The Lines of Separation is a story of three women, Subhadra Menon, Zohra Khan and Rehana/Saraswati Sheikh. Each woman has a past that intersects at some point in the story. Subhadra the central character, having lost a lover, Altamash, to the Mumbai riots, is constantly in a state of guilt and yearning. Rehana an illegal migrant from Bangladesh, who changes her name to Saraswati, to assimilate into majoritarian India is a domestic help at Subhadra’s home. She fled her homeland to escape the perennial poverty and her transformation to Rehana is woven in.
When the covid pandemic brings a lockdown, Subhadra starts a quiz on Twitter where she posts food from Kerala and asked people to identify it. Zohra Khan, from Lahore, Pakistan identified it as intriguing Subhadra. This led to the story of Zohra whose ancestors fled from India in 1947 but left a missing grandmother behind in Mumbai. Subhadra helps Zohra locate the missing grandmother with the help of Arif, a police officer who also fled Mumbai in the 1992 riots.
Saraswati, also, after an accident makes her way back home to Bangladesh.
Subhadra happy with the closure that Zohra and Rehana get, decides to look for Altamash, after thirty years. Arif helps her since that was just about the time, he too had fled Mumbai as a young boy.
The story ends with the fate of Altamash unknown and Subhadra still in a state of despair. The Lines of Separation are the lines that separated the countries in these women’s stories, played havoc, the lines that marked the Hindu and Muslim areas and the lines that marked what can be and cannot be done.
“Mini Nair’s The Lines of Separation tells the story of dividing lines in modern Indian history: how individual lives can be shaped and ruined by senseless violence, and how extremism forcibly separates people from one another. In bringing her three very different characters together, Nair reminds us of how our unity can persist despite it all.”
– Dr Shashi Tharoor
The book is available on:
AMAZON: https://amzn.eu/d/1QCt1GY
KINDLE: https://amzn.eu/d/4W7fKf1
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