The snake that keeps eating its own tail
The unpacking of the past is complicated. One either hides it in the closet or displays it proudly on the mantelpiece for all to see. The Radiance Of A Thousand Suns invokes both reactions. Its innards cannot be ignored, cannot be forgotten. They are, in equal measure, grit that is heartening and abominations that should never have been. Tackling the spectre of Partition requires courage. One has to follow in some rather large footsteps and tread lightly so as to not trample the eggshells that are Indian sentiments. Gulzar Sa’ab’s endorsement on the cover rightly deems this book a worthy addition to the sparse list of contemporary Partition literature.
Much like the protagonist Niki’s birth during the forced sterilization campaigns in 1976, The Radiance Of A Thousand Suns is an act of r e bel l i on. A r e bel l i on against the fleeting nature of memory and the sanitization of the history of independent India. The novel begins with the premature birth of India, delivered into independence way ahead of schedule and struggling to overcome complications. The surgical separation of the conjoined-twin nations of India and Pakistan is the prime mover that propels t he book’s characters. Through various generations of the Nalwa family, the author recounts the horrors of Punjab’s history. Along an ouroboros’ path, she traces the self-sustaining, circular and repetitive nature of violence and how it shapes our relationships with identity, God and each other. Along with the author’s fictional Punjabi families, the reader is battered by the brutality of the Partition, the Khalistan movement, the Emergency, Operation Blue Star and the pogrom of 1984, ending with the killings of Sikhs mistaken for Arab terrorists in post 9/11 America. Armed with a formidable female cast, the book gives voice to the women survivors of Punjab.
At the heart of this book is the quest to finish another. It is a singular obsession begun by Jinder Nalwa and seen to its end by his daughter Niki. This book within the book aims to collect survivor stories that fill the gaping holes left by shortened lives; to free survivors enslaved by the weight of what they’ve seen and done; to chronicle stories by women that have, for lack of release, occupied the womb leaving no space for babies. Throughout the book, the author ably demonstrates how the same things have continued to terrorize women across generations, earlier inflicted by frenzied mobs and now distilled in isolated incidents in crowded buses and parks. The violence still remains. Underneath a heavy coat of concealer, the bruises are still fresh. The Radiance Of A Thousand Suns is a moving tale of dislocation, of identity in alien nations, of the double-edged sword that is memory, and of the onerous legacy of a father’s unfinished work. Someshwar provides interjections to this grim landscape t hrough t he us e o f wry humour such as the naming of certain characters — the ‘ugliest Punjabi’ man, for instance, who is christened Lovely. The visually evocative writing stimulates a variety of senses: the constable’s belly leading the way, the drains choked with hair... Above everything else, it is the food that grounds Someshwar’s worlds i n r eali t y. The crackling of the cumin, the aroma of spices — her narrative makes everything intimate. The recipes and preparations anchor these characters and stories to our collective past.
I f t here i s f ault t o be found, it is in the sequences that are devoid of Biji, Nooran, Jyot and Jinder. Niki’s rather brief sojourn at IIM Calcutta, her overused debates with Arjun, their pigtail-pulling love, the globe-trotting consultant working only for the money – these fail to match the insightful writing of the preceding sections. The book ends with a deathbed confession that is both horrific and cathartic. The book instils a newfound respect for the rather casually-used blessing, ‘ Jeete raho (keep living)’.
The author intersperses the book with text from the Mahabharata to hammer home the rather grim truth that all wars are wars among brothers, that we never seem to learn from our myths or our history. The snake keeps eating its own tail and religious violence feeds on itself. The Radiance Of A Thousand Suns is best enjoyed the way Jinder Nalwa would have liked — in silence with a glass of scotch. The Radiance Of A Thousand Suns
Manreet Sodhi Someshwar 352pp, ~499
Harpercollins
THE RADIANCE OF A THOUSAND SUNS IS AN ACT OF REBELLION AGAINST THE NATURE OF MEMORY AND THE SANITIZATION OF THE HISTORY OF INDEPENDENT INDIA