I was 11-years old when in 1965 my family immigrated from a small farming village in Punjab, India to London on a cold November day. This is a complex story of integration, change and transformation that happens over a long period of time when old and new cultures collide and a cosmopolitan multicultural Britain is created through learning, exposure, friction and fist fights. It begins with the reality and ritual of death and what is lost. The story stretches through WWII and India's bloody independence and Punjab's own attempt to break away from India.
How does a 11-year old from an 'upper class family' in India cope with discrimination? How do we shed our cultural chains when we are exposed to an environment of learning, debate, class struggles and democracy? How do we find our place in a new nation and make it our own?What are the forces that can draw us back to places of our birth?
Humanity is complex. Humanity is exhilarating. Humanity is tragic. This novel touches on that complexity.
Tags:
5
