Hiraeth – Partition stories from 1947

This book ‘Hiraeth’ (Partition Stories from 1947) was sent to me for review by ArtoonsInn Room 9 publications, after my interaction with the author Dr. Shivani Salil on Twitter. I have previously ‘Liked’ the ArtoonsInn page on Facebook and the ‘Room 9 Publications by Artoonsinn’ page also on Facebook. I’m a member of the Artoons Facebook Group.

I learn that Dr. Shivani Salil, MD., is a Mumbaiite who always wanted to become a doctor but who was also interested in literature. She belongs to a family of refugees, for whom “the place they called home was not just a geographical zone, but an emotion.” This is her first book.

The book is inspired by true events. It is a slim volume of only 143 pages.

The book has 24 stories, each named after an Urdu word. The English translation of the Urdu words is also helpfully provided.

The titular story Hiraeth( Longing) is about a little girl Paro who is facing the pain of partition. With Diwali around the corner, Taro reminisces about her past. Diwali, a time to ring in the new, now means she has to settle in a new home. The uprooting she had faced, thoughts of her little brother who once lived like a prince but is now in tattered clothes, the emotional turmoil, the grief, the confusion – swirl in her head. She takes out The Ramayan and reads the chaupayian( couplets). Her favorite has always been the ‘prashnavali’. It is like a tarot card, which gives you answers to your questions when you “consult” it. She is filled with questions. And then, neatly folded in the pages, she finds her answer. (No plot spoilers here)

The book is a quick emotional read that moves you in different ways. It would be of interest to anyone who wants to read real-life stories about the partition or those interested in Urdu. Tighter editing and the removal of clichéd expressions would have improved my reading experience.

Comments

The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang - A Book Review

This book has been on my TBR since the time it was featured in The New Yorker in 2019. I bought the Kindle edition recently and read it over 2-3 days. The author Esmé Weijun Wang is an American writer who has written the novel, The Border of Paradise (2016) and The Collected Schizophrenias (2019). She has received the Whiting Award and was named a Best Young American Novelist by Granta magazine. Wang has been diagnosed with a slew of health issues: schizoaffective disorder— bipolar type, idiopathic peripheral neuropathy, fibromyalgia, complex PTSD, dysautonomia/POTS, chronic Lyme disease, and the extremely rare cotard’s delusion and capgras syndrome. Wang calls her book “the collected schizophrenias” to include all the diseases that go into this basket, including schizoaffective disorder, schizophrenia, and schizotypal personality disorder. Since she was into psychological research herself, her awareness about these matters ...

My Book Review of 'Bitch Goddess for Dummies'

Recently, I attended a zoom session on chick lit by the Chennai Lockdown Literary Festival (CLLF). In the session, one of the speakers was Maya Sharma Sriram. I was so impressed with the way she conducted the session and answered the questions that I decided to pick up her chick lit novel, ‘Bitch Goddess for Dummies’ brought out by Rupa Publications in 2012. And I was not disappointed. I’m not sure if I was biased toward the book by the personality I had seen on zoom or not, but I quite enjoy chick lit and have read several chick lit novels in my thirties. So the novel is about a 27-year-old woman Mira Iyer who decides to transform her personality from good girl to ‘bitch goddess’ to deal with the people in her life. Her mom who is constantly trying to fix her up with some eligible guy so that she can get married and Sanya, the real office bitch who is always cosying up to their bosses and vying for a promotion, are just two of the people in her life causing her angst. So it’s go...

Ray Bradbury and Ma Perkins rule my heart

Ray Bradbury is a literary giant. I read one of his short stories recently. This prompted me to go looking for his book of short stories that I'd picked up years ago, which was languishing unread in my home library. The book cover tells me he is the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer prize special citation, winner of the 2004 National medal of arts, and a couple of other literary honours. This collection of stories is called ' We'll always have Paris'. But this title story is not my favourite. This one is about two men. A married man who leaves his sleeping wife in the room and goes out for a walk, following another man who leads him through the streets of Paris only to kiss him goodbye. They don't understand each other's language. The way the story was told, I took this to mean he was gay and was checking if the married man was, too. But the married man who was charmed with this man decided he wasn't and went back to his sleeping wife, forgetting all about t...

Ash Talks Books

Search This Blog