ABSTRACT
My late mother has left me a wardrobe full of sarees. Among the ones I prize the most is a “Dhakai,” a weave that is a speciality of Dhaka. Our family cook, hailing from Bangladesh, swears by “Padma’r ilish,” saying the hilsa of the Ganges are no match to it. When the popular Indian folk-singer/composer/scholar Kalikaprasad died an untimely death in 2016, he was equally mourned on both sides of the border.
Fabric, food, song – there is still much that binds the two Bengals in everyday life, though it has been partitioned for 73 years. They represent the quiet continuities in Bengali life, as opposed to the rupture of the political division. That division has been richly documented: in history-writing, literature, films. What was lacking is the public memorialization of the Partition. In Kolkata, I have initiated a museum project that focuses on Bengal’s Partition: aiming at both memorializing the specificity of its history and aftermath, and emphasizing the continuities between the two Bengals – in an effort to promote tolerance between a divided people and make a conscious attempt to remain humane. In my chapter, I will discuss how the said project intends to execute the latter.
