Makam

by Rita Chowdhury

Makam, which means “golden horse” in Cantonese, is a fictionalized historical account of the Chinese Assamese people in North-East India. The novel, by award-winning writer Rita Chowdhury, documents the struggles, suffering, and tragedies of the Chinese Assamese over the past two centuries, culminating in their wrongful expulsion from India during the 1962 Sino-Indian War.

Based on interviews with more than one hundred Chinese Assamese, Chowdhury’s moving narrative blends nineteenth century history with the tragedy of 1962, revealing how the Chinese were brought to India decades earlier by the British in order to work as laborers on the tea plantations. Once there, the Chinese married into different communities and began to speak with a mix of their native and local languages. However, during the Sino-Indian war, the Chinese Assamese, though now completely assimilated, were brutally and unjustly forced to leave India because of their Chinese origin. Around fifteen hundred Chinese Assamese from Makum, a small town in upper Assam, were imprisoned as spies and prisoners of war, before being deported to China. The untold story of this terrible incident, captured here in Makam, created an uproar in India when first published.

Genres: Historical Fiction, India, Fiction, Indian Literature, China

606 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Rita Chowdhury is an award-winning Assamese poet and writer. A former associate professor at Cotton University, Rita is currently the director of the National Book Trust, India.

An important voice in contemporary Assamese literature, Rita has written fifteen novels that portray a vivid picture of her strife-torn state.

Chinatown Days (Makam) is one of her best-known works.

Reviews

[Monika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical fiction is my favourite genre. Its attempt to disembark the notion of fiction can't be overlooked. Historical fiction makes me contort in pain. It alleviates my inner turmoil and changes it into a collective pain of separation. Historical fiction, to me, is a life lived in oblivion, coming out too late.

Chinatown Days is a historical fiction that narrates the real life hardships faced by the Chinese natives brought to India as slaves. Their fears, their confusion, their pain, their lifeless body and existence - the novel doesn't overlook anything. It is a historical fiction that deals with the heavily nuanced, yet abridged version of lives lived in hope and foreignness. It depicts fragile relationships that are more delicate than the pysche of a child. It is a historical fiction thay deals with the vortex of the Indo-China War. It shows how history fails us time and again. It mimed, through subsequent parts of the book, the lives of the first generation indentured labours who were uprooted from their homes.

Home - now that is probably one of the few words that antagonises a nihilist dissociation of safety and comfort. There is this thing about love, the more you probe into it, the more vulnerable you become. Imagine people losing their homes to fulfill the innate facade of power and authority. Yes, that's Chinatown Days for you. Read it. Please.

[Padmaja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chinatown days post 3/3
I am still reeling from the after effects of Chinatown days. No other book has given me a beautiful hangover like this one. I am amazed at what politics and power can do to people. A poignant tale of a community and a history we barely know of. Brilliant writing and a tearjerker, what a brilliant piece of literature 😍
~
What I loved:
1. The in-depth research and history of the Indo Chinese community.
2. The Chinese marrying local girls and adopting the local customs and the Assamese language and blending in with India like sugar in milk.
3. An insight into the Indo Chinese community's culture, customs and traditions.
4. Descriptions of the beautiful tea gardens of Assam and the growth and development of tea industry there.
5. All the characters are given closure. The ending had closure. So satisfying.
~
The history of the 1962 war and the whole 'Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai' debacle by Nehru and the mistakes he made for his own political greed are written delicately without being biased, a win win for me. History and facts have been blended so beautifully that it never seems boring one bit. It also showed China's double standard game during the war. How the Indo Chinese people who were rightfully Indians, were provoked, plotted against and were being deported to China is written in all its plurality.
~
A book completely worth your time. Easily one of my favourite books of 2019.
A book which will give you more than you ask. If I could give any book a hug, it'll be this one. This comes highly recommended from me. There was nothing to not like about this book. If you trust my reviews, READ this.
I am glad I have some amazing friends on bookstagram who introduce me to wonderful gems like these. I can't thank you enough Chitra @talksbooksandmore for gifting me this one.
Since this book was mostly set in Upper Assam or Upper Assam, I was listening to the song, 'Ujoni re rail khoni' by Zubeen Garg.
5⭐

