Today’s column, therefore, is an unavoidably personal one in which I try to combine autobiographical vignettes and bits of family history with our national histories. My parents, who grew up in West Bengal and Bihar, had few memories of their birthplaces in East Bengal. As a student of history, my understanding of Partition was fundamentally transformed a few years ago when I re-read the memoir closely. Perhaps the most striking feature of the memoir is a counterintuitive portrayal of Hindu-Muslim relations in eastern Bengal. Perhaps Hemanta’s memoir stands as a quiet indictment of our present, reminding us that Bengal was once a region where coexisten­ce was not an abstract ideal but an everyday practice sustained thro­ugh trust and reciprocity.

Source: The Telegraph January 12, 2026 02:20 UTC