A Letter from India by Intizar Hussain
Intizar Hussain was a famous Urdu poet short story writer and novelist he was born in 1925 in Dibai (India). A letter from India as a short story about the partition of India that took place in 1947 and deals with the loss of family heritage associated with it. The short story is written in the form of a letter. The letter is written by Kurban Ali, an orthodox Shia Muslim who had seen better days during the British rule. The letter is addressed to his brother’s son Kamaran, who lives in Karachi.
The letter begins with general salutations and And Kurban claims to have reached out to Kamaran, but failed because of lack of communication. The narration gradually moves to the violence associated with the partition in 1947. He talks about Imran Miyan who had visited him long time back in a very bad state. He could not speak anything about his wife and children. He managed to visit the grave of Miyan Jani and possibly left for Karachi.
The problems between the Hindus and Muslims had not subsided yet in 1974, the year in which Kurban Ali writes the letter. The narrator talks about the Harshringar tree and it’s lovely, sweet smelling flowers whose smell filled the house hold all the time. The flowers were used for different purposes like dyeing the clothes and cooking biriyani. The Harshringar tree is a symbol of their family heritage which is lost at the time of writing the letter. Kurban Ali claims that Miyan Jani was so obsessed with the tree that he used to pray to God to let the smell of the flowers fill his grave all the time. At the point of narration, the last Harshringar tree which was near the grave has also fallen, indicating the complete loss of family heritage.
It has been 27 years since the partition and several members of the family have been murdered by Hindus and Muslims of other denomination, in different ways. He describes the various social changes that took place in both India and Pakistan after the partition. Kurban has knowledge of Kamaran’s new found luxury and seeks help to repair the ancestral bungalow. Kurban’s letter also hints on his old age.
The narrator then talks about a few family members who were very much interested in cinema and idolised the actors. He tells about his son Akhtar who had changed his name to Premi and had started acting in dramas. Then he talks about the women and his family members who had married non-Muslims and had stopped wearing veil to cover their faces.
Kurban Ali’s elder brother and younger brother are no more. He feels that the dead family members had good fate because they did not have to see the chaos of partition. He feels proud that the graves of some of their ancestors are still considered as pilgrimage whereas due to the partition, several of their family members bodies have been scattered in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Kurban Ali feels proud of his ancestors and states that they are actually from the city of Isphahan, a city in Iran. Hence he feels that Kamaran should take the responsibility of passing on their family heritage to the young generation. Kurban tells about his family members who are respected positions in the government and concludes the letter by enquiring about Kamaran’s family members and invites them to visit him in future. Thus, the epistolary short story records the changes and destruction of Kurban Ali’s family heritage due to partition. It also depicts the narrow minded nature of Kurban regarding the empowerment of women and the quality of living of the other family members.
