Aanchal Malhotra
@AanchalMalhotra
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Indian oral historian and author, co-founder Museum of Material Memory. Rep @DGALitAgents
New Delhi, India
Joined October 2015
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Rather than remembering the horrors endured at Partition, I wish there were efforts to recognize the shared losses Indians and Pakistanis bore - of home, family, friendship, education. An entire way of life fractured. The realization of shared loss may lead to shared healing
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My grandmother and beautiful (book) cover-girl turns 90 today!
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The other day I read the term ‘covid orphan’ and haven’t stopped thinking about it since. It’s not just the fact that an entire older generation may succumb to this pandemic, but also that there will be a generation of children who will grow up without parents or grandparents...
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Today, during a field research interview, I was shown this incredible 1x1 inch cube Guru Granth Sahib, from the time of WW1. It was bequeathed to its current owner, along with a small metallic magnifying glass to read the words.
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My grandfather would have been 92 yrs old today. Born in Malakwal in 1928, he migrated to Delhi during the 1947 Partition. After staying at Kingsway Camp for several years, he set up
@Books_at_Bahri
as a 25 year-old in 1953. Thank you
@thedelhiwalla
for this handsome photo!
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For years I’ve been recording interviews and writing about the generational memory of Partition; how we speak about historical trauma, or why we may feel an ancestor’s pain. My new book, In The Language of Remembering, is available for pre-order now and in shops on May 10, 2022
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celebrating a big personal happiness amidst this pandemic - the first draft of a book I have been working on for the past last three years, is finally complete! More on it to be announced eventually, but for now, I am beaming ear to ear!
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Off to my editor finally goes the first draft of ‘In The Language of Remembering’ - a book of conversations on the inherited memory of the 1947 Partition.
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As someone who writes about Independence and the 1947 Partition all year round, the month of August feels particularly strange, despite its commemorative status, and the feeling inside my heart on the two historic days - 14th and 15th - is uniquely hollow. A thread 1/
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It’s publication day! ‘In The Language of Remembering’ is finally out in the world today. A collection of oral history interviews with descendants of Partition-impacted families in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, about the long-lasting, generational legacy they have inherited.
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This beautiful sight. If only my nani could see her city today.
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My grandfather, Balraj Bahri sitting at the cash in a very crowded
@Bahrisons_books
probably in the 80s or 90s. This is what the bookshop looked like in my childhood, complete with a stationary counter in the back and stacks of books consuming every bit of space on every shelf!
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The heaviest word I’ve carried around in the last decade.
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As someone born into a family-run bookshop, I understand both the beauty & difficulty of a physical bookshop in these digital times. This is a piece on how my parents and their staff
@Bahrisons_books
not only survived a pandemic but also open a new outlet!
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The hands of Sumitra Kapur, my Urdu, Farsi and Gurmukhi translator while I was writing Remnants.
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During my first trip to Lahore in 2014, I visited Sitara Faiyaz Ali and heard the story of the home she had left behind in Dalhousie during Partition, a cottage with green shutters that her father had built with his own hands. She had shown me a photograph of the house in 1947 1/
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The book and the cover girl. My grandmother on the cover of the Indian edition of Remnants, wearing the maang-tikka her mother carried from DI Khan to Delhi during the Partition in August 1947
@HarperCollinsIN
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Thrilled to be working with
@HarperCollinsIN
on two new books: a non fiction titled In The Language of Remembering out in 2021 AND a debut novel titled The Book Of Everlasting Things out in 2022!
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The original front page of The Daily Milap newspaper from April 12, 1931, featuring the two Gandhis of Undivided India - Mahatma Gandhi and Gandhi of Frontier. 1/
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I'm delighted to share that Remnants of Partition, published in South Asia as Remnants of a Separation, has won the prestigious Council for Museum Anthropology Book Award 2022! Thank you to
@MuseumAnth
and the awards committee for this honour!
