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than India did, which has 20th century and would
been suggested as one affect the lives of millions THE RADIANCE OF A
reason why many Chinese for decades. The lawyer’s THOUSAND SUNS
in the countryside turned lack of knowledge of India Manreet Sodhi Someshwar
to entrepreneurship in the and the short time allotted HARPER COLLINS
1980s, while only a few in to his task, are often cited Rs.499
India did,” writes Krish- as an example of how this Pages 499
nan. decision was taken.
To the great misfortune It can be argued that
of our equally entrepre- while the process of Parti-
neurial nation, post- tion has been exhaustively the task.
liberalisation India failed examined, the horrors Historical events This novel has several
to jettison its disabling and misdeeds that were whether it is the Partition, interwoven themes —
socialist dogma. It did perpetrated by the ordi- the 1971 War or Emergen- communities turning
too little for rural devel- nary people of India and cy touch the Nalwa family against each other,
opment and criminally Pakistan (the Punjab in at various stages. Niki’s exploitation of women
neglected public primary particular) in 1946-47 grandmother Dadima and the concept of
education, which is why have never been prop- helps rehabilitate children nationhood. Three
within three decades it has erly acknowledged. The orphaned or abandoned women bring them
been decisively outrun and Radiance of a Thousand during the Partition and alive
reduced to also-ran status Suns by Manreet Sodhi the ’84 riots. Thus they are
by our northern neighbour Someshwar invites the Sikhs by birth but in action
which is now set to settle reader to revisit the sights seek to act as if the world butchered by rioters, plays
old border-related scores. and sounds of this dark does not recognise any an important role in Niki’s
This is a brilliant book era. religion. They take into life and the story.
written in engaging jour- The book has sev- their household a young With such people in
nalistic style and packed eral inter-woven themes Muslim woman Nooran, her upbringing it is little
with expert opinion and — communities turn- who works for them but is wonder that Niki is at-
data. Its only drawback is ing against each other, almost a family member. tracted to the notion of
the absence of cartograph- exploitation of women and Nooran herself is in doing right and standing
ic maps and omission of a the concept of nation- many ways the focal up for women. Post her
subjects index. But that’s hood. The author uses the character of young Niki’s MBA she lands a job in a
the fault of the publishers, backdrop of the Partition, life. In times of crisis she consultancy firm, marries,
rather than of this book’s the riots of 1984 and the asks herself ‘What would accompanies her husband
energetic and erudite ordeals of three women Nooran do?’ Nooran is to Hong Kong and New
author. to bring them alive. The unconventional. Her com- York where she takes a
DILIP THAKORE theme of brother turn- plexion ‘like the underside sabbatical to complete her
ing against brother is of a griddle’ did not detract father’s unfinished work.
Wounds of anchored by references from her self-confidence in is that the wounds of Par-
If the thesis of the book
a land where light com-
to brief episodes from the
history Mahabharata. plexion was prized and tition have been glossed
This is the story of an
over by posterity, the
women were conditioned
upper middle-class Sikh to please men. She looked underlying theme is the
N JULY 1947 AN family, the Nalwas. The the world in the eye, her status of women as they
accomplished lawyer father is a lawyer, whose attitude exemplified in her navigate their role in so-
Ifrom England made specialty is civil rights walk. ciety. The book pauses in
his first, and only, visit to cases. He is compiling a ‘Punjabi women its narrative ever so often
India. When he departed book of oral histories of normally tiptoed around for characters to highlight
after five weeks he left the victims of the Partition their men but Nooran the role of women. The
behind a boundary line riots and the riots of ’84 in strode like an unapologetic issue of female foeticide or
which created two new order to bring these into peacock.’ The embroi- the case of the forgotten
countries. The Partition public discourse. When he dery Nooran works on population is powerfully
would result in the largest dies, his book incomplete, — the only item she could covered at one point. At
communal massacre and his daughter Niki makes retrieve from her house another point Niki thinks,
human migration of the it her mission to complete where her family was ‘History is like a woman,

DECEMBER 2020 EDUCATIONWORLD 165