[Chitra Ahanthem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chinatown Days is an intergenerational story about how indentured Chinese labourers were brought to a remote corner in Assam in India where they painfully and slowly assimilated as their home through intermarriages, social relations and economic exchanges over time. But when the Indo Sino War breaks out, the very safety and roots of the community is rendered fragile with questions about their loyalty and identity. The historical parts of ‘Chinatown Days’ pay attention to how Chinese origin labourers had a major role to play in the tea plantation industry of India after Robert Bruce a Scottish gentleman introduced it inIndia. The description of houses built and other objects, the skill sets of the labourers who came to India after enduring terrible hardships add to the pathos of the novel while the impact of the Indo Sino War breaks  on this small community is beyond imagination.

If you are only looking for a historical fiction and keen to read something you did not  know about earlier, this book works well. But if you are looking at the writing itself, it comes across as a never-ending series of anecdotes. There are too many characters whose lives are used to carry forward the anecdotes of assimilation with the Assamese way of life prior to the Indo Sino War and the crisis post the war. No character is fleshed out enough and there are repetitive sentences throughout.It is a book that could have been extraordinary and searing but sadly, remains only good in parts. 

[Kaushik Dowarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very beautifully painted picture of yesteryears Chinese community flourishing in Makum, Assam. These is a heart wrenching yet magical history that disappeared in plain sight, hardly known to the generations thereafter. This book very importantly and poignantly unearths that beautiful little hamlet that glowed with Chinese light and confluenced tradition, buried by cruel turn of history and politics. I part with this book with a heavy heart, with a desire in my heart to delve more into that fairytale land that once existed and would have added another flavour to our Assamese culture had it not been so harshly eliminated!

[Donna Barman · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd say it's a beautiful story that deserves to be read by people everywhere. It should get international acclaim and would be appreciated by all. But unfortunately it hasn't been translated very well. I feel that the translation is a major drawback that is preventing this gem of a story from reaching the audience it deserves.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m going to be honest, this one is tough to review. I found this book incredibly eye-opening, as it introduced me to a unique and complex part of Indian history, focusing on the Assam region and the Chinese diaspora. When I read historical fiction, I usually have some knowledge of the history and culture of that region. I knew absolutely nothing about Assam, and I found that I had to look things up a fair number of times to understand what’s happening (for the most part). I don’t mind this at all, but I can see how this might deter some from reading/completing this book, since Chowdhury doesn’t give full context for some things.

I think the reason Chinatown Days is a little tricky to review is because of the execution of the novel. If you’re looking to learn something new, I think this book is very effective in introducing what I’d say is history that isn’t well-known to the general public. If you’re looking for a plot, it gets a little murky here. For fans of intergenerational stories, Chowdhury has you covered. However, she had a large cast of characters that was sometimes difficult to follow because some weren’t as developed as others. I think what really got me, though, was the prose. I can’t tell if this was a translation issue or not, but there was a lot left to be desired. That being said, I guess you could argue that you actually get a better idea of what the author wanted to get across since she translated the novel herself.

At the end of the day, I’m glad I read this novel because I learned a lot.

