This review first appeared on the Historical Novel Society’s website.
Radhika Swarup, Sandstone Press, 2016, £8.99, pb, 307pp, 9781910124765
It’s 1947. Teenagers Asha and her friend Nargis are oblivious to the upheavals taking place on the wider stage, as India draws closer to Independence, and the creation of Pakistan. Radhika Swarup vividly paints life in Asha’s Hindu, and Nargis’ Muslim, households, and the mutual respect and friendship between the families. The girls walk to school hand in hand, and dream of their future husbands. Asha has given her heart to Nargis’ brother Firoze, who is learning law from Asha’s father; they had stolen a march on their relationship, and started a baby, when their world collapses.
Partition wrenches the lovers apart. Asha loses her baby, her husband-to-be, and her parents within 24 hours of Independence, as the new countries come bloodily into being. She must find a way to survive; to try and love the man whom fate throws at her, and to bring up their daughter, in the new Hindu India.
Finally, Asha’s Americanised daughter persuades her widowed mother to fly over for a visit. Fate turns the wheel again, and brings Firoze back into Asha’s life – their grandchildren have fallen in love! All the old attraction is still there…
This is a beautifully written book, immersing you in the detail and mores of each of the very different settings and periods. I wish it had ended differently, but I loved it, right up until the final plot twist.
Eclectic pleasures 