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Andhar Bil
Price range: ₹ 295 through ₹ 425
In 1947, and then in 1971, in the South Asian subcontinent, entire communities of people crossed newly-created borders to find new homes as partitions divided and reshaped countries. Kalyani Thakur’s beautiful and evocative novel, tells the story of her people, Dalits belonging to the Matua sect, who settled around a local water body – Andhar Bil – in the new nation. Reminiscent of the beloved bil they left behind at home, the refugees begin, slowly and painfully, to rebuild their lives.As children play in and around the bil – the central ‘character’ in the novel – people seek out varieties of fish and cook them in ways that recall the flavours of home, festivals and boat races take place, jute is farmed and sold, floods arrive and push people to high ground, marriages happen and property disputes unfold. The still waters of the bil absorb and hold all these stories and the boroi tree stands in the centre of the bil, a silent witness to everything.Through this episodic, almost plotless novel is woven the story of Kamalini, a young girl who will, one day, journey to the city, leaving her beloved Andhar Bil behind, just as her parents’ generation left their villages and their beloved bil in what became another country.
KALYANI THAKUR CHARAL was born in Bagula in the district of Nadia, West Bengal. She began her professional life in the late eighties in the Indian Railways. Later, she went on to start a wall magazine ‘Neer’ that subsequently turned into a regular magazine, Neer Ritupatra, now an important forum for Dalit women writers. Kalyani is a life member of the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha and is on the editorial board of the Sanstha’s magazine, Chaturtha Dunia. She is also a member of Paschim Banga Dalit Sahitya Academy, founded by the Government of West Bengal. Among her many published works are several poetry collections, Dhorlei Juddha Sunischit (2003, 2006), Je Meye Andhar Gone (2008), Chandalinir Kobita (2011), Chandalini Bhone (2015). Fire Elo Ulanga Hoye (2016) is her collection of short stories; collections of articles are Chandalinir Bibriti 1 (2012) and Chandalinir Bibriti 2 included in Kalyani Rachana Samagra Part 1 (2021). Her autobiography is titled Ami Keno Charal Likhi (2016). Her novel, Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush was published in 2019. She has published many poems, short stories and articles under the pseudonyms ‘Chandalini’ and ‘Bonachandali’. The list of her edited books includes Krishna Chandra Thakur (Kesto Sadhu): Smriti Sambhar (1999), Lokosanskritik Prabandha Sankalan (2008), Sudhangsu Dulal Adhikary Rachana Samagra (2008), Matua Dharma Prosonge (2010), Dalit Lekhika — Women’s Writings from Bengal (2020), Nirbachito Dalit Narir Rachana (2022). Kalyani has also presented her work at various international forums.ASIT BISWAS is an associate professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, and is currently posted at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College, New Town, Kolkata. He completed his PhD on adaptation of western texts in Bengali films, from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published fourteen research papers, six short stories, two plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book, Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya (2019); Dalit Poems, Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation (2019, a translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy) and Dalit Literary Horizon (2019). He also published Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre (2019), a translation of the novel, Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Continue Reading Andhar Bil
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This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page KALYANI THAKUR CHARAL was born in Bagula in the district of Nadia, West Bengal. She began her professional life in the late eighties in the Indian Railways. Later, she went on to start a wall magazine ‘Neer’ that subsequently turned into a regular magazine, Neer Ritupatra, now an important forum for Dalit women writers. Kalyani is a life member of the Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha and is on the editorial board of the Sanstha’s magazine, Chaturtha Dunia. She is also a member of Paschim Banga Dalit Sahitya Academy, founded by the Government of West Bengal. Among her many published works are several poetry collections, Dhorlei Juddha Sunischit (2003, 2006), Je Meye Andhar Gone (2008), Chandalinir Kobita (2011), Chandalini Bhone (2015). Fire Elo Ulanga Hoye (2016) is her collection of short stories; collections of articles are Chandalinir Bibriti 1 (2012) and Chandalinir Bibriti 2 included in Kalyani Rachana Samagra Part 1 (2021). Her autobiography is titled Ami Keno Charal Likhi (2016). Her novel, Andhar Bil O Kichhu Manush was published in 2019. She has published many poems, short stories and articles under the pseudonyms ‘Chandalini’ and ‘Bonachandali’. The list of her edited books includes Krishna Chandra Thakur (Kesto Sadhu): Smriti Sambhar (1999), Lokosanskritik Prabandha Sankalan (2008), Sudhangsu