Five Queen's Road
by Sorayya Khan
Penguin, 2009
Train to India: Memories of another Bengal
by Maloy Krishna Dhar
Penguin, 2009
Two new books touch upon the lesser-known aspects of the turbulent time of Partition. While Sorayya Khan's sensitive novel is about the Hindu experience in Lahore before and immediately after Partition, Maloy Krishna Dhar's autobiographical work tells the story of the tribulations of Bengalis during that time. Dhar, as a little boy, boards the train in Dacca, ostensibly headed to safety in Sylhet. The bloodbath and targeted killing of the Hindu minority that followed is a story that has yet to be fully told, more than six decades later.
Khan's slow-paced tale, on the other hand, is understated but no less effective in conveying the brutality, alienation and loss of identity during those days. The poignant story of Dina Lal, a Lahori Hindu who refuses to leave his home as expected, is superbly told. His coping with his sons' migrating to a newly carved India for their safety, the abduction of his wife Janoo, and his conversion to Islam to save his skin are narrated through the eyes of a Muslim colleague, Amir Shah, and his family, who have moved in to Five Queen's Road as 'protection' for Dina Lal. The sprawling house with its immaculate garden, itself a relic of the Raj, is as much a character in this many-layered book of human relationships as any other. (Laxmi Murthy)