Aanchal Malhotra\'s book, commemorating Partition and its alternative history through material memory, is launched in New Delhi

New Delhi, 11th August 2017: HarperCollins India celebrated the launch of the highly anticipated debut of Aanchal Malhotra?s passionately researched and riveting book, Remnants of a Separation, today evening at the Multipurpose Hall of India International Centre, New Delhi. The evening had the author in conversation with eminent panelists ? Gurcharan Das, Maya Mirchandani, and Rakhshanda Jalil. The event was a visually intriguing and insightful journey which took the audience on a poignant re-visitation of a landmark moment in the sub-continent?s history, i.e., the Partition. Former Minister - K Natwar Singh ? and star-daughter ? Shweta Bachchan ? were in attendance along with others from the city?s literati.

About Remnants of a Separation -
Despite being born into a family affected by the Divide, artist and oral historian Aanchal Malhotra had thought little about the Partition ? until she encountered objects that had once belonged to her ancestors in an Undivided India. A gaz, a ghara, a maang-tikka, a pocketknife, a peacock-shaped bracelet and a set of kitchen utensils: these were what accompanied her great-grandparents as they fled their homes and through them she learnt of their migration and life before the Divide. This led her to search for the belongings of other migrants to discover the stories hidden in them.

Remnants of a Separation is a unique attempt to revisit the Partition through such objects carried across the border. These objects absorbed the memory of a time and place, remaining latent and undisturbed for generations. hey now speak of their owners? pasts and emerge as testaments to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging at an unparalleled moment in history. Written as a crossover between history and anthropology, Remnants of a Separation tells stories from both sides of the border and is the product of years of painstaking and passionate research. It pieces together an alternative history of the Partition ? the first and only one told through material memory that makes the event tangible even seven decades later, lest we forget.

About the Author - Aanchal Malhotra is an artist and oral historian working with memory and material culture. She received a BFA in Traditional Printmaking and Art History from the Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, and an MFA in Studio Art from Concordia University, Montr?al. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the US, the UK and India.
She is the co-founder of the Museum of Material Memory, a digital repository of material culture from the Indian subcontinent, tracing family histories and social ethnography through heirlooms, collectibles and objects of antiquity.
She currently lives in New Delhi. This is her first book.

Company :-Harper Collins India

User :- Shabnam Srivastava

Email :-Shabnam.Srivastava@harpercollins-india.com