There can be no greater sense of despair than that experienced while reading stories about Partition, especially post 26/11. Embedded in them is all the residual fallout that has haunted the subcontinent for decades afterwards — a careless drawing of a line that forever endangered lives and created the overarching myth of the “Other”. A myth that many now believe is the reality.

The kernel of all Partition stories lies in the description of the heart of darkness, and Crossing Over, edited by Frank Stewart and Sukrita Paul Kumar, includes voices of almost 20 different authors like Mohan Rakesh, Bhisham Sahni, Khadija Mastur and even Gulzar. Their writing reflects the painful moments when two countries were created, and when women were raped, children stolen, properties usurped and entire histories buried beneath bloodshed and rubble. Reading how the perpetrators went unpunished because the violence was thought inevitable in the transfer of such large populations, you ask yourself if it is any wonder that the same violence still continues unchecked between the two communities. Did the simmering anger ever, really, get resolved? And will we ever find a way to soothe the agony that is evident in these pages?  

Some of the stories in this collection are already well known — such as Intizar Husain’s “Basti”, and Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh”, and among the essays, the extracts from Urvashi Butalia’s The Other Side of Silence. But fortunately there are also plenty of not so well known gems such as Abul Bashar’s “Rebirth”, the story of Jugin, a Muslim craftsman who has traditionally made the crown for Goddess Lakshmi. Due to the growing rift between the two communities, his benefactor, Shudharani, no longer offers him parshad or honours him in any way after the puja. Wounded, Jugin recites the many names of Krishna to comfort himself. It is a beautifully syncretic story — replete with the nostalgia of a more innocent age.  

... contd.