2022-11-16
Two lovers navigate their lives as they are split into separate nations.
Malhotra’s debut novel starts off in pre-Partition Lahore, where Samir Vij, a 10-year-old Hindu boy, inherits his paternal uncle Vivek's olfactory prowess. Much of the plot—spanning 80 years and several cities—is accentuated by this inheritance. The Vij family’s perfumery; Samir’s love for a young Muslim girl named Firdaus Khan, who's a calligrapher; and the communal riots marred with smoke and blood in the days preceding the 1947 Partition are all deftly described through Samir’s nose. Malhotra's prose is sensuous and rich, and the ease with which she conjures a world that no longer exists is impressive. Sometimes the prose gets heavy-handed, though. In the first few pages, when young Samir inhales the smell of tuberose: “All that surrounded him—the river, the legends, the sand, the breeze, the morning light, even his family—dissolved. Everything solid melted into air.” This seems too transcendental so early in the novel. Perhaps the hyperbole would have served a purpose later, when tuberose was not just an intoxicating smell, but a memory of the past. While the Partition of India and creation of Pakistan mold the shape of Samir's and Firdaus’ lives, the novel is, above all else, a meditation on memory, the preservation of intimate history, loss, and love. The story is teeming with these themes, but the jumps from India to France, from Samir's perspective to Firdaus' and the years skipped in between, feel abrupt and simplistic. Perhaps this is what Malhotra set out to achieve—to create a present so embedded in the past that it doesn’t make sense on its own.
A quiet and moving portrait of eternal love and remembrance.
