Blood Brothers

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Roli Books Private Limited, Aug 10, 2012 - Biography & Autobiography - 350 pages
Blood Brothers is M.J. Akbar's amazing story of three generations of a Muslim family - based on his own - and how they deal with the fluctuating contours of Hindu-Muslim relations. Telinipara, a small jute mill town some 30 miles north of Kolkata along the Hooghly, is a complex Rubik's Cube of migrant Bihari workers, Hindus and Muslims; Bengalis poor and 'bhadralok'; and Sahibs who live in the safe, 'foreign'world of the Victoria Jute Mill. Into this scattered inhabitation enters a child on the verge of starvation, Prayaag, who is saved and adopted by a Muslim family, converts to Islam and takes on the name of Rahmatullah. As Rahmatullah knits Telinipara into a community, friendship, love trust and faith are continually tested by the cancer of riots. Incidents - conversion, circumcision, the arrival of the plague of electricity - and a fascinating array of characters - the ultimate Brahmin, Rahmatullah's friend Girija Maharaj; the worker's leader, Bauna Sardar; the storyteller, Talat Mian; the poet- teacher, Syed Ashfaque; the smiling mendicant, Burha Deewana; the sincere Sahib, Simon Hogg; and then the questioning, demanding third generation of the author and his friend Kamala - interlink into a narrative of social history as well as a powerful memoir. Blood Brothers is a chronicle of its age, its canvas as enchanting as its narrative, a personal journey through change as tensions build, stretching the bonds of a lifetime to breaking point and demanding, in the end, the greatest sacrifice. Its last chapters, written in a bare-bones, unemotional style, are the most moving as the author searches for hope amid raw wounds with a surgeon's scalpel.
 

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Contents

PRAYAAG
DREAMS
CONVERSION
PLEASURES
DREAD
DERVISH
APHRODISIAC
DESIRE
SAHIBS
BRIDGES
BLOOD
BRAHMA
FRIENDS
STARS
OFFERING
BIKINI

KRISHNA
WORDS
BROTHERS
Copyright

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About the author (2012)

M.J. Akbar, one of India?s finest editors and author of many acclaimed books, was born in January 1951. An Indian Muslim, his father Sheikh Akbar Ali was from Bihar, while his mother, Imtiaz, was a Kashmiri. He studied at St. Joseph?s Convent, Chandannagar and the Calcutta Boys? School before graduating from the Presidency College, Kolkata. He joined the Times of India group, and then the Illustrated Weekly of India in 1971 where he worked as sub-editor and features writer. Five years later, he moved to the Ananda Bazaar Patrika group and launched a weekly news magazine, Sunday, which soon established itself as a leading journal of the country. In 1982, Akbar conceived, designed and edited the Telegraph, India?s most successful newspaper in the past few decades. He took a short break from journalism when he joined politics in 1989 and was elected to Parliament. In 1994, Akbar launched the Asian Age, India?s first international newspaper. The founder-editor of the Sunday Guardian, his books include India: The Siege Within, Riot After Riot, The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity, Blood Brothers and Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan.

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