Esha

“We should have realized it sooner, at least my father should have, that there was no coming back. Not in September when the riots died down, not in October when the subcontinent still lay in shock, not even in November as he had hoped and promised us. Lahore was now lost forever”
― Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

“If I considered the Partition an archeological site, and the many experiences of those who witnessed it as the site’s structural sedimentation, then the deeper I excavated, the more I found, and that too in innumerable renditions.”
― Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

“Migration is often accompanied by a feeling of unavoidable disorientation, and the circumstances of 1947 would have pronounced this feeling. In most cases, it would have created an involuntary distance between where one was born before the Partition and where one moved to after it, stretching out their identity sparsely over the expanse of this distance. As a result, somewhere in between the original city of their birth and the adopted city of residence, would lay their essence – strangely malleable.”
― Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory

“We all know how unreliable memory can be, how transient reminiscences are, and how inaccessible the past will always remain. Experiences can never be duplicated or revived...by those who took no part in the struggle. Herein lies the beauty and power of conflict-related objects, some of which withstand the ravages of time in a way that memories do not.”
― Aanchal Malhotra, Remnants of a Separation: A History of the Partition through Material Memory