by Rajosmita Roy
You can access the recording from which this module emerges here: https://www.historyforpeace.pw/post/witness-to-loss-parasher-s-partition-s-sketches
'The Partition of India appears in any substantial conversation on the recent history of the subcontinent. It is a reality that is alive in shaping the lived experience of our everyday. It is deeply embedded in our imagination of the nation, its people and their culture. The memory of Partition leaps out of prose, poetry, visual art, music, theatre and cinema to this day. But how was it for an artist who was caught in the midst of this as he spent sleepless nights walking among the refugee camps? How does he remember the time? How did he, in fact, chronicle this pain—these people, their lives, the deep trauma that crowded every aspect of their being, a sense of violent loss, and yet amid all of this—their attempts at holding on to rebuild life one day.What do his line drawings, which are an intimate portrayal of life in these refugee camps, bring to our understanding and memorialization of Partition? Significantly, these drawings were as much his way of living through this nightmare—so how does one read these works in response to the turbulent landscape around him?'
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