Being a Bookworm!
Book Review by Smita Roy
Train To India: Memories of Another Bengal
By Maloy Krishna Dhar
The book, is a bold narrative of the making of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the partition of 1947 and a few years before and beyond. It talks of what happened in the lives of the people of this region in a bygone era, as the power hungry bureaucrats and the politicos of that time were busy having India on their plates, slicing it into pieces and the revolutionaries were fighting for freedom.
The author, who was himself a witness to the gory happenings, narrates how in the fall of events, along with many lives, people lost their properties, women lost their piety and children lost their childhood. Hoards of people boarded the 'train to India', including the author, to leave the calamitous situations and run to the safety of an unknown land with a hope of coming back home as soon as things 'settle down'. Yet, little did they know that this journey was to permanently take them away from their 'motherland.'
Home, had become a distant dream, and this new land called India, was to be made home now. While the author gets off his train and slowly settles in the new India, the reader continues being on the train only to be haunted by the bloody incidents noted. A real eye opener to another Bengal.
Train To India: Memories of Another Bengal By Maloy Krishna Dhar
The book, is a bold narrative of the making of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) during the partition of 1947 and a few years before and beyond. It talks of what happened in the lives of the people of this region in a bygone era, as the power hungry bureaucrats and the politicos of that time were busy having India on their plates, slicing it into pieces and the revolutionaries were fighting for freedom.
The author, who was himself a witness to the gory happenings, narrates how in the fall of events, along with many lives, people lost their properties, women lost their piety and children lost their childhood. Hoards of people boarded the 'train to India', including the author, to leave the calamitous situations and run to the safety of an unknown land with a hope of coming back home as soon as things 'settle down'. Yet, little did they know that this journey was to permanently take them away from their 'motherland.'
Home, had become a distant dream, and this new land called India, was to be made home now. While the author gets off his train and slowly settles in the new India, the reader continues being on the train only to be haunted by the bloody incidents noted. A real eye opener to another Bengal.
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