bombay where he worked with eminent directors such
as Btrnal Roy and Hemant Kumar till he came into his
own.
SuJrrlta: We also know of the significant television serials

you have made, such as Mirza Ohaltb. Kirdaar and many
others. However, I would like to focus on your stories
that demonstrate your deep concern for inter-
community relationship and the experience of Partition.
specifically in the volume entitled Raavi Paar. These
stories are markedly free from morbidity and cynicism,
despite the portrayal of Violence or the clear reflection
of the pain and anguish of Partition you carry within
yourself. We can start with perhaps talking about your
own existential experience of Partition with reference to
your story ·eatwara. •
Guizar: I have carried Partition a long way. in my head. on
my shoulders and in my heart. Partition happened
when I was very very young and those images of riots,
bloodshed and terror that I witnessed left a deep
impression on my mind. The result was that for as.long
as nearly twenty-five years later I continued seeing
nightmares constantly reminding me of all those
scenes. A kind of deep-seated fear caught hold of me
and I would actually keep myself awake to avoid going
through my nightmares again. Those horrible dreams
started receding after, as I said, nearly twenty-five long
years.
I believe that this happened because I gained a little
bit of command over language and acquired the power
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186
of articulation. 1 started wrtting down my memories and

my nightmares to confront them squarely, as it were. I
think that is what gradually helped me get free of the
burden. So when I talk about Partition, I talk much more
easily now and also aclvise people to talk it out.
Have you noticed that we have not made adequate
number of fllms on Partition? This has actually distorted
the entire experience of the phenomenon within us. If
we had made more films and if we had written more
openly and spoken more clearly about the gruesome
experiences our society went through, it would have
purged us of the entire anguish. Uke the Second World
War for example, people have wrttten so much about it
that they have exorcised themselves of l:hose memories
and have grown out of them.
Gulzar was entering his teens when he was to witness

the grotesque theatre of violence around Partition. Writing
PartUion stories as he says has meant allowing himself to
face the past rather than suppressing it into his
subconscious. WrUtng about it then becomes. a conscious
process of freeing himself of the haunting. Gulzar travels
down the memory lane and often recalls incidents from
his early ch1ldhood spent in Deena, Jhelum zUa, now in
Pakistan.
Guizar: I thank my father for his broad-mindedness. He did

not allow us to grow bitter in spite of what he lost in
Pakistan - property, family. relatives. He held his head
in place. We were educated by him. He used to say in
Punjabi. Pralay ayi hat. nang jayegi. (1be deluge has
M M
come and it will pass.) Half of our family members were

left in Pakistan. My father had settled in Sabzi Mandi
in Delhi. All the schools were closed. I was a student of
M. B. Middle School.
Then, suddenly It all started In Paharganj, then
Sadar Bazaar, and finally in Sabzi Mandi. There were
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187
shoot-outs all around and ftre breaking out everywhere.

All of us gathered In one compound. My locality was
predominantly a Muslim one. There were dead bodies
lying everywhere and we had to cross over them to go
Into the compound, across our bastt. Slowly the dead
bodies started rotting because there was no one to clear
them. I remember one fair-complexioned boy who used
to lead our school prayers. He was taken away. his
hands tied, by a man called Samander Singh. He did
not even protest. A few minutes later. the man returned
with his sword dripping of blood. That scene stunned
me and left a deep scar in me. The fear stabs at me
even today whenever I recall it.
Snlrrlta: Have you referred to or mentioned this episode
anywhere in your writing?
Guizar: No. But yes. a few instances have got Into a story
called "Jamun Ka Pedh." Sometimes, a few experiences
of different families come together in a story and some
of those real characters ftnd their way into my writing.
Dina Lohar's character is real, as also the characters
of Ahmed. Kalyan and Badt Amma's, they are all real.
Sultrlta: How real Is the story of "Batwara?" The names
may be real but in the writing of fiction. the characters
may actually have changed. The real may have
acquired a different shape In the telling of the tale.
Fiction, as we know, can dictate its own truth with Its
own logic.
Guizar: "Batwara" Is a story of a gentleman who believed
strongly that I was in fact his lost son. I wrote it the way
It came to me. So. the names Sal Paranjape and Amol
Palekar come Into the story naturally. Harbhajan
Singhjl was actually the man who thought me to be his
lost son whom he had lost during the Partition riots
near Chhoti Miyawali close to Pathankot. I finally met
Harbhajan Singhjl in Delhi.
He had a very well-settled and well-to-do family. I
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188
urged him to tell me what exactly had happened to