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In the years after the 1947 Partition, my grandmother would venture into Chandni Chowk with her sisters, whenever they could afford to. She recalls how there’d be a line of surmewalas sitting outside Gurudwara Sis Ganj, from where she bought this brass surmedani.
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At a time when online retailers are delaying or cancelling orders, independent bookshops have re-opened their doors across the country, delivering books right to your doorstep. Please support your local indie bookshop, not just in this time of crisis, but throughout the year.
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While researching the Great War for a new book, I've discovered the sheer number of descendants, originally from undivided Punjab, who have little to no information about ancestors who fought. They may have a name, a village, a medal, but not much else 1/
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Thank you,
@thedelhiwalla
! I love this beautiful photo of my grandparents. They were married for 60 long years - he always called her "Madam ji" and she always called him "Bahri sahib".
Happy Birthday, Balraj Bahri, Delhi’s legendary bookstore man. He would have been 92. Here seen with partner, Bhag, whose earnings kept the bookstore running in its early years. She turns 89 in January. Saw this scene some years back... in their living room!
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Great grandparents
Lajvanti and Hari Chand Gulyani
Born in D.I Khan, NWFP, Undivided India
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The beautiful and erudite Uma Sondhi Ahmad turns 90 years old today. She was born in 1931 in Jullundur, and spent her life in Burma, England, Calcutta, Lahore, Jullundur and Mussourie, before finally migrating to Calcutta after Partition. 1/
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It really breaks my heart to write this, but Nazmuddin Khan sahib, on whom I wrote a chapter (probably my favourite one) in Remnants, is no more. Born in 1929 in Delhi's Hauz Rani, he passed away just short of 92 years. 1/
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most beautiful sight, in most beautiful Delhi light
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Sumitra Kapur, who I not only interviewed for Remnants but is also my Urdu, Farsi & Gurmukhi translator, turns 90! Her story began in a house full of music in Rawalpindi & traveled by train to Shimla, the protagonist being an early 1900s Granth from Amritsar. This is her today!
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Author copies of In the Language of Remembering have arrived! Releasing on May 10, 2022 wherever books are sold. To order/preorder signed copies of the book, reach out to your local bookshop!
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There’s so much hope in the opening of this new shop, especially during a pandemic. I’m so proud of my parents for having nurtured and expanded the
@Books_at_Bahri
legacy! Thank you to all the publishers, authors and readers who have made this possible!
Delighted to share that we opened a new bookstore today @ Ambience Mall,Vasant Kunj.
A huge round of appreciation for our amazing team who has worked tirelessly to make this happen📚
Bahrisons Booksellers
S-225 2nd Flr, AMBIENCE MALL,
VASANT KUNJ.
Please drop by 🎉
#readwithbahri
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Five years ago in March, I began writing a story about a perfumer's apprentice, Samir Vij, and a calligrapher's apprentice, Firdaus Khan, who lock eyes through the rows of perfume bottles in an ittar shop in 1938, Lahore. This luminous scene eventually grew into my debut novel.
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Nothing good has ever come from hating someone you don’t know or understand either. This is the kind of hate that is rooted and propagated through generations. Please try to rise above it.
@AanchalMalhotra
Why are you praising a Pakistani!?? You do realise pak is our enemy. Nothing good has ever come from pak.
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Reena Verma, who left her home in Rawalpindi at Partition, returns 75 years later. The joy on her is unmatched, for there are millions who never thought they'd one again walk on the soil of their birth with dignity. How I wish more survivors are granted this opportunity 1/
Reena Verma - the happiness on her face 💙 My video report:
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These are all the journals from my current manuscript, some going back to 2013. The coloured tags are new interviews conducted over the last few years and yellow post-it tags are notes from conferences or old research I was unable to use in Remnants
#InTheLanguageOfRemembering
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An ad that had tried to show unity and communal harmony has now been officially withdrawn due to vicious trolling. Sometimes it feels like the pre partition world I write about was far more tolerant then than we are today. What a regressive state of affairs..
