Her prose is rich with images that detail the everyday textures of colossal, and otherwise inaccessible, historical events. Malhotra trained as a printmaker in Canada, a background that lends a distinct awareness of the material, the sensory and the oblique to her writing. Noted by writers and readers alike for its perspicacious study of personal and national accounts, the book has been acclaimed as “one of the most intriguing alternative histories of the Partition” (Gayatri Manu). “Things will change,” she says, nodding.Īanchal Malhotra’s first book, Remnants of a Separation revisits the 1947 Partition of India through objects carried by people across the newly formed borders. She is about to move her desk to her room when I see her next. But the writer’s world spills over, with eclectic objects arranged around the house, including a tray of small perfume bottles acquired as part of research. It’s a perfectly solitary nook in an apartment that Malhotra shares with her sister. A square of light falls over it throughout the day and it seems as if the space has been put on snooze until the writing resumes. Her writing desk is a sheesham table pressed against the glass doors that lead to the balcony before us. It’s just before the city enters spring and the light is gentle as it fills the living room, where we sit down to talk with two cups of coffee. We talk with the faint trickle of traffic floating up, the occasional barking dogs. It’s a battle living on a busy junction in New Delhi, surrounded by the sound of the streets.

This actually started as an academic project, eventually converted into a book by author Aanchal Malhotra, who is an artist & oral historian and is a must read for history buffs.AANCHAL MALHOTRA writes in the quiet, reading every word aloud to herself.

They are now testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, suffering and belonging of their respective owners. These objects range from jewellery, utensils, clothings and so on, remaining latent & undisturbed for generations. Remnants of a Separation is a unique and honest attempt to revisit the gory days of Partition through ‘materials’- the objects that were carried by the refugees with them when they left their ancestral land and crossed the border.

To make things clear, this is not just another book invoking memories of partition.

Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory by Aanchal Malhotraįirst of all, thanks a lot to Harper Collins India for sending me a review copy of this book.

Aanchal malhotra partition