Partitions by Amit Majmudar

Partitions

Amit Majmudar

The narrator is dead. He tells the story from a distance; an observational narrative of the violence and carnage taking place in India during 1947. The story follows four characters as they each fight to reach the Pakistani border to safety. I was shocked by some of the descriptions of atrocities, and could feel the fear of each character as they struggle to simply stay alive. This is a powerful story that evokes plenty of emotion.

Extract
They are sitting on the terrace of a house looted to the lintels. Their heels tap the wall and bounce and swing, like those of schoolboys. The city is a filthy spread, a table where others finished eating. As if at sunset the people broke a fast and fell on it, knives out.
Parallels
  • The Peacock Throne by Sujit Saraf