Remnants of a Separation
A History of the Partition Through Material Memory
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Remnants of a Separation
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Narrated by:
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Honey Raza
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Written by:
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Aanchal Malhotra
About this listen
"A well-researched and richly readable book." (Ramachandra Guha)
Seventy years have passed since the Partition, and a momentous event now recedes in memory. Generations have grown up outside the shadow of the communal killings and mass displacement that shaped the contemporary history of the subcontinent. Despite being born into a family affected by the Divide, artist and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra too had thought little about the Partition until she encountered objects that had once belonged to her ancestors in an Undivided India. A gaz, a ghara, a maang-tikka, a pocketknife, a peacock-shaped bracelet and a set of kitchen utensils: these were what accompanied her great-grandparents as they fled their homes, and through them she learnt of their migration and life before the Divide. This led her to search for the belongings of other migrants to discover the stories hidden in them.
Remnants of a Separation is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through such objects carried across the border. These objects absorbed the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations. They now speak of their owners' pasts and emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history. A string of pearls gifted by a maharaja, carried from Dalhousie to Lahore, reveals the grandeur of a life that once was. A notebook of poems, brought from Lahore to Kalyan, shows one woman's determination to pursue the written word despite the turmoil around her. A refugee certificate created in Calcutta evokes in a daughter the feelings of displacement her father had experienced on leaving Mymensingh, now in Bangladesh.
Written as a crossover between history and anthropology, Remnants of a Separation tells stories from both sides of the border and is the product of years of painstaking and passionate research. It pieces together an alternative history of the Partition, the first and only one told through material memory that makes the event tangible even seven decades later, lest we forget.
©2017 Aanchal Malhotra (P)2019 Audible, Inc.What listeners say about Remnants of a Separation
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Pargat Singh
- 30-06-20
Praiseworthy
For the first time i tried listening to the book instead of reading it. And, the soft, supple Voice over by Honey Raza did true justice to the intricate stories of India- Pakistan partition. truly praiseworthy work of author.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anjali Panikar
- 01-09-22
my eyes teared up, my throat choked up...
This book does not tug at the strings of your heart, it wraps those heart strings around itself and tears your heart apart...
This book drove home just how little I know about my grandparents lives... The paternal grandfather who was a freedom fighter, and the maternal grandfather who fought in the British Navy during WWII... The maternal grandmother would recount stories of her childhood from during WWII, about how they'd take shelter during air raids...
What stands out in this book apart from the sheer volume of research that has gone into it, is the complete lack of bias... recounting each survivor's story with no regard for region, religion, or gender...
As I listened to this book, my eyes teared up, my throat choked up... It left a lasting impression on me...
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 01-10-19
In this times of IND vs PAK this is a must read.
I would have loved it if narrator was a female as author of book is female.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Amazon Customer
- 14-11-21
Awesome!
Amazing, heart wrenching stories. Beautiful narration, in all the Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and Hindi sentences.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- umang
- 28-09-22
Thanks for meeting and understanding the past
I felt i wish i got time with my grandparents to hear out their experiences from the partition. I cried, laughed , felt the pain and trauma. These are things people had buried deep inside themselves. What came out as a common thought with most was , this was the first time they discussed or talked about those days. I wish kids talk to their grandparents n take down these horrors of the past. Thanks Anchal n thanks Honey Raza for such heartfelt narration.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Placeholder
- 14-12-22
Walks down memory lanes
This is an excellent anthology of stories from the Partition. A must read or listen. Poignant and compelling recounting of the memories of various people of events and places of undivided India. Some painful, some wistful, some cathartic and some nostalgic. .
Aanchal Malhotra has managed to inventory artefacts and file the memories around each of them for what it stood for in their own lives.
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