Partition, off-key

There have been many great Partition novels, but alas, this one will not be joining those ranks. I was so pleased to see another Partition novel when I first spotted this one, and the blurb about the author looked very promising too, a former attorney, an award-winning journalist, political organiser, who has authored a few novels already and her writing has appeared in well established newspapers. Plus she apparently teaches the MFA program at Reinhardt University, so I had hopes of fairly strong writing. 

I would probably have settled even for mediocre writing if the content was sufficiently interesting, but the writing was not even mediocre, it was downright jarring many a time. Inappropriate word choice, and the segments in India read like a tourist recounting India, rather than striking authentic notes as one would expect of a Partition novel.

Deepa, our protagonist, is a teenager living in Delhi with her parents and her parents’ colleagues at the clinic who are like a second pair of parents to her; she has a happy school life as well as a happy family life. Deepa at first refuses to recognise the violence brewing, even when her parents insists she has to go straight home after school and be looked after by the servant/cook/housekeeper/nanny, Bala.  

Bala needs to go to the market one day, and so Deepa has to go along too, since she is not allowed to be left at home. The market scene is intended to demonstrate rising communal religious tensions, forced on Deepa’s reluctant attention: 

“Why won’t he sell to you anymore?” 

Bala pulled her close and off to the side. “Because the fool doesn’t like your parents see Muslim patients at the clinic. Pay the man no attention. Let’s keep walking.” 

Deepa spun round, flashed him a stern look. 

“Deepa!” Bala quipped. “Please don’t cause any trouble […]”

p35

Quipped? What a dischord. I hardly think Bala was quipping at this point, in this very serious, tensed scene.  

Another example of very weak writing, 

“The $8,000 Max needed for a new bike for an upcoming race had, in reality, cost $15,000. He exaggerated by $7,000”

p107

This was so poorly expressed I had to read it again – was her husband overclaiming the amount, which seems indicated by the word ‘exaggerated’, or was he underclaiming? It turns out, he underclaimed, representing it as only $8000 when it was $15,000. So ‘exaggerated’ is precisely the opposite of what should have been written; perhaps under-reported, or under claimed or under-stated, would have been more appropriate. 

The poor writing not withstanding, the plot was reasonable, if rather too full of convenient coincidences, as well as seeming to cast every one of the characters as remarkable, outstanding people in some way or other. (One longs to tell the author that people can be victims without being super heroes.) When Deepa loses her parents in the violence in Delhi, her parents’ friends bring her to London, where she gives birth to a son, Vijay. Vijay then has a daughter in due course (nothing at all is told to us about the wife who is white, except her name, and much is made of the father’s ancestry.) Vijay’s daughter, Shanti, is our other protagonist. Shanti’s failed marriage is the impetus for her to seek her lineage stories. By coincidence, an Indian neighbour she had not much liked up till that time, Chandani, suddenly becomes friend and saviour, and leads her towards the Indian culture, which Shanti up till then had little knowledge of. In seeking Deepa – who is a well known author and academic and so remarkably easy to find – Shanti also discovered Chandani’s husband’s secret story of Partition suffering – though it begs the question why, in such a loving, close marriage, Chandani’s husband never shared those details with her, but instead recorded a podcast for public consumption. When Shanti tries to find her grandfather, she comes across the grandfather’s sister, who in her 70s has suddenly become an artist of international fame, and was giving her first exhibition, hence was easy to discover. Not impossible, I grant, just a tad too convenient. And also, too many super stars in the cast, perhaps. 

There was little that felt or sounded Indian about the whole novel. It came across as incredibly western, in its perspective, its values, its premises, even its cultural norms. Indian, it certainly was not. And it did not successfully evoke the 1940s period either. I have no doubt the author meant to pay tribute to an important part of history, but most of it rang very hollow, and off key. Such a pity, because a good Partition novel is always welcome – and this one just doesn’t come close to making the cut.