[Shreya Vaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

#bookrecommendation
Tea is life for me. I need it like one needs oxygen. But then, I never really knew the story behind it, until I received this gorgeous copy from @thebookishtales 😍
☕️ Through this book, I was transported back to the time when East India company was spreading it’s wings in India. In one if their quests for Tea, they brought Chinese labourers who were experts in growing tea, doing intricate wood work and dentistry. Some were escaping the famine and brutality of their slave masters in China, others were looking to make money. Their journey was terrible, but then eventually they gave in and settled in Assam in a place called Makam, meaning Golden Horse, a China Town.
☕️ We follow the story of Ho Han and others and their descendants Mei Lin and Poluk who were in love with each other. The community was thriving, they married locals and made their own world. They always believed that India was their home, but they didn’t realise that Sino-Indian war will creep up like a snake in their lives.
☕️ Due to the war, 1500 Chinese Assamese were deported. The police knocked on their doors abruptly and sent them packing to a camp in Deoli, Rajasthan. In extreme heat, kids were born, families died and even the ones who were not dead were buried alive under the pretext that they have collapsed.
☕️ Discovering these harrowing stories and sharing with her readers, Chowdhury has shared lives of these “tea tribes” with us. I saw a very different India, which I’ve never heard of before. The story flows through with the characters, and you get a glimpse of Chinese- Assamese culture, their hardships as slaves, settling with their families in Makam and decent living and then, a final blow of fate which took them away from their homeland, India. It was almost like reading torture of Americans on resident Japanese during world war. It was mesmerising and heart wrenching at the same time. 💔
Verdict: Please don’t miss out on this story. ❤️
Rating: Hands down 5 🌟

[Shweta · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid 3.75 stars.

I am a tea junkie. I need my green tea first thing in the morning. If I want to snack between meals, I need my mint-chamomile tea. If I am tired or have a headache, I need my jasmine tea. If my throat hurts or I feel the beginnings of a cold, I need my Turmeric tea. If I am in bed, reading, I need my lemon tea. So how is it that an ardent tea lover like me remained entirely oblivious to the origin of the tea industry in Assam? The inhuman practices that were practiced in order for the industry to become what it is today. The blood of trafficked, indentured Chinese (and later Indian) labourers mixed in its soil.

We know of the horrific and continued slave trade across the oceans. Of what the Africans were forced to endure. The undignified life they had to lead. The loss of identity they had to deal with. But do we know of the kidnapped Chinese forced into slave labour? We know of Dachau, of Auschwitz, of the Armenian exodus. But do we know of the Deoli camp? Of the thousands of Indian Chinese placed under internment during the Sino-Indian War of 1962? Of their deportation to People's Republic of China? I am having a tough time reconciling the India I read about in this book to the India I studied in my history textbooks.

Rita Chowdhury's Chinatown Days ( written originally in Assamese, titled Makam ) tells the horrifying tale of this shameful incident in the history of India. The incident of Indian Chinese forcibly evacuated from their homes, separated from their families, their property vandalized/looted/auctioned off as enemy property and placed in a detention camp in Rajasthan. forced to endure inhuman conditions until the Red Cross of China took notice and called for them to be returned to China. The story specifically concentrates on the residents of the town Makam in Assam. A town that had a significant population of Indian Chinese owing to their ancestors having settled there. Ancestors who were brought under false pretenses to work in the tea gardens.

This book belongs to the category of historical fiction like Lee's Pachinko, Ghosh's The Glass Palace, and See's Island of Sea Women. And while it matches these greats in scale and scope, it is let down by the translation. The prose is stilted, repetitive and leaves for much to be desired. for example: It was a grey and dusty village. A village struck by famine. in a corner of this village lived Ho Han. Here's another example, The Chinese club in Makam had been transformed into a wedding venue. Large canopies had been set up outside the clubhouse. The place was full of people. It was Mei Lin's wedding day. I don't know if it was written this way in Assamese as well, but from a book that won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award, I'd expect a bit more complexity in prose.c Also, the vast number of characters introduced at random intervals meant that no character was fully developed. Of all these characters, Lailin, the catalyst, remains the most underwhelming one. Her anger is not justified nor satisfactorily explained. She and we as readers, do not get any closure. Was she solely intended to introduce us to the sprawling saga? I know not. The story is narrated in a linear fashion but still feels abrupt.