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'Everyone was certain that Jalandhar would be a part of Pakistan. That’s why, at the beginning, no one left, no one thought they would have to. For a while, it seemed that families of all faiths would continue to live side by side.' 1/
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Those reading this thread from across the border, if you have heard this story in your family and your grandmother Noori also has one part of a pair of earrings, then do get in touch. If only in the final years of their lives, Kiran and Noori should be reunited once again. 7/7
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This is honestly infuriating. Writing books is not a joke. Research takes time, resources, effort. It is hard enough to get people to read, but then there are people like this who find ways to pirate books and cheat authors. If you do “find a crack”, I will report you.
@AanchalMalhotra
@HabibRahi13
What's the fun in buying books???
In a country with limited reading interests it's like a crime against humanity not to make a free PDF versions available....
I'll try and find a crack and then post it here for the betterment of all
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...because of this disease, because they weren't able to get help on time. This breaks my heart, and I don’t know how to process the grief my country is witnessing right now.
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Celebrating Bahrison's 65th anniversary by opening our newest store in Gurgaon- a beautiful space we call THE LIBRARY, which houses
@Books_at_Bahri
and
@BlueTokaiCoffee
under one roof. Opening December 15 at Galleria Market!
#BahrisonsBooksellers
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I wrote about the methodologies of oral historians who continue to record memories of trauma from the Partition. Featuring interviews with and writings of Ritu Menon, Urvashi Butalia, Rita Kothari, Dr. Alok Sarin, Anam Zakaria, Devika Chawla, Prakhar Joshi
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Early copies of The Book of Everlasting Things arrived this week and I can hardly believe they’re real! From the first notes in late 2016 to the last edits in early 2022, this novel has been my companion. It is out on December 27 with
@Flatironbooks
and
@HarperCollinsIN
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Lovely portraits from my grandparent's youth. During the Partition, her family migrated from D.I Khan, NWFP and his from Malakwal, West Punjab. They both lived in Delhi's Kingsway refugee camp, where they met at the camp's social service dept in 1948, and were married in 1955.
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@suchitrav
I can see this in the archives of 2020. “And then from the balconies, rained Chinese TVs...”
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On the 75th anniversary of V-E Day, remembering Azra Haq, who I interviewed in Lahore. With pride, she recalled serving in the WACI, Women’s Auxiliary Corps (India) formed with the aim of giving women of British and Indian nationalities duties with the British Army during WW2 1/
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Terribly sad to see this iconic shop leave their Khan Market location. Pls support your local bookshops, they are intrinsic to the development of a city. A discount from an online seller may seem momentarily attractive, but a relationship with a bookshop is a lifetime investment.
As we close our doors in Khan Market, we would like to THANK each and everyone for their support, love and affection for Full Circle and Cafe Turtle.
Special thank you to
@kan_writersside
@arunava
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Yesterday the king of spices, Mahashay Dharampal Gulati passed away at the age of 97. This morning in his obit,
@NavbharatTimes
used a photograph of my late grandfather, Balraj Bahri instead. This is not the first time it's happened & fact-checking should really be a priority 1/
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We’ll be 66 this year!
Felt good to be back at
@Books_at_Bahri
in Delhi. Made me think: is the last of the iconic bookstores? Strand in Mumbai, Landmark Chennai, Gangarams Bengaluru. All gone now. Amazon and Flipkart are nice, but there’s a certain magic in these physical stores that’s hard to match!
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In this lovely piece on how independent bookshops around the world survived the pandemic,
@AmyKazmin
writes about Delhi’s iconic
@Bahrisons_books
- “The store itself is tiny, just about 830 sq feet. Yet it still manages to cram in nearly 100,000 titles”
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And like every year, now too, I am thinking about a piece that Asif Noorani sahib wrote for Dawn many years ago, where he stood at the Radcliffe Line at Wagah and watched the birds fly from one side to the other, for there existed no border in the sky. 4/
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My paternal grandparents, Balraj and Bhag, who met in Kingsway Camp, Delhi in 1948 while volunteering for the social service department. Both families lived in the refugee camp as well - my grandmother on the Hudson Line and my grandfather on the Reeds Line.
