Unbordered Memories - Sindhi Stories of Partition

Author: Rita Kothari
Several Contributors/
Translator(s)/ Editors(s): Rita Kothari
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 171
ISBN/UPC (if available): 9780143063650

Description

If Partition changed the lives of Sindhi Hindus who suffered the loss of home, language and culture, and felt unwanted in their new homeland, it also changed things for Sindhi Muslims. The Muslims had to grapple with a nation that had suddenly become unrecognizable and where they founds themselves to be second-class citizen. Not used to the Urdu, mosques and the new avatars of domination, they were bewildered by the new Islamic state of Pakistan. Sindh as a nation had simultaneously become elusive for both communities.

In Unbordered Memories we witness Sindhis from India and Pakistan making imaginative entries into each other’s worlds. Many stories in this volume testify to the Sindhi Muslim’ empathy for the world inhabited by the Hindus, and the Indian Sindhis’ solidarity with the turbulence experienced by Pakistan Sindhis. These writing from both sides of the border fiercely critique the abuse of human dignity in the name of religion and national borders. They mock the absurdity of containing subcontinental identities within the confines of nations and of equating nations with religions. And they continually generate a shared, unbordered space for all Sindhis---Hindus and Muslim.

Contents

Translator’s Note and Acknowledgements

1. Introduction
Rita Kothari
6 January 1948
Thakur Chawla

2. When I Experienced the Simultaneity of life and Death …
3. Bhoori
4. Boycott
5. Holi
6. Kaafir: The Infidel
7. Khaanwahan
8. Life, a Mere Dream
9. Lost Nations
10. Hunger, Love and Literature
11. My Amma
12. Obligation
13. Familiar Strangers
14. The Claim
15. The Document
16. The Neighbour
17. The Refugee
18. The Uprooted
19. Who was Responsible
20. In the Name of Allah
21. Oxen
22. The Death of Fear
23. In Exile

24. Glossary