Pigeons of the Domes: Stories on Communalism

by Rakhshanda Jalil

While much work has been done on exploring the communal tensions of the Independence era and the lode of ‘partition stories’ has been sufficiently mined, the more recent past has not been examined in any systematic way. In this collection of nineteen stories, edited and introduced by the well-known writer and translator Rakhshanda Jalil, we get a glimpse of the different hues and shades of communalism as well as different ways of accepting and interpreting this grim reality of recent times. A detailed Introduction contextualises the stories and the concerns raised therein and attempts to clarify what communalism means in India. Significantly, this collection does not restrict itself to stories that deal with Hindu-Muslim tensions; it includes stories about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, marginalisation of Hindus in Punjab and the persecution of Sikhs in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. A collection such as this is timely and important. Sixty years after the communal violence of the Partition, once again the fabric of secular India is being challenged and contested; these stories present us with cameos of conflict and fear and also offer us vignettes of hope and resolution.

285 pages, Unknown Binding

About the author

Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, critic and literary historian. Her published work comprises edited anthologies, among them a selection of Pakistani women writers entitled, Neither Night Nor Day; and a collection of esssays on Delhi, Invisible City: she is co-author of Partners in Freedom: Jamia Millia Islamia and Journey to a Holy Land: A Pilgrim s Diary. She is also a well-known translator, with eight published translations of Premchand, Asghar Wajahat, Saadat Hasan Manto, Shahryar, Intezar Hussain and Phanishwarnath Renu.

Reviews

[Annie Zaidi]

Have read this twice now. More poignant on the second reading, given how fraught questions of identity and community have become. These stories are remarkably varied in their approach and tonality. Some are about riots, others about losing trust and friendship. Others don't mention religion at all, but the undercurrent of fear and anxiety serves as a metaphor for frayed nerves and one has to know the context in which the story is written in order to understand and interpret it as a story about communalism in India.
It is also one of those collections that restores one's faith in literature at least, if not in humanity. I had assumed reading the stories would be hard, or triggering, as reading the news often is. Instead, I felt, once again, their capacity for opening up minds. Recognizing grief and fear, allowing it to be expressed, reading multiple kinds of fear and heartbreak alongside each other, can be an affirming process.

[Isha]

Rakshanda Jalil’s latest book, ‘Pigeons of the Domes: Stories on Communalism’ instantly catches the reader’s attention as its very title makes the reader think, Why Communalism? What more can be said about the topic that has not been told already? As if anticipating the questions, the editor writes in the ‘Introduction’ to the book, “secularism cannot be understood without understanding communalism…to study one you have to study the other” for they are “conjoined twins”. However, what makes this anthology more unique is, it’s not a mere attempt to chronicle the incidences of violence against one community by the other or the search for “unlikely heroes and heroines” but an attempt to understand the very “anatomy of a communal riot”; “the reasons for the continuing communal clashes and the fault lines that mar the surface of day to day life.”

For the complete review, please visit: http://rainingreviews.com/2016/03/14/...

[Prakriti · Rating 1 out of 5]

Never judge a book by its title or cover has never been more true. Pigeons of the Domes is a short-fiction collection on communalism translated mostly from Urdu. I picked up this book at a literary festival with an intention to broaden by parochial outlook on the issue. But it fell far short of my expectations.

Firstly, the author Rakhshanda Jalil has herself translated only a couple of the short stories. Her main contribution to the book is an introduction in which she provides her own comments on each the short stories that are to follow. It is protracted and unstimulating.

Secondly, apart from a handful of stories, the writing is sloppy and the stories are pedestrian.