LAHORE: The author, Marina Wheeler, traced her mother’s journey through the Partition of 1947 during the online launch of her book titled, The Lost Homestead: My Mother, Partition and the Punjab, on Sunday.

The launch organised by Afkar-i-Taza was moderated by Mukulika Banerjee, an associate professor at the London School of Economics.

The book is a memoir of the colonial polices. It is about the memories of Wheeler’s mother who used to live in Sargodha and had to leave it after the Partition.

Ms Wheeler spoke at length about the traumatic events of the Partition and their effects on millions of people who faced displacement. She said the division of the subcontinent had changed the life of many for good but personal suffering of most of the people who went through the Partition remained unrecorded.

What led her to write the book in 2017 was Gurinder Chadha’s film Viceroy’s House, commemorating the 70th anniversary of India’s independence. To recollect her mother’s memories was basically the broader understanding of personal and political freedom.

The story of Ms Wheeler’s mother is about the Partition and its traumatic effects on millions of people in India and Pakistan. She explores the roots of two places in Pakistan and India as well as the circumstances before and after the Partition. The book is based on research, travels and interviews.

To Ms Wheeler, her mother could never forget her childhood memories of the place she used to live in Sargodha and the massacre on the Partition. The book touches many global themes such as political change, religious extremism, migration, minorities, nationhood, identity and belonging.

During the launch, Ms Wheeler said she had tried to discover her mother’s journey and her experience of the Partition through the book. She talked about her mother who used to recall her memories of Sargodha and how overwhelmed Ms Wheeler herself was when she visited Pakistan to trace the map of memories of her mother.

She shared how her mother met her father in 1958 in Delhi.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2021