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In keeping with my research of documenting businesses that crossed over during Partition, here is the story of Hitkari pottery. The families responsible for the fine china that became a part of so many of our grandmother's and mother's trousseaus, in fact, began in bicycles. 1/
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As an oral historian of the 1947 Partition, this is a thread of all the many views, homes, cities and conversations that I have missed dearly during this pandemic. 1/
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I feel very privileged to share that soon, the Punjabi and French translation of Remnants will be released into the world!
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These dates weigh on me, as they may also weigh on those who lived through them in 1947. I find myself wondering, year after year, do the people who witnessed Partition celebrate life and freedom, or mourn the price they paid for that freedom, or do both? 2/
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the overwhelming irony.
Amritsar police has imposed Section 144 inside and around the premises of Jallianwala Bagh to ban gathering of five or more people, protests, meetings, demonstrations, slogan raising to oppose renovation of Jallianwala Bagh.
Pic: Express
@iepunjab
@IndianExpress
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In 1946, a young woman gained admission into Lahore’s Hans Raj College. She lived in the dorms as her family was miles away in Gujrat. One day, an older woman came to meet the young student, who had been suggested as a potential bride for her son 1/
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Happy pub day to my first novel - dedicated to my grandparents - whose research took me from battlefields to flower fields, from stories of war to stories of love. The Book of Everlasting Things is out today in North America and in India, and can be found wherever books are sold!
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For the past few years, I have been quietly writing something very different from the rest of my work. To see this announcement is both overwhelming and exciting. The Book of Everlasting Things lives and breathes!
Brilliant news - The Book of Everlasting Things by
@AanchalMalhotra
will be published in Dutch by Nieuw Amsterdam 🥂
@NWADAM
@PFDAgents
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This remains one of my favourite photos. Years ago, when I defended my thesis, I was lucky enough to have my grandparents attend the exhibition. My grandfather had sat down, but my grandmother, walking stick in hand, had marched up to her portrait which was central to the show.
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Signed copies of the Hindi edition of Remnants - Yaadon ke Bikhre Moti - at
@Bahrisons_books
today. Translated with great delicacy and care by Brig. Kamal Nayan Pandit. Out now with
@HarperCollinsIN
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The silhouette of my grandmother's Singer sewing machine, circa 1948. It was a present from her mother, when as a 16 year old, my grandmother came first in the sewing course she had enrolled in at Kingsway Camp, Delhi, just after Partition. The family had migrated from D.I Khan
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Are there things that have remained unaffected by the politics of Partition, that can so easily survive - and thrive - on both sides? If so, then the answer could only be due to the fact that the land had once been one, and no amount of years can erase that. 7/7
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until summer ends, my writing table has moved to another cooler corner of the room and this little shelf has taken its place by the window.
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Delighted to share the Indian cover of my debut novel, The Book of Everlasting Things, out with
@HarperCollinsIN
on 27 December and available for pre-order now!
@MitraUdayan
@shivarko_writes
@DGALitAgents
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I don’t know, but perhaps this is a question I should include in my interviews henceforth. But I wish that in the zealous way in which we celebrate the independence of the conjoined twins India and Pakistan, we could also celebrate the life they shared before August 1947. 3/
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Amidst everything happening in the world, this feels like a small ray of light - I am nominated for HT City's 30 under 30 in the Literature category, along with other fine writers. Do take a minute to vote, if you can -
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99 years ago today, my great-grandfather, Chunni Lal Vij managed to escape from Jallianwala Bagh, where Gen Dyer opened fire on peaceful protestors for nearly 10 mins and shooting 1,650 rounds, painting the bagh into a bloody picture of its former self.