Having said that, the writing is the strongest in Part 2 - The crux of the whole story. Where you see how misplaced nationalistic fervour turns even the most sensible into ugly zealots. My heart was pounding as I read the lead-up to the harrowing events of eventual incarceration of the citizens who were unfortunate to have non-Indian roots. I couldn't help but draw parallels to what the Government had planned for us, in terms of citizenship, before the pandemic hit us.

Despite it's stilted prose (courtesy a less than desirable translation, I'd say) and meandering plot, Chinatown Days is an important read. More so because it tells you the history of one of most overlooked & disrespected regions of our country- the NorthEast.

I read this book as a part of Reading India, a project I found thanks to Bookstagram. Assam was the state of the month for December 2020. Check out the hashtag to find some hidden jewels in the landscape of Indian literature.

[Prakruti · Rating 3 out of 5]

I grew up in Maharashtra. Throughout school, our Indian history syllabus was restricted to the North and the West. The South was represented by such names as Tipu Sultan and the East ended at Bengal. It’s a pity that I perhaps know more about the French revolution and the American Revolution than I do about parts of my own country’s history. Chances are, this is true for you too.

I know of the Boston Tea Party and I that India exports teas, but I don’t genesis of Assam’s now-famous tea estates? We know of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade, but do we know of the movement of Indentured labour into India?

The problem is two-fold; one in which history as treated as a static event of the past, its apparent significance isolated from the mundanity of life, and second, of concentrating too much on a handful of chosen events.

This is why a book like Chinatown Days is vastly important. Authored and translated by Rita Chowdhury, it was originally published in 2010, in Assamese under the name ‘Makam’, after Makum, the little town of Assam and home to a thriving Chinese community until the 1962 Indo-China war, when these Assamese Chinese were forcefully deported back to China.

The Narrative: Scale and Scope
Chowdhury imagines and delivers a magnum opus of historical fiction spanning nearly 200 years. The story begins with the Bruce brothers, who, in a bid to rival China’s monopoly on tea in the early 1800s, reach North-East India and lay the foundations of a thriving tea-cultivation culture that it is known for to date. This narrative is intertwined with little fragments of Singhpo history, Burmese invasions of Assam and how the East India Company came to rule the region.

With the setting up of tea estates, there was a need for land and labour. Land was available, and labour, imported. Assam’s rise as a tea-producing state coincided with the rise of opium addiction in China. Ho Han and Ho Yen are two slaves to an opium-addict master in such a China, when a man wearing ‘chains of gold and pearls round his neck’ promises them a better life, if they sign a seven-year agreement.

This begins their journey as indentured labour to the port of Calcutta, from where they are sent to Assam, their life no longer in their own hands, illiterate, in an unknown country, forced to live under similar conditions from which they escaped, with nowhere to go to.

But the human spirit, as much a boon as a bane, prevails, and labourers from several regions find a way to mingle and live with each other. They marry, they have children, they make use of the little knowledge and craft they posses, combine it with the persistent hard work that only those with no hope and no dreams can put in and build a life for their descendants to be.

As Chowdhury writes:

“The world they had left behind was slowly passing into obscurity. They did whatever was asked of them without any protest. Their infinite sighs had mixed with the air of the tea gardens of Assam.”

But history often comes a full-circle, and in 1962, when Ho Han’s great-great grandchildren are alive and playing in Cheenapatti, when elders are gathering to play Mahjong, when schools are teaching both Chinese and Assamese to the school-goers, tragedy strikes, once again. Hundreds of people from all parts of Assam, once laughing and celebrating, are torn apart from their families, and deported to China, with their belongings and property looted.

One day, they were celebrating Pulok and Mei Lin’s marriage, celebrating the victory of Tung Ching, Robin, Lee Chang and other players of the Seven Star Football Club and the next, half of them, mothers without children, husbands without wives, women without their lovers were sent on inhuman train journeys to Deoli internment camp in Rajasthan, without enough food or water, where other Indians pelted them, shouted slogans at them and accused them of being Chinese spies, because it was war. Once familiar faces, once family friends become strangers, and turn their backs on them. Sometimes, family betrays family and homes are torn apart.

