Partition Archives

What Yash Chopra’s Dharmputra Teaches About Calling Out Bigotry

For many anti-CAA protesters, the resistance is also about standing up to the bigotry of family and friends. It’s imperative how Dharmputra, a film made over five decades ago, has an answer for it: call out objectionable views regardless of who holds them.

Pragyan Mohanty June 21, 2016

Pop Culture

Here is why the Popularity of Ali Sethi’s Pasoori Matters

Ali Sethi’s Pasoori has become a social media sensation, so much so it inspired The New Yorker to frame him as some sort of a messiah uniting Indians and Pakistanis through art. While Sethi is by no stretch of the imagination the greatest or the first artist to be revered on both sides of the border, his rise through the latest chapter of cold politics on either side of the border, is important.

Takshi Mehta June 12, 2016

Columns

Longing for the Other Punjab: A Search for My “Jhelum Kinare” Pind on Google Maps

I am from a post-Partition migrant family, but I have no idea where my roots lie. My grandfather, my last “sarhad paar” connection, passed away and I grew obsessed with the idea. I pined away for a name, but all I had to go on was a “Jhelum kinare” village. How do you feel a longing for a place you’ve never been to?

Karanjeet Kaur June 4, 2016

Culture

Manto: The Seer Who Knew Every Prostitute and Pimp in Town

Manto’s stories can broadly be divided into two sections: the ones about Partition, and the ones about Mumbai. The latter are the ones I admire the most, when he wrote about the dingy alleys of the city, where prostitutes, pimps, and decent men met, their dreams and desires in tow and humanity intact.

Manik Sharma March 24, 2016