him. After 40 years he had found his lost daughter ln
Pakistan, who was now a Muslim with a new name,
Dtlshad. One of her sons ls ln the air force and the
other ls ln corporate business. After he located his
daughter, he started to fervently nourish hopes of
locating their long-lost son, Sampuran too. He used to
call his son Punnt and people at my place also used to
call me by that name. My story ends with the death of
Harbhajanjl, and with me rccelvtng a post-card from
his eldest son Iqbal Singh, which really touched my
•
heart. In it was written, •Ma ne lcaha. chlwte ko khabar
kar dena" (Mother said. do give the news to the younger
one) .
Sakrlta: What's the background of your story ·Raavt Paar"?
Gu!za,.. Here the story ls not like the one tn ·aatwara. • There
are pieces and fragments of memory put together ln this
one. You meet life ln fragments, don't you? They become
a compound experience eventually. There was the
incident of a half-mad lady who arrived here with her
dead child. Somewhere, somehow I identified myself with
this experience. I felt as though I too arrived here as a
dead child like the one ln the lap of that woman. The
living part was thrown away .. . the baby that was my
other half. But both, the living one that was thrown, as
well as the dead baby brought here, were really my own
sel( ·
Sukrlta: A recurrent emotion and feeling or a thought I
found ln your writing is the concern about the livtng
getting cremated and then the question of the dead
getting burled or cremated.
Gulza,.. In my story "Dhuan, • the Muslims protest over the
burning of the dead. They want to bury them. And we
all know of the controversy in the case of Ismat Apa
because she said in her will that she wished to be
cremated. So much controversy goes on about the dead
Original from
GUI.ZAR
189
and the Issue of burial or cremation ... I wish the living

too would get that kind of attention and death would
then acquire a respectability of Its own.
•Khcuif. • ·vhuan, • ·Raavi Paar.· ·aatwara" are stories

by Guizar that throb with the lived experience ofParttti.on.
But Guizar does not remain a captive of his menwries. He
nwves on and his creativity excels in dealing with varied
themes in .films, television serials and in poetry. Aandhl,
Mausam. Khushboo, Meera, Lekln are some of the .films
that have won acclaim for Guizar.
Sukrlta: You have an Immense store-house of emotional

memory and I think that Is perhaps one reason why
you use the flashback technique In a very significant
way. How Is It that you have not made a film on Partition
yet?
Guizar: We were not actually allowed to make a Partition
film. In fact. I wanted to make a Partition film as my
first film. We also took the screen test of ten characters
for this film. I borrowed the title of the film. Ek Din Raat
Ko from a Bengali film by Mrlnal Sen, Ek Din Raatre.
Nobody was ready to finance it, even touch it. Hemant
Kumar too wanted to make a Partition film but even he
was discouraged . Then came a film made by Sathyu
called Garam Hawa. I think that is the finest film made
on Partition. but it ran into so much trouble that
everybody was discouraged. By then it became too late.
But yet the idea remained in my mind till Govlnd Nihalini
made Tamas . I told Govind of how the pain and
uneasiness that was inside me was released after
Tamas.
Guizar's love for the Urdu language found expression in

his televisiDn serial on Mirza Ghalib, which once again
brought alive the great Urdu poet Ghalib in people's
imagination, further popularising his verses.
Original from
NAIIRA11NC PAR11110N
190
Sukrlta: You have a very beautiful relationship with Urdu

and It came out so well, particularly in the serial. Mirza
Ghalib. One can see that serial as a labour of love. What
do you think, ideologically or politically, is the fate of
Urdu now in India?
Guizar: My observation is that people still use Urdu while
speaking but the writing has changed. What we speak
today is a different language: It is not the same
language as spoken in 1947 or earlier. But then, every
language has changed by now - Punjabi, Tamil.
Bengali. If we look into history, Urdu became
Persiantsed only after Jehangir. Our language is
predominantly Urdu even today, only we hesitate to
accept it. But the same language has been given the
name Hindi today. It is a historical fact that the
language which the masses speak will stay finally. We
may not retain the script though. In Mirza Ghalib, for
instance, Nasir played the role of Ghalib but he writes
everything in Devnagrt.
S111r·r1ta: We have been talking a lot about the pre-Partition
socio-cultural context and we believe that there was a
strong composite culture operative which is
demonstrated in the coming together of different
communities during festivals and many customs. A
certain kind of community life where Muslims, Hindus,
Christians have all been living together and working
out ways of sharing a common cultural heritage.
In your films and in your writing, do you consciously
work out the identity of the Indian Mmlim? I ask this
because one notices how the Indian Muslim gets a token
representation and is generally either stereotyped or
totally absent?
Gulzar: Each of my films has at least one Muslim character.
and sometimes more. But I do not underline that fact.
Underlining the fact would only lead to an artificial
situation. It would mean you are denying the natural
Original from
CUI.ZAR
191
presence of other communities ln the society. Almost