We hear of this tale from the writer Arunabh Bora, himself a descendent of Makum, a town now lost to history, with only Chinese-shaped houses as proof of the past. His mission? To reunite the lead pair of this story, Pulok and Mei Lin, after 49 years (two decades longer than Veer-Zara)

Almost every aspect of human relationship reveals itself; friendship, love, comfortable companionship, finding humanity and losing it, losing a child, losing a parent, and the defining knowledge of pre-internet: you will never see them again. This weight comes crashing down on you, when Chowdhury writes:

“We have orders to take only the Chinese persons amongst you.”

“What are you talking about? What kind of justice is this? If my husband is Chinese, I am Chinese too. If I am Assamese, so are my children. If my son is Chinese, how can his children not be Chinese? If you take one, you will have to take us all.”

Real-life politics and events intermingle freely with the lives of our (thinly-disguised, I suspect) fictional characters, and indian soldiers, student-political activists, Nehru, then defense minister Krishna Menon all make an appearance, laying bare the attitude that the Centre had towards the North-East, and even how the State government failed in its tasks.

The Criticism
Because the book is so important, there is more responsibility on the author to have translated it with a little more care. The eloquence with which, say, African-American stories, of slavery are written is wholly missing in Chinatown Days and each sentence of the narrative is filled with the impending sense of doom, a tone which becomes monotonous. I am constantly applying breaks to the normal flow of reading thanks to sentences and paragraphs like these:

“It was a grey and dusty village. A village struck by famine. In a corner of this village lived Ho Han.

I cannot speak if this is true for the Assamese version, but by taking away the oscillations of tragedy and joy, Chowdhury has also taken away a lot of the flavour that such a narrative could possess. The larger narrative arc does not always hold the history, and is relevant only in the end. While the description shines, the dialogue and sentence flow take a big beating in the translation.

She should have been inspired by the last few pages of her own work, where the story comes alive along with the histories, and this contrast reminds you even more why the rest of the book fails. It turns, in essence, from a drab history lecture to a story of love, longing, separation and yes, the tears that come with this heady mixture.

It took me nearly a month to finish this book, and I know that at least a 100 pages of repetitive information could have been chopped off. (Hope the publishers are listening). Hit me once, twice, it will sting. Continue hitting me and I will be desensitized. A book like Chinatown Days has a responsibility to not be restricted by the rules of translation, to bring out a beautiful story that need not be word for word as the original.

Regardless, it is a book for every Indian who claims, often thoughtlessly, that war is the solution to all problems. It is a book for every Indian whose imagination of the north-east is not much more than mountains, music and ‘people who look like the Chinese’ or ‘women who pee standing’. It is an important book to understand what nationality can mean. How war can divide lives, and how India has not one, but several histories of partition, the India-Pakistan being only one of them.

Recommended For: Every Indian, really, at least everyone to the west of Bengal. To begin to understand India better.

Final Verdict: 3.2/5. Buy the book here.

Favourite Moment:

“Bisa Gaam’s eyes widened in surprise. Would it be wise to trade in tea with this unnaturally fair man from across the seas?
After a long period of silence, he asked, ‘Will this business of tea cause any difficulty to our people?”

[Prajul Chauhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chinatown Days is the English Translation of "Makam".

It is an epic saga of loss, pain, separation, and anguish of a helpless community caught in the maelstrom of history. My heart cries out for the families who had to suffer those hardships. I can't think of words to explain the ballad of grief that each of these people had to endure.

I was unaware of the situation of the people during Sino-India War whether they were of Chinese Origin living in India or Assamese Community. Rita Chowdhury wrote it so brilliantly; portraying how the war & political turbulence changed the life of a whole community. The pain of separated families, broken houses, broken marriages, love turning into hate right in front of you, it's painful.