Dulal Adhikary Rachana Samagra (2008), Matua Dharma Prosonge (2010), Dalit Lekhika — Women’s Writings from Bengal (2020), Nirbachito Dalit Narir Rachana (2022). Kalyani has also presented her work at various international forums.ASIT BISWAS is an associate professor of English in West Bengal Education Service, and is currently posted at Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Government College, New Town, Kolkata. He completed his PhD on adaptation of western texts in Bengali films, from the University of Gour Banga, Malda, West Bengal. He has published fourteen research papers, six short stories, two plays and some poems in Bengali. He is the co-editor of the book, Shotoborsher Bangla Dalit Sahitya (2019); Dalit Poems, Songs and Dialogues from Bengal in English Translation (2019, a translation of Manohar Mouli Biswas’s book, Dalit Sahityer Digboloy) and Dalit Literary Horizon (2019). He also published Pardon Not: Marichjhampi Massacre (2019), a translation of the novel, Kshama Nei by Nakul Mallik. Continue Reading Andhar Bil
Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East
Price range: ₹ 460 through ₹ 645
In 2015 the Goethe-Instituts in Kolkata (India) and Dhaka (Bangladesh) began a collaborative project entitled ‘Inherited Memories’. The project began with a key question that grew out of discussions on memory and history: was there such a thing as a ‘culture of remembrance’ in India, something akin to the Erinnerungskultur in Germany? The question was asked specifically in relation to the Partition of India in 1947: why was it that such a major historical event found little reflection in public memory? Soon, other questions came up: why was it, for example, that whatever memorialising existed was largely in the West, in Punjab, and the Bengal region, which had lived through two partitions and a war that could be likened to a third partition, was given such little attention? At the time these discussions began, many, perhaps most, of the survivors of the 1947 Partition were no longer alive and their memories therefore lost to us. It is often said that memory jumps a generation, so a decision was taken to talk across borders with the children and grandchildren of Partition refugees in the Bengal region, to look at how memory is passed down, what is retained or lost, and how it is owned and shared by subsequent generations.This book, which comprises interviews from both Bangladesh and West Bengal, is the result of these discussions. Guided by a committed and engaged group of writers from both countries, the book explores, through the stories of ancestors the memories people carried with them, the things they never forgot, the yearnings that did not go away, the journeys that remained unfinished, and those that were accomplished. Through these, it examines how history simultaneously looks so similar and so different from either side.
FIRDOUS AZIM is a professor of Literature in the Department of English and Humanities at Brac University. She is also a member of Naripokkho, a leading feminist organization in Bangladesh. Her works include The Colonial Rise of the Novel (1993), a special edited volume (with Nivedita Menon and Dina Siddiqui) of Feminist Review, ‘Negotiating New Terrains: South Asian Feminisms’ (2009), and a special issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies entitled ‘Islam Culture and Women’ (2011). Continue Reading Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East
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This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page FIRDOUS AZIM is a professor of Literature in the Department of English and Humanities at Brac University. She is also a member of Naripokkho, a leading feminist organization in Bangladesh. Her works include The Colonial Rise of the Novel (1993), a special edited volume (with Nivedita Menon and Dina Siddiqui) of Feminist Review, ‘Negotiating New Terrains: South Asian Feminisms’ (2009), and a special issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies entitled ‘Islam Culture and Women’ (2011). Continue Reading Inherited Memories: Third Generation Perspectives on Partition in the East
Dust of the Caravan
Price range: ₹ 420 through ₹ 595
Dust of the Caravan is a selection of writings by Anis Kidwai sketching the personal and political journey of a Muslim woman through the first eight decades of the 20th century. In Kidwai’s often humorous and always incisive and compassionate telling of the travels that took her from a birth and upbringing in rural Awadh into the maelstrom of Partition and its aftermath, lies a rich tapestry of tales.Simultaneously a social history of life in rural Awadh in the early 20th century and the birth of the national movement in the region as well as an account of the traditions of mutual respect and understanding between different faiths in a shared culture and the rupture of those very traditions during Partition, this book is also the story of a woman’s journey from the home into the world and from ‘family values’ towards autonomous beliefs, friendships, and activism. In addition to its value as a literary work, Dust of the Caravan is an important resource in the fields of history, sociology, and gender studies.
