The Story of Grief that was carried across the Radcliffe — Book Review

I was hesitant to pick this book up because the instagram stories called it a love story and after reading Remanats of Partition by Aanchal Malhotra, I was not sure if I was ready for this transition. But then I took this leap of faith and one thing I can surely say, The Book of Everlasting Things is a story about the grieving hearts that were left with the burden of childhood memories of loss and violence.

This book reminded me of The Nmesake by Jhumpa Lahiri for in both these stories the quest of the characters is to find home in a foreign land. Firdaus is trying to find a place in Lahore, a city which is a namesake of its pre-partition era yet nothing about it is same. A city is altered not only by its geopgraphy but by the history and memory of its people. The structures that remain, like the Sunehri Masjid near Firdaus’s home become landmarks for the memeories of the past. Samir on the other hand, finds himself in India to which he belongs and yet doesn’t. In his attempt to begin his life away from the loss that was greater than the distance that was created by the torn land masses, finds himself tracing the directions on a map which had once brought his uncle to these very places.

Samir, who has inherited the art of fragrances from his uncle relies on smells to define his memories and people. But its not only the fragrances and the art to weave them into perfumes that he shares with his uncle which we realise as the story progresses. Unaware of his uncle’s past, Samir also must inherit the war and loss stemming from it. Aanchal Malhotra is among the few out there who writes about the India-Pakistn Partition as human stories rather than as histories of nations which seem a rather distant concept rather than a lived experience of our own ancestors. The fear, the uncertainties, the regrets were also created by the Radcliffe, not just two nations with two names.

If this war continues, then I see no future where each one of us is not the bearer of a deep and irrevocable loss.

The stories of Samir and Firdaus, of Vivek and Ambrette are not just about the love shared between them, but also how their grief defined their relationships with others. There is conversation that Lea and Samir have at a point in time when Samir is no more locking up his past in the perfume bottles, which defines this book.

When Lea tells Samir “Let me help lesson the load of your memory”, Samir replies, “without memories there is nothing, without memories we are nothing”.

Memories have the power to define our experiences yet to be lived, and one decides how much we let them define it and in what manner. Firdaus and Samir who share their love and the loss of it, let it channel its course knowing that it will always be the undercurrent even if they they can’t let it resurface. Ultimately we are all the keepers of our own memories and inheritors of the loss.

The research that has gone behind building a world of fragrances and perfumery, is so intricate that at times you can actually imagine the fragrance which is being described. The intersection of fragrances which defy boundaries with the lives of people defined by those very boundaries has been blended as accurately by the author as any perfumist blends its fragrances in the atelier. The book is nothing but Aanchal Malhotra’s atelier where she uses words to create an unforgettable experience.

Perhaps this was the implicit side effect of living through Partition — that everyone eventually became a site of excavation.

Whenever an author attempts to write a story spread across generations, it simply makes it voluminous. In this story however, tracing the generations becomes crucial for Partition has been and shall always be a generational story to tell. It can never only be the story of those who lived it in 1947 for its shadows were not confined to the boundaries that were drawn. When Samir and Firdaus both share their past with their grand children, their regrets, their loss becomes an important aspect of their grand children’s own legacy. The flaws, mistakes and regrets of our elders’ past is not an isolated experience which one can just move past. It wields the power to direct the sails of our own ship for such is the ocean of life. So if I have to describe this book, I would say its the story of, love, grief and loss that was carried across the Radcliffe, of generations to come that would carry its fragrances and learn to find that island, that patch of skin untouched by the maps — The Khazin — e — Firdaus.

• Shama Mahajan