Though the war is now in History still the scars it left behind are still not healed. This book is a must read for everyone. At a time, where people are whining about Immigration, this story shows us that everyone is an Immigrant of some kind. All the chapters, all the characters are a lesson. Do read it and I promise you this, you will have a whole new perspective for people coming from different communities and you won't be able to hold back your tears *sobs*.

[Roshan Singh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chinatown days by Rita Chowdhury had such a deep impact on me that I'm still reeling with its after-effects. The novel is based on the Chinese population based in northeast India. The Chinese were brought as slaves when the tea trade was just starting out in the 1820s. I don't want to discuss the plot but the Chinese are no longer living in India. What happened to them is horrific and will make you ask some very difficult questions about the India we know and the foundations on which it was built. Now, when the debate about nationalism and patriotism has taken the centre stage in today's Indian politics, this forgotten history will make every sane individual take a different outlook on the state and its rulers. What it means to be a minority in a country that is pumped up on nationalism and looks at its own people with suspicion is brilliantly portrayed in the novel. The novel is a masterpiece in terms of the research the author has put in. To gather all that information and to present it in such a tightly knit book can only be done by a master of the craft.

[Manash · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another Gem!!!

Well this poignant yet captivating story reveals the tragedy that befell upon the Chinese community, living on the easternmost part of India, with the onset of Indo-China War. The story revolves around how the war changed forever the lives of this small community that were very much Indian and were living peacefully generations after generations in harmony with other communities in the area till the onset of the war. A beautiful story to realize, understand the great culture that this community with the help of others built in Assam over a few centuries/decades and the tragic end to that lovely culture in the hands of anti national sentiment.

A must read !!!

[Anushree Das · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book brings alive the forgotten lives of the Chinese community established in Makum, Assam before the Sino-Indian war of 1962. The war subjected them into a horrendous ordeal as they become internees of war in India and China. War broke their families apart and most part of their soul. I have passed by Makum n number of times as my hometown is like 10 Kms from here, I have only come to know about its history through this book. I remember going to a hair salon in Makum. The hair dresser Lucy is Chinese. I used to wonder then. Now I can connect the dots. I thank myself for choosing to read this book. Thank you Rita Chowdhury for this brilliant work.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of us have heard about Chinatown in Calcutta, but how many of us know that there was a Chinatown in Assam? For that matter, do we even know that there were a significant population of people of Chinese origin in Assam and that they were well integrated with the local population. I certainly didn't know any of this till I read this book, translated from the multiple award winning Assamese novel by the author.
One might think that a country like India, which supplied bonded labourers to the world in the 17th and 18th century, would not have had to import labourours from overseas, but when the first tea gardens were being set up in Assam, people were brought in to serve as bonded labourers. Many of them went on to set up businesses of their own, most married either local girls or girls who wer themselves bonded labourers, and in the course of a few generations, they became well integrated with the local population. Everything was fine till "Hindi- Chini bhai bhai" came to an end in 1962- as the Chinese forces advanced into Indian territories, their loyalties were questioned, and the government took them into preventive custody. It did not matter to the authorities that many of them had married local girls, and that many were of mixed parentage themselves- if they were of Chinese descent, they were suspected of being spies! "The people they had known to be their own had suddenly become strangers. Gone were the peaceful, carefree days. Now they were guilty of being Chinese." They were sent into camps, and the property that was not vandalised was sold off. "Even if we lived here for a thousand years, we would still remain Chinese!" With no future in India, many of them accepted the chance to return to China, and many of the rest were forcibly deported. China didn't treat them much better, and they became the proverbial population which was accused of spying for China in India, and syping for India in China!
While reading the book one is filled with a sense of horror and anguish. We know Assam is the state where citizenship is being questioned officially- this reminds us that what is happening now is not very different from what happened 60 years back. People then struggled to prove their loyalty to the land where they were born and lived in for generations, and they continue to have to do so.
When I started reading the book, I struggled to keep track of the characters- there were too many of them, and they could easily be mixed up. Soon, however, I realised that one didn't have to keep track of them individually- what was necessary was to understand the larger forced at play. Since people reacted very differently to the same situations, it was necessary to have enough characters to do full justice to the different ways in which people behaved.
The made me feel despondent because of the way people were judged on the colour of their skin. The book made me feel very despondent because why should people be judged on the colour of their skin? "Oh! Is this what patriotism stands for? Doesn’t it destroy in a day the unity built over ages?" It’s also seemed a matter of shame to me personally that in an India which had acquired independence just 15 years back was capable to perpetrating the kind of atrocities against people as it did.
I read the book as a part of the project to read one translated work from each of the official languages this year. While this was not my first choice of book, I went with this because the book has been on my TBR pile or long.