Born in 1906 in Barabanki, ANIS KIDWAI was a member of the Rajya Sabha (1956-68) and a social activist, committed to secularism and the rights of minorities and women. Kidwai had a six-decade long literary career as an essayist, and is perhaps best known for her two collections of essays—Nazre Khush Guzre (1975) and Ab Jin ke Dekhne Ko (1978), as well as her sombre Urdu memoir of Delhi during Partition, Āzādi Ki Chhaon Mein. A prolific contributor to Urdu women’s journals and literary periodicals, Anis Kidwai perfected a highly individual style in which wit and sarcasm combined with perspicacious observation, literary allusion, and a progressive politics. In 1981, she was awarded the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award. She passed away on 16 July 1982.AYESHA KIDWAI teaches linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and is Anis Kidwai’s granddaughter. She is also the translator of Āzādi Ki Chhaon Mein, which appeared as In Freedom’s Shade in 2011. Continue Reading Dust of the Caravan
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This product has multiple variants. The options may be chosen on the product page “An archivist’s delight, an emotional roller coaster, a challenge to settled opinions, a must read for everyone with a conscience who is thinking about the soul of India.“ — Uma Chakravarti, Historian
“Written in scintillating prose, rich in anecdotes, candid portraits, and everyday details, they open up for us the world at once intimate and expanding of the zenana..” — Francesca Orsini, SOAS University of London
“Ayesha Kidwai’s sensitive translation of her grandmother’s writing captures its multiple registers and unique expression to reveal a woman’s voice at once poignant, funny, piercing and poetic.” —Siobhan Lambert-Hurley, University of Sheffield
“Dust of the Caravan is a compelling story of knitting dreams of a just and equal India, a story of a struggle propelled only by hope, a story which, but for Ayesha Kidwai, would have remained inaccessible to a wider audience.” — Saif Mahmood, Writer, Translator, Lawyer
Born in 1906 in Barabanki, ANIS KIDWAI was a member of the Rajya Sabha (1956-68) and a social activist, committed to secularism and the rights of minorities and women. Kidwai had a six-decade long literary career as an essayist, and is perhaps best known for her two collections of essays—Nazre Khush Guzre (1975) and Ab Jin ke Dekhne Ko (1978), as well as her sombre Urdu memoir of Delhi during Partition, Āzādi Ki Chhaon Mein. A prolific contributor to Urdu women’s journals and literary periodicals, Anis Kidwai perfected a highly individual style in which wit and sarcasm combined with perspicacious observation, literary allusion, and a progressive politics. In 1981, she was awarded the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award. She passed away on 16 July 1982.AYESHA KIDWAI teaches linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University and is Anis Kidwai’s granddaughter. She is also the translator of Āzādi Ki Chhaon Mein, which appeared as In Freedom’s Shade in 2011. Continue Reading Dust of the Caravan
All Passion Spent
Price range: ₹ 113 through ₹ 225
In the mid-nineties, Birjees Dawar Ali returns to Pakistan to seek out a history left unfinished long ago, a history from which, nursing heartbreak and betrayal, she had once earlier fled, back to her home in partitioned India. Will she find the family that so generously gave her succour, the home that became her own, the people who gave her unquestioning love? Or, will all these certainties have fled with the march of history? A deeply moving narrative of love and loss, All Passion Spent focuses on the unresolved question of the 1947 Partition of India and the emergence of India and Pakistan as two separate countries.Zaheda Hina's richly layered narrative brought alive in this lyrical and poetic translation by Neelam Hussain, touches on the many unanswered questions that surround this painful history: the profound sense of grief and displacement, the lives sundered midstream, the lost friendships and the quest for new roots and lands under different skies. Continue Reading All Passion Spent
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A Life Long Ago
Price range: ₹ 125 through ₹ 250
In the 1950s, ten-year-old Dayamoyee watches with bewilderment and curiosity as her village, Dighpait, begins to change and people she knows and loves start to pack their belongings and move away. India has been partitioned, and Dighpait has now become part of a new country, (East) Pakistan. Soon, Dayamoyee's aunt, with whom she lives, also begins to prepare to travel across the border, to Hindustan where Dayamoyee's parents, both teachers, have made their home.Forced to leave her beloved home, her friends, and especially their family retainer, Majam, whom she calls Dada, Dayamoyee resolves, on her journey from Pakistan to Hindustan, never to mention the home they have left behind. And so, from childhood to adulthood, from adulthood to middle age, Dayamoyee never speaks of Dighpait. And then, in the early 1990s, she hears of Majam's death and the floodgates of memory open.Sunanda Sikdar's beautiful and moving memoir A Life Long Ago (Dayamoyeer Katha in Bengali) was awarded the Lila Puraskar by Calcutta University in 2008, and the Ananda Puraskar in 2010. Continue Reading A Life Long Ago
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