Review of Losing Home Finding Home by Kalyani Sardesai in Pune Mirror

Facing loss, finding ground

by Kalyani Sardesai

It’s funny how our parents remain inside us long after they are gone! observes Saaz.

Little wonder then that the narrative of Losing Home, Finding Home, Saaz’s latest work on the Sindhi community amongst others she has written on the Sindhis, is narrated in the voice of her late mother Situ Savur (herself a Sindhi.) It is also a fitting chronicle of a hard-working community that has embraced Pune after losing its home state to partition.

A collection of personal narratives that provide a spectrum of the Sindhi experience, Saaz started this book by writing each one in the voice of the person whose story it was and then, wanting to introduce her own perspective, shifted to the third person. However, and quite unexpectedly, her mother’s voice kept intervening with snippets and insights. It seemed only correct to turn the story over to her mother, and as a result, this book is told in Situ’s voice.
I’m glad I surrendered to her frequent reminders and comments and let her tell the story as many things emerged which may not have otherwise occurred to me to include, she says.
For those who came in late, Saaz Aggarwal has written several books, including quite a few about the Sindhi community. While some of them have documented the community through the stories of individuals and families she has interviewed, some of her work has also been very personal, with insights into what happened to the Sindhi community through the experiences of her mother’s family. For this book, she selected stories that would give an overview of not just Partition but also the very interesting and little-known recent history of the community and how it played a role in the rehabilitation after Partition.

https://punemirror.com/pune-mirror-explore/facing-loss-finding-ground/ Nov 22, 2022