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He watched the trees that grew from here to there, the single field separated by barbed wire, the wind that blew from this side to that, the sun that set uniformly on both, and thought to himself what the nationality of the natural world was. I always think to myself 5/
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A thread - my
@instagram
account (
@aanch_m
) was hacked last night, and all the posts and followers are being deleted. If you follow me, or I follow you, I apologize for any strange activity from the account. The username's been changed a few times, so attaching screenshots 1/
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My piece today in
@Mint_Lounge
on the 1897 bubonic plague and a great-great grandfather, Deputy Inspector Bidhi Chand, who found himself on Plague Duty in the Punjab. A thread
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scene today, as the building of a new bookshelf begins.
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Interview transcriptions for the new book sorted into their respective sections
#InTheLanguageOfRemembering
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Leaving this here, for today and everyday. It remains one of the most important interviews I have ever recorded about the partition, seeming more relevant now than ever before - “We become Hindustan, we are within the very land” he stressed.
#remnantsofaseparation
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is nature so malleable that it's able to shift its citizenship from Indian to Pakistani or vice versa, as when and where it grows? Does the sun become one or the other as it rises; does the rain fall first on Attari or Wagah, for there are merely 6 inches that separate the two 6/
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I always try and collect stories about the harmony between communities before Partition. Hindus and Sikhs and Muslims at schools together, living in neighbourhood together, sometimes even inter-marrying and blending into one another’s families like water 1/
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Amidst everything happening in the country, personal sadnesses seem small, but my heart is full. My grandfather's elder brother passed away today & I am at a loss for words. He was the beginning of Remnants. The first interview, first object, first mention of 'sarhad ke uss paar'
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In my work, I often write how the house of the past is perceived to be more beautiful than the house of the present - one filled with longing and memory. It is not unusual to come across interviewees who physically inhabit this belief. This is a thread on a house of the past 1/
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I will never stop recommending Midnight's Children, and this piece by
@SalmanRushdie
leaves so much to think about - histories within History, language and unlanguage, writing, dreaming, constructing a book, but most of all, the changing concept of India
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I never met my maternal grandmother, Amrit. But she was a Lahori and it is from her family that I inherited a love for the city. From pictures, I know she was elegant and fashionable and the keeper of beautiful things. And sometimes, I am lucky enough to inherit those things.
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In what became a more candid conversation than I could have ever imagined, I speak to
@amitvarma
on The Seen and Unseen podcast about my methodology, travels and personal experiences in writing and recording oral histories of the 1947 Partition of India.
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oral history interview to transcription to translation to note-making to essay-writing
#InTheLanguageOfRemembering
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For this week's story on
#MuseumofMaterialMemory
,
@fz_shah
writes about a white mulmul farshi pajama from the 1920s, belonging to the family’s great-aunt Amina Begum, carried from Panipat to Lahore and then, eventually to Sahiwal in November 1947.
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Fatehpuri Masjid in old Delhi somehow always manages to retain its tranquility.
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Dr. Usha Mehta known for the clandestine
#CongressRadio
set up during the Quit India Movement, was born on March 25, 1920 & would have been 100 years old today! The iconic broadcasts always began with - “This is the Congress Radio calling on 42.34 meters from somewhere in India.”
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This is devastating news. Danish's work was courageous, capturing the story of our times.
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A thread on the quiet ways we hold onto unrequited, deeply embedded love - I have been listening to old interviews, hoping to extract bits of information I might have missed before, and I’m amazed at the details that still present themselves to me.
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My op-ed in
@timesofindia
today about why, 75 years on, Partition still feels so personal, drawn from the voices of my interviewees across the subcontinent and its diaspora, over the last many years
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‘Sometimes’, she said in a dreamy voice, hardly attempting to contain the smile any longer, 'sometimes when I close my eyes, I can still see the house. And even seventy years later, in my memory that house is still a home.’ - a vignette from the field research for Remnants.
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'Everything beautiful in my life is because of my wife,' he beamed.
I recorded this interview nearly seven years ago, and till date, these words - simple, yet poignant - have remained with me.
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You can read the full piece of their reunion here
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