Sunlight on a Broken Column by Attia Hosain

 I finished reading the book the second time, read it first thirty years back.

Written by Attia Hosain, a member of a Taluqdari family of Oudh, who decided to move to Britain and not to Pakistan after the Partition, the title is drawn from a line of T S Elliot, 'There the Eyes are Sunlight on a Broken Column".

Set in Lucknow of 1930's it tells the story of people of privilege: a group of cousins and their friends. Told in first person by a character who shares much of her background with the author, it takes you back to the lives of a decaying class, the feudals of North India. Known as Taluqdars they had hereditary lands from Mughals and later from British Empire. Loyal to Crown, they had an almost total control on the lives of their land tenets and serfs.
By the turn of 20th century, many had personally moved to bigger cities and controlled the rural fiefdoms remotely, each generation bringing a different set of values and vision, although still subscribing to the same sense of privilege and authority.

Connection to the rural estate was for getting grains and rents, burying the dead, and later to get votes for elections.

The estate of Hasanpur is not that far away from the city and the description of the journey from the city to the estate looked like any other road trip to any of Punjab villages.
Syed Mohammed Hasan, Baba Jan, the old feudal lord is slowly dying in his Luckhnow mansion, Ashiana. There is a joint family system where his two daughters live with him, one widowed and one unmarried. The protagonist is the orphaned granddaughter whose parents had died. Her father's sister is raising her in a modern way as it was the desire of the dead father. Extended family members stay for long times.

Baba Jan's friends and acquaintances are from his class and share a common interest in things archaic and mundane. His only living son lives elsewhere and moves in after the patriarch dies.

He dies in the chaotic times of Muharram when the city is full of riots. The rituals of death take place in the city and the village. They are beautifully portrayed: the lamenting, the sharing of food , the three days mourning and how the life goes back on track.

Hamid, the son, now moves back to take the charge. He is an anglophile and his wife does not observe Purdah. He does not like joint family system and the sisters are dispatched to village or married off. Laila continues to live in the city and continue her education in the institutions run by the British. Later Hamid's two sons come back from Briton after finishing education and staying there for ten years.

The life of aristocracy, having different faiths and political inclinations but sharing a common social and economical interest, is ceremonial, monotonous and intriguing at the same time. The interplay of older generation and the younger one shows the tension of disagreements between them and how different generations handle them. It is as true as it is today as it was then.

It is perhaps the first, if not the only, English language piece of fiction by a native Urdu speaking person of that era. The language is flawless and one can imagine as if one is reading it in Urdu. The idioms and ways of expression as translated effortlessly as English sentences are uttered by characters who would never speak that language. It does not seem odd at all.

The cousins in this story are or the same age as my parents. This is a good peek into that time, a kind of 'people's history' of what went on in the hearts and minds of the young generation of that time. Similar to the Udaas Naslain, translated by the author himself in English as Weary Generations, it tells you their lives. They had all the range of ideas and thought and their conversations captured in these books tell you of the scope of possibilities and confidence they had. Women , educated in colleges, able to talk and express opinion on all the taboo subjects and accepted in their group of friends could be unimaginable a few decades later in Pakistan.

Seems things have moved backwards as much as on the surface we see the effects of material modernism.

Although the story is narrated by a member of the aristocratic family, the lives and thoughts of the 'other' class is told through the stories of the servants and less privileged relatives. The author does justice to those characters. Perhaps she and the character based on her has the capacity to go beyond their areas of comfort and look at the word through the eyes of the other class without patronizing or being judgmental.

Although it is a story of cousins and their personal affiliations and aspirations and basically it is a love story, the subtext of Independence and the Partition is played in the background without being onerous. Different members of the same family and circle of friends align themselves and route for Muslims League, Congress or for just the Feudal system. Landed aristocracy see its gradual downfall, politically and socially, and the eventual disappearance of its existence as a class. We see how the new rich gain ground and influence and the mercantile class become land owner transforming it to urban boom. 

And then, true to the title, the ultimate effect of Partition on the larger family, how it gets dispersed over countries and continents and unable to communicate with one another. Lines drawn on sand become permanent barriers and hearts, properties and lives are divided.

And how a young girl, born in a family of privilege, is able to keep her head balanced, able to see the world as it should be, and defies the authority of others in choosing her own destiny.

I am not sure why the novel did not get noticed in Pakistan as much as it should have been. I for one, did not hear about it until I moved to USA in 1988, It was first published in 1961 and is surely one of the best portrayal of pre partition twentieth century in North India.