When the period is partition, then it adds multiple layers of happier times, grim aftermaths of separation, the bloodshed and loss and the following fight for survival. In the author’s own words – “It hides in the folds of clothes, among old records, inside boxes of inherited jewellery…it seeps into our years, it remains quiet, accumulating the past like layers of dust.” Reading about the memory stored in these materials, I was reminded of a line from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris (a film that looks at the past through rose-tinted glasses): “What is prosaic for a generation, with the passage of time has transmuted to a status more magical”. These are the sources of the ink that fills the pages of the book. The pivot of the book rests on material memory, i.e., memory engrained in the threads of a pashmina shawl or the rust on a vessel. Written 6 decades after the event, the project faces challenges like fading memories of the subjects Yet, Aanchal Malhotra succeeds in her adventure of collating stories from sources spanning geographies and generations about the partition. It is also an event that brought unforeseen tragedy and loss. Yes, it is an event that needs to be captured from as many sources as possible before those sources and their memories are lost to history. It is also a double-edged sword to walk on for the person documenting it, especially if the event you are covering is the partition of India. The act of documenting is crucial for history.
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