Difficult Daughters (30 page)

I am indebted to the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library at Teen Murti for allowing me access to the microfilm copies of the
Tribune
(Lahore).

The Professor’s comments at the Roerich exhibition in Chapter
XVI
are modelled on the review of the exhibition by Mr Roop Krishna A.R.C.A. (Lond.),
Tribune
, 17 December 1940.The format and speeches of the Punjab Women’s Conference in Chapter
XVIII
closely follow the account given in the
Tribune
, 19 January 1941.

The more general accounts taken from the
Tribune
are as follows: 30 December 1939 for the account of Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru at the first All-India Hindustan Scout Mela held at Malviya Nagar, Amritsar, Chapter
XIV
; 18 September 1940, account of the tonga strike, Chapter
XV;
1 November 1940, account of Bhalla’s Shoe Store, Chapter
XVI
; 27 December 1943, account of the Hindu Mahasabha procession on 25 December 1943, Chapter
XXIV
; 2 July 1944, account of the grain dealer fined a thousand rupees, Chapter
XXIV
; 15 January 1944, the prices on 20,000 varieties of cotton cloth and yarn fixed, Chapter
XXIV
; 13 November 1945, account of the INA procession, Chapter
XXV
; 5 June 1945, discussion of the Draft Hindu Code Bill, Chapter
XXV
; March-April 1946, account of various reactions to the Muslim League, Chapter
XXV
; Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech, Chapter
XXVI
, from his Address to the Nation, 15 August 1949.

The poem ‘Love’s Unity’ is by Alfred Austin. The gravestones in Nahan are real.

My grateful thanks to the following people who were so generous with their time and memories: Sneh Lata Sanyal, Shiva Gogia, Autar Singh Kapur, Renu Malhotra, Vimla Kapur, Kaushalya Prakash, Vidyavati Minocha, Vir Sen, Vijay Sen, Laj Sen, Satya Nath, Ravi Sen, Jyoti Grover, Ramesh Grover, Saroj Bhandari, Som Bhagat, Manohar Lal Kapur, Chhote Lal Bharany, Rameshwar Kaushik, Panditji in Nahan, Jagjit Singh Chawla, Mrs Sondhi from Ashiana in Dalhousie, and Padma Bhandari.

My thanks to the following for helping me in my research: Urvashi Butalia, Pratibha Kaushik, Prabha Sen, Gyanendra Pandey and especially Khushwant Singh, and Riaz Khokkar in enabling me to get to Lahore.

Vikram Kaul spent hours helping me transfer my manuscript from floppies to a hard disk, and ironing out the bugs. I am extremely indebted to him.

Edward Jones, Vikram Chandra and Julian Loose made the publication of this book possible. I am very grateful to them.

My writers’ group supported me through the two years it took to get a first draft together by willingly listening to every chapter as I wrote it, and wanting to hear more. My thanks to Janet Chawla, Neelima Chitkopekar, Anuradha Marwah Roy, Anna Sujatha Mathai and Addison Ullrich.

For critical and editorial comments, I thank Anuradha Marwah Roy, Addison Ullrich, Vasudha Dalmia and Rajeshwari Sunder Rajan. In my wrestle with the final draft, Ramya Sreenivasan, Amy Louise Kazmin, Ira Singh and Maya Bhattacharyya were of invaluable assistance.

My appreciation to my family, Nidhi, Maya, Amba, Katyayani and Agastya.

And lastly, Anuradha, who for nine years never allowed me to lose faith in myself. Who held my hand, and indicated paths.

Manju Kapur is the author of four novels. Her first,
Difficult Daughters
, received tremendous international acclaim, won the Commonwealth Prize for First Novels (Eurasia Section), and was a number one bestseller in India. Her second novel
A Married Woman
was called ‘fluent and witty’ in the
Independent
, while her third,
Home
, was described as ‘engaging, glistening with detail and emotional acuity’ in the
Sunday Times
. Her most recent novel,
The Immigrant
, was called ‘intensely readable’ in the
Daily Mail
and ‘admirable and enjoyable’ by the
Guardian
. She lives in New Delhi.