[bookswithchaipai · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I turn the last page with moist eyes, I gaze at my warm cup of tea sitting innocently next to me & ruminate on the havoc it has caused over centuries. The humble tea leaf has traveled far - picked, pounded, dried, and then packaged to finally be steeped in hot water, for a calm evening tea break. But is this calm justifiable considering the inhumane conditions the laborers endured to grow this tea in Assam?

The beauty of historical fiction is that it lets you take a step back into time, and observe a slice of life as if you are there. This book made me travel 200 years in time, made me watch the first tea leaves being sown in Assam, witness the Chinese slaves brought in to work, & then follow their descendants being driven out of India, which they now considered home.

The vignettes of the Chinese laborers' daily life brought their world to life for me.

I watched them board the ships with dreams in their eyes, to be soon jarred to reality.

I saw them working in tea plantations in backbreaking conditions.

I blushed when they fell in love with the locals, eventually marrying them.

And when China encroached on Indian land, I observed the terror in their eyes, as friends turned to foe, and lovers averted their eyes, because of Chinese hatred.

My tearstained eyes stared as they were termed enemies of the state, packed like sardines in trains, sans amenities, families broken up & escorted to jails in Rajasthan.

As they boarded ships, to go back to a country the language & customs of which they were now alien to, branded as Chinese although their hearts were Indian, my heart broke.

The inequitable treatment they are subjected to in Red China, living in fear, their hearts beating for a country far away, devastated me.

Years later, when it came full circle, lovers reunited, lost family members found, I applauded tearfully.

If you are ready to let a book claw into your heart and discover some raw incidents that occurred in India in the 1970s, this is the perfect book for you.

[Gayatri Bhagowati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sad. Eye-opening. Educating. Chilling.

Rita Chowdhury beautifully brings characters from the forgotten past back to life in this grappling tale of love for the country, & community & the burden of living with broken families amidst the survival hardships. The biggest takeaway is that crisis situations like famines, droughts, and wars have an undeniably detrimental toll on the individual, the displaced, the labourer, the ailing parent, the separated lover, the lost child. Tales of war are the most heartbreaking and Chinatown Days (speaks about the Indian Chinese displaced during the Indo-Sino War of 1962) is one such poignant tale.
A must read for anyone fond of war fiction or historical fiction.

[Prashansa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very important part of our history that should be in history textbooks and read by people everywhere. I don't know if it is the writing itself but my feeling is that it is the translation that falls flat. The writing is bland and not at all striking for the story it tells, the translation made the book really difficult to read through as the emotion does not come through. It feels like reading disconnected chunks of anecdotes.

