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short takes
Intriguing, funny and
tragic tales
Randeep Wadehra
Mapmaking: Partition
stories from
two Bengals
Ed Debjani Sengupta Amaryllis. Pages: xx+207.
Rs 295
 Unlike Punjab, the Bengal
region has experienced three partitions, which impacted its history and
worldview. The 1905 partition was done for "administrative
reasons," although it was resisted by Hindus and welcomed by
Muslims. The second partition was the result of bifurcation of the
subcontinent into India and Pakistan in 1947 on religious grounds –
giving credibility to Jinnah’s two-nation theory. The same theory
stood discredited in 1971, when the Bengali East Pakistan seceded from
the Punjabi-dominated West Pakistan, thus consummating the third
"Partition" that was brought about by cultural, ethnic and
linguistic factors. This excellently translated collection has stories
pertaining to the 1947 Partition from both sides of the Indo-Bangladesh
border. Ritwik Ghatak’s The Road portrays the dissolution of
its Muslim character’s anger after he meets an old displaced woman
from East Pakistan who now occupies his house in Calcutta. But are very
few stories about Hindu-Muslim animosity. Some, like Bandopadhyay’s The
Final Solution, show how Hindu refugees – especially – women
among them were exploited by fellow Hindus in Calcutta; its protagonist
Mallika violently rebels against the exploiters. However, Basu’s Flotsam
and Jetsam, depicts women as helpless, gullible and timid
vis-`E0-vis sexual predators among their coreligionists, and are
portrayed as major sufferers. This anthology has tales of pregnant women
dying while giving birth in railway compartments even as they flee to
India; or, of being disowned by their kin and left to fend for
themselves. Another story, Sengupta’s Alam’s Own House, shows
how the propertied classes were able to exchange houses and thus retain
their wealth to a large extent; this story is also tinged with
unrequited Hindu-Muslim love. This tome’s various narratives present
insights into human reactions to variegated adverse situations arising
in the wake of the 1947 partition.
 Two Fates: the story of my
divorce
By Judy Balan Westland. Pages x+199. Rs 150
Deepika is Tamil and
Rishab Punjabi. She works for an ad agency and dreams of becoming either
a full-fledged writer or a psychotherapist; he is a well-placed IITian
with ambitions of becoming a novelist. Both fall in love and marry after
overcoming the inevitable objections from their respective families.
Soon the rose-tinted blinkers are off. Their sex life becomes loveless.
They start getting irritated over those very shortcomings in one-another
which they used to find so endearing earlier.
They decide to get
divorced, but realise that their respective families have fallen in love
with each other! Worse, a Tamil lad and a Punjabi lass from their
extended families become serious about tying the knot. To further
complicate matters, they are sent to the United Kingdom on their second
honeymoon for "making babies."  The narrative is fast, spiced
up with humour. There are some memorable characters like the flirty
Reshu periamma and the snooty Mehtas. Keeps you chuckling right till the
end.
The Rightful Owner
By Charandeep Singh Frog
Books. Pages 186. Rs 150
Wilbur Smith works in
London. He does not have any blood relations. One day he learns that he
does have a relative, an uncle, who has bequeathed some coins to him in
his will. When he goes to attend his funeral he meets a lady named
Martha who turns out to be his aunt. She gives him a diary written by
their "common ancestor," MJ Smith, who happened to be an Army
Officer in India where he became friendly with an Indian sepoy named
Nihal; further, MJ meets Bhagatji who gives him some coins with Persian
inscriptions –the same coins are bequeathed to Wilbur. The narrative
moves among different time zones and places ranging from the World War
II France to the Independence-eve Indian subcontinent to the present-day
UK and India.
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