by M G Vassanji
I would like to thank Firoz Manji for finding me a retreat where I could find solitude and write, and Vanda Lima for making it possible.
I must thank my editor Martha Kanya-Forstner for her extreme diligence and patience; Richa Burman in Delhi for her astute reading of the manuscript and her suggestions; Melanie Little for her thoughtful and rigorous copy-editing; Kristin Cochrane for tea and conversations; and my agent Bruce Westwood for his boundless enthusiasm, as well as Tracy Bohan and Jacqueline Ko for being there during the initial stages of this book. And finally, of course, as always, Nurjehan.
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This is a work of fiction. It has been inspired, or called forth, by a certain attitude I have noticed since my first visit to India, and some disturbing trends that have been on the rise recently. It has always bothered me that in India you could not, as a person of Indian origin, just be, but were always branded communally—Hindu or Muslim in my experience—no matter your beliefs, background, upbringing, complexities, peculiarities. I don’t mean a casual description—we all can be described in various ways—but a labelling of your very essence, who you are. It seems unavoidable. Sometimes even the kindest gestures seem to be directed to your brand. Perhaps that’s the nature of India. But that brand or label always comes identified with a politics, a history, a global identity, a status, and an exclusion. Recently and increasingly this division—Hindu and Muslim—has been used politically and at times with hatred and violence. Coming from a time and a place outside of the experience of the Partition of India, and the hatred and suspicion it has left in its wake, I find a communal or religious label antithetical to my very being. During my many travels—my Bharatdarshan, friends called it—across my ancestral homeland, I would sally forth, as myself, known by my (fortunately) neutral last name, an individual: always annoyed by the presumptions of those who, gleeful classifiers, nevertheless discovered my species and pinned me down; and always nervous lest an accusing finger brought down the weight of a historical and cultural baggage upon me. And so this novel, about a naive returnee to Delhi.
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The epigraphs:
The extract from Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech can be found, with the full reference, at: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_jinnah_lahore_1940.html.
The song line from Dhool ka Phool has been loosely translated.
The Mahabharata quote is from the magnificent ten-volume translation by Bibhek Debroy (New Delhi: Penguin).
The MP’s remarks can be found easily using the internet.