40 per cent of the people whom I work with, are Muslims.
My partner ln tennis ls Hussain Taylor, a Muslim. I am
not conscious about It. I do not think we get easily
conscious, ln everyday living, of each other·s religious
affiliation. What evolves ls a quiet understanding of each
other and a decent relationship through natural social
negotiation.
For example, ln my film ·Leldn.• the role played by
Amjad Is that of a Muslim whereas his wife Is a Hindu.
But I never underlined that thelr's was a marriage
between a Hindu and a Muslim. It, I believe, was a
normal, natural thing to have happened.
In my story, ·Khaur too, I tried to say that the man
ln the story kills not due to religious fundamentalism
which he may or may not possess. It ls out of fear that
he commits the murder, not due to hatred towards the
other. The essential human bondage has always been
fascinating to me. I think my poetry ln particular has
those kinds of spaces wherein I tend to explore that
essential bonding.
fluJrrtta: Thank you very much, Guizar Sahab, for sharing
your thoughts with us.
Original from
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About the Author
Formerly a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced

Study. Shimla, Sukrita Paul Kumar has been writing
and publishing extensively on modem Hindi and Urdu
fiction. Her critical works include Conversations on
MQ!Iernism, The New Story, and Man, Woman and
Androgyny. She has also edited a number of critical
volumes including lsmat: Her Ufe, Her Times, Mapping
Memories and Women's Studies in India: Contours of
Change. A published poet, her collections include Folds
of Silence, Oscillations and Apu.rna. She was also
nominated for the International Writing Programme
at Iowa in 2002. Translation Studies is another area
of deep interest with her. Her translations have been
published by the National Book Trust. A recipient of
several grants and fellowships, she has lectured and
given readings in many universities in India and
abroad. including . Cambridge. SOAS, University of
Hong Kong. York University in Toronto and University
of California in Irvine.
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NARRATING PARTITION

TEXTS, INTERPRETATIONS, IDEAS

INDIALOG PUBUC.ATIONS Pvt LTD.

~ Published in March 2004.

Paintings by Satish Gujral reproduced with his permission.

The newspaper clippings on Partition have been taken from the

Copyright@ Sukrita Paul Kumar

Printed at Chaman Offset Printers, Darya Ganj, New Delhi.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or

I owe thanks to several institutions and individuals for the making

Sukrlta Paul 1[11mar

1947: FREEDOM AND PARTITION. Partition has been a very physical

happens either through romanticised visions of the distant

re-orientations that have shaped modern India. Social

often resolved through simple and spontaneous human

Paul, Nirmal Verma, Kamleshwar and many other writers

of Musllms cannot be homogenJsed and the complexity of their

hopelessly living them out without the backing of their own

to light through these narratives, some of which also portray

by different notions of homeland, mother tongue and identity.

[ Underwun and Outerwean

..~ -'-···· ,_ . --:::r: ' ·-··

Appeals to the past arc among the commonest of

THIS SECTION SPECIFICALLY LOOKS at narratives that approach

is this small, apparently innocent question that aroused the

And yet again, It was 1947 that motivated the writer to

A novel that opens with such daunting questions and

spheres" critical paradigm. The binary category of gender

Which in English Is:

Gautam Nilambar, Champa, Kamaal, Hart Shankar and

survive the Partition. Kamaal ts driven, against himself, to

many other sensitive writers perceived, the common song of

a Sufi allegocy for Kamaal. as also Champajaan. the courtesan

Champa Ahmed Is the most vibrant and living character In

westerner, not the Muslim or the Hindu. Or perhaps, the

Davidson, Cathy. Preface. American Uteratw-e. Vol. 70, No. 3.

THERE ARE HISTORIES AOAJNSI' histories,

is reflected in the title of the novel itself, which exclaims, "So

voice of a Journalist or an artist. M

• All translaUons from this novel are mine.

This self-reflexive note within the novel is a comment on

instrument for cessation of human life through gory

created within Paktstansl Crippled nations! Nations hollowed

feel the need to show his association with like-minded writers

Kamleshwar. Kitne Pakistan. Delhi: Rajpal & Sons, 2000.

A REALLY 0000 AND authentic piece of literature is a humbling

it in itself has the appeal of an original! The question of

The novel begins fable-like, '"A man on horseback, holding

the reader with a highly modern sensibility as the novel

individuals or as communities settled in homes, specific

magnitude have on the Individual? The following passage from

Hussein, Abdullah. The Weary Generations. New Delhi:

Digit zed i;,, Gol gle Original froM

' "'· ,..............., ..,~~~s:_•~'t;

Jpad llr, Gul4i to the CU l lnf«-1 Ula ~ that QAED-E.-A.ZAM AGAIN

·METAPHOR INTERPRETS MEMORY, .. SAYS Cynthia Ozick when she

in several Indian languages. The argument Is based on the

Indian Muslims. ·oe-Troping the Muslim" is my review of a

Ozick, Cynthia. Metaphor and Memory. USA: Vintage Books,

THE LAST FEW YEARS have seen a substantial focusing on

wtll help evolve an authentic critical position native to the

Even though etched in collective consciousness. Partition

to recover moments of solidarity and connectedness. While