Lahore (The Partition Trilogy-1)-Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

Book: Lahore (The Partition Trilogy-1)
Author: Manreet Sodhi Someshwar
Publisher: HarperCollins India

Have you heard stories of the partition through your family?

Lahore (The Partition Trilogy-1) by Manreet Sodhi Someshwar is set in the months leading up to Independence. In Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabhbhai Patel are engaged in deliberations with British Viceroy Dickie Mountbatten over the fate of the country. In Lahore, Sepoy Malik returns home from the Great War hoping to win his sweetheart Tara's hand in marriage, only to find divide-and-rule holding sway, and love, friendships, and familial bonds being tested. Set in parallel threads across these two cities, Lahore is a behind-the-scenes look into the negotiations and the political skullduggery that gave India its freedom, the price for which was batwara. As the men make the decisions and wield the swords, the women bear the brunt of the carnage that tears through India in the sticky hot months of its cruelest summer ever. Backed by astute research, The Partition Trilogy captures the frenzy of Indian independence, the Partition, and the accession of the states, and takes readers back to a time of great upheaval and churn.

The partition of India in 1947 is something that has affected a lot of families and even after 75 years, the wounds are still fresh in the minds of the people who experienced the horrors. This book explores the events that take place since the arrival of Lord Mountbatten up until a month after the independence day. I loved how using two parallel storylines in Delhi and Lahore, Manreet compares and contrasts the mindsets of the people in the two sets-one driving the partition, and the second being affected. The scenes are compelling and the thing that drives the story are the vivid and detailed descriptions, of both the scenes and the emotions. The language that she uses to build up the narrative, incorporating the local words and interweaving them with the main plot was something that did amaze me. It brought to the book a sense of ownership, a feeling that broke the walls and humanized the characters. As a masterful storyteller, her description of the pain and the sufferings of the people as they crossed the border in the second part of the book, helps you visualize and empathize with the events. Ending the book, the way it does, make you want to move on to the second book quickly.

The characters in the book are drawn from History, at least some of them, and while the book is classified as fiction, I am amazed by the level of research that must have gone into to create the people we see in the story. Be it Nehruji, or Vallabh Bhai Patel, or for that matter Lord Mountbatten and his family, each of them has an individualistic identity, one that makes them stand apart and the attention to detail is uncanny with cigarette brands and character quips being built up into the plot. Due attention is given to each characters’ mindset and their discussions with others and with themselves to set their characters.

Overall, a book I would recommend to anyone who wants to read about the partition and loves to read historical fiction that enthralls. The book scores a 4.81/5 for me.

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