[ritupon deori · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first book of Dr rita chowdhury mam. Story goes through sad patches towards horrific tales of assamese born chinese descent immigrants from makum in Tinsukia. I wish i could see those 1962 days in Assam…

[Jayasoorya K E · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
Loved it

[Joyline · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Angkana Kalita · Rating 5 out of 5]

We study history to make sure that we don't repeat our mistakes and this book portrays the inhuman mistakes and decisions that uprooted a whole society. The Indo-China War saw the military and diplomatic acumen of both the countries but the hundreds of Chinese Assamese people whose whole existence was questioned and ridiculed never got any justice. Dr. Chowdhury deserves scores of accolades for the massive research she did for this book and the poignant narration of the tale of heartbreak and separation. War doesn't have a good side and when people are more concerned about a false sense of patriotism than their humanity, unspeakable atrocities are done. It's always people following orders and doing their duty who end up abandoning their senses and commit acts of sheer brutality. This book is a mirror that shows the ugly side of humanity. I can't say enough about how wonderful and detailed the narration is. I hope this work gets translated widely and this tale of injustice reaches everyone. Thank you Rita ma'am for this gem of a book.

[Soham Banerjee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel is a poignant reminder of a community forgotten by India. The sense of grief and loss and separation is throughout. This is a story which people should read - partly true, partly fiction; the Indian-Chinese community has been neglected and forgotten until this.
I wish the translation was better. Certain expressions, moments felt muted due to it. The character development could have been better. There were times when I felt lost due to the sheer number of people mentioned.
Nonetheless, this work is monumental and in spite of its shortcomings, there is enough grip in the storytelling to make one turning pages until the end.

[Bram · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful and moving history of the Chinese community of Assam told in the form of a novel. The book is in the vein of Amitav Ghosh in how the story of the Chinese community is told through the lens of a few individuals across 100 years.

[Arindam Talukdar · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read

[Ratul Sonowal · Rating 5 out of 5]

An emotional historical novel based on beginning era of tea cultivation in Assam, 1962 India-China war, aftereffect and persecution of Chinese Indians .Worth reading.

[Himanshu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its very tragic story happened to the people.

[Pretty Little Bibliophile · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://baos.pub/a-forgotten-history-...

[Rajeeb Baruah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Makam is a historical fiction, but it sounds similar to what transpired during the Indo-Chinese War of 1962. Very well-curated stories revolving around:
*Smuggling of Chinese slaves to work as laborers while the British were trying to set up tea gardens in Assam to counter the Chinese monopoly over tea manufacturing and export.
*How their grandchildren assimilated into the Assamese society while trying to keep the Chinese cultural values and traditions intact.
*The Indo-Chinese War of 1962 and how it created a rift in society when the Chinese were called traitors due to their descent.
*Deportation of the Chinese community back to China as refugees and their ordeal while trying to settle down in China owing to different political movements.

I loved how attention to detail was given to how Chinese culture was introduced to us through Lunar New Year celebrations. The author also tried to weave individual stories and make them authentic using the local dialect. It made the stories more like real-life events, and we could almost see the characters play before our eyes while reading. The only disappointment for me was that the end of Mailin Baruah and Pulak Baruah's meeting didn't sound conclusive. But their love story kept us hooked till the last page of the novel. I would recommend that every Assamese person read it.

[Natasha Borah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally written by the author in Assamese as "Makam".The book is based on the fate of the Chinese community of Assam. The Chinese were first brought to Assam by the British in the 1800s to work in the newly developed tea gardens. They were already there before in West Bengal in the business of shoe-making and carpentry. The book primarily focuses on the atrocities faced by the community during and after the Sino-Indian war in 1962, how they were condemned in India, which was their true home, and how they became questionable refugees in the country of their forefathers, China.

There were many characters in the story and their stories moved forward together, so it was difficult to develop an emotional connect as a reader. I connected with Ho Han's story, but suddenly the story skipped ahead by a hundred years. However, the author has done a commendable job with research. Vivid descriptions of the life then in Makum, the Chinatown (Cheenapatti) of Assam, snippets of the Sino-Indian war, the journey of the Chinese to Deoli camp in Rajasthan to become internees, brought alive the scenes.