Category: Non-fiction
Rights: All rights available
In India and Pakistan, innumerable novels have been written on partition, the loss, the pain, and the suffering. Books like Train to Pakistan and films like Milkha Singh describe everything lost and the recollections of the location and space, but wouldn’t it be amazing to discover something that celebrates the memory? People celebrate or talk about the culture and food they grew up with, or just describe the life they had at a specific period and space. Chefs frequently bring out the nostalgic factor in it; they create their childhood or some story around the food on their plate, but almost all the chefs I’ve met always talk about the food cooked by their mother, father, or someone elderly in the household; and how the flavour and memories they can’t forget.
Partition stole everything from them but their memories and their food, which they brought with them. Food has always been and will always be an important role in bringing people together.
When individuals migrate, they carry mostly their utensils and food in order to survive the voyage and build a new history in a new but unfamiliar place. When migration of this scale happened in 1947 and around that year; people’s nature, celebration and food also started changing. A few who did not cross the border remained with the existing memory of community celebration, but it wasn’t the same as before. There was no celebration; similar kind of sanjha chulha was missing.
Particularly in Punjab, where Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs had coexisted for generations and shared a common language, a dramatic separation occurred when Muslims fled to Pakistan and Hindus and Sikhs went to India.
There are many tales to be shared and people to read. These are the stories of everyday people crossing borders, of food, of people, and everything in between.
With this book, I hope to bring forth oral history and chronicle people’s cultural references, their lifestyle and house along with gastronomic memories as they are. This book will look at how their festivals or lives changed after they crossed the border. After all, it is their life and their experience. As a Hindustani author, my goal will be to capture not just the stories of those who crossed the border to come to Hindustan, but also those who went to Pakistan.
The author: Sadaf Hussain