Partitions: A Novel (22 page)

My biggest debt is to Urvashi Butalia’s
The Other Side of Silence
(Duke University, 2000). The discussions of the plight of women, children, and untouchables during Partition is valuable in itself, but for me, the most important parts were the extended, first-hand accounts of survivors translated in the book. One of the book’s storytellers, an untouchable named Maya Rani, I imagined into the novel as the girl who helps the twins find their way back to the tracks in chapter 4.

I first learned about the story of Buta Singh in the famous
Freedom at Midnight
by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre, originally published in 1975. I read about it elsewhere afterward. Buta Singh was a Sikh farmer at whose feet a Muslim girl, fleeing her attackers, took refuge. Masud and Simran encounter each other in a similar way.

Those are the direct debts to my reading. Probably there are others, but most of the other books I have read described the politics, not the people; and to me, as a novelist, it’s the people that matter.

*   *   *

There is one story about Partition that relates to my family. It has to do with the place from which my family, on both sides, originates. The “semi-independent” princes of the Raj were allowed to pick which country they wanted their principalities to join. (This system set up the problematic situation in Kashmir, where the Hindu ruler joined India though his subjects were largely Muslim.) Junagadh, where my parents were born and grew up, close to the Gir mountains, had a Muslim nawab.

This Muslim nawab’s family and our Hindu Brahmin one had been warmly connected in the distant past. A forefather of mine had tutored the young princes, and as a sign of favor, the nawab bestowed on him a gift of land and the surname “Majmudar” (not to be confused with Majumdar, a Bengali surname). We had borne the more Brahmin-sounding name “Vaishnav” before that, “devotee of Vishnu.”

When independence came, the nawab chose to join Pakistan even though his territory had no physical connection to Pakistan—it was the Indian state of Gujarat on all sides, except where it bordered the Arabian Sea. The Indian army rolled in; a plebiscite chose India, overwhelmingly, if the numbers are to be trusted; and so, over Pakistan’s protests, Junagadh was annexed. To this day, some (Pakistani) maps of Pakistan, I have read, insist on inking a green dot in Gujarat, indicating that Junagadh was rightfully theirs.

I point this out because I like how it gives my ancestry a duality—a Hindu family whose very name was chosen by a Muslim benefactor, and whose home can be thought of as Indian or Pakistani, or both.

*   *   *

It’s the people that matter: My wife and twin boys. My mother and father. My sister and her family. My in-laws (how lucky am I to get along so well with my in-laws?). This time, I was born inside a charmed circle. My art thrives because their love feeds me.

They are the reasons I could write this book. I couldn’t have published
Partitions
, either, without some very crucial people. David Lynn, editor of
The Kenyon Review
, sent my name to the literary agent Georges Borchardt in New York. Georges swam an inundation of my work and chose to represent me—I consider that an honor in itself. Riva Hocherman and Sara Bershtel, editor and publisher respectively at Holt/Metropolitan, along with Juliet Mabey at OneWorld (UK), have been passionate supporters of this book, and I thank them for their enthusiasm and careful editorial attention. Finally, I am grateful to every reader, whoever you are, wherever you are. Your time has been a gift.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

A
MIT
M
AJMUDAR
is a diagnostic nuclear radiologist and an award-winning poet whose work has been featured in the
New Yorker
and
The Best American Poetry 2007.
His first poetry collection,
0°
,
0°
, was published in 2009, and a second collection,
Heaven and Earth
, in 2011.
Partitions
is his first full-length novel. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife and twin sons.

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Copyright © 2011 by Amit Majmudar

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Majmudar, Amit.

Partitions : a novel / Amit Majmudar.—1st ed.

p.   cm.

ISBN 978-0-8050-9395-7

  1.  India—History—Partition, 1947—Fiction.   2.  Political refugees—Fiction.   3.  India—Emigration and immigration—Fiction.   4.  Pakistan—Emigration and immigration—Fiction.   5.  Pakistan—History—20th century—Fiction.   I.  Title.

PS3613.A3536P37     2011

813'.6—dc22                                               2010045159

First Edition 2011

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

eISBN 978-1-4299-7276-5

First Metropolitan Books eBook Edition: June 2011