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CHAPTER-3 Attia Hosain's Sunlight on Broken Column

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CHAPTER-3 Attia Hosain's Sunlight on Broken Column CHAPTER-3 Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on Broken Column 68 Attia Hosain: The present chapter throws light on Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on Broken Column. The novel does not directly focus on the partition but it presents the effects of partition on domestic life. Laila is the central character of this novel. She was also greatly affected by partition. The amalgamation of culture, social system, the condition of women, politics of the time are the major concern of this novel. The present chapter is an attempt to present the social, culture, religious and political scenario of the Lucknow. Attia being a Muslim female writer has tried to bring the trauma of the partition she was the first British-Indian Muslim writer to write on partition. “Echoes of the event before 97, comes from the few men and women of the sensibility, who survived the separation of brother from brother and sister from sister in the partition. These memories are agonizing and they are apprised only by the remembrance of the fact that some like Attia Hosain test the terrors. Attia’s courage was in the poetry of growing up in Avadh much loved for her own affectionate nature from which she responded to the high and low it is possible that the avenged tending’s of professor D. P. Mukherjee had heard to Indian ethos and she had the perception of promises made by those who fought for the freedom our land her empathies for progressive writer were undertone’s around her, and she emerged from divided family, undivided in her novel Sunlight on Broken Column, she seemed to have seen that “it national movement meant men folk liberation the struggle offered to women prospects for emergence as human being would not remain any longer in purdah or in sufferance for belonging feminine gender. Attia has perceived the departure point from political freedom to the struggle of women to be recognized as equal though different.” This makes her novel Sunlight on Broken Column. a pioneer work inevitably the work of elder pioneer writer of Gandhian are reflecting political urges has now headedmotive force of the emergence of women writer through the desire of women to be recognized as the recreators of urges so long suppressed.” -Mulk Raj Anand. Attia Hosain is the name which is especially known for her novel Sunlight on Broken Column. This novel is her semi-autobiographical work. She was British-Indian novelist, author, writer, broadcaster, actor and novelist. She was one of the pioneering women of letters and a classic Diaspora writer. Attia was born in 1913. She was born 69 in rich Muslim family of Lucknow, Uttar pradesh. She wrote in English making it resonate with the cadences of her mother tongue Urdu. She was educated at Lucknow University and in La Martini Ere and Isabella Thoburn college, Lucknow. She was taught Persian, Urdu and Arabic there. She was the first in Taluqdar family to receive such higher popularity. She went to England with her husband and two children in 1947. There she started her own women programme on the BBC Eastern Service. She had liberal views. She was inspired by nationalist movement and influenced by left-wing. She was associated by the progressive writer’s association and inspired by radical writer’s association. Hosain has also attended meeting of all India progressive writers, presided by Premchand. She was encouraged by Sarojini Naidu to participate in all India women conference held at Calcutta in 1933. She had also written for newspaper such as ‘the ‘Stateman’ and the ‘Pioneer’. She had also published short- stories in some periodicals. Her short-stories and other work reflects the nostalgia for the past. She instead of choosing the newly created Pakistan went to Britain with her husband. The couple had two children. In Britain she continued to write. Attia was belong to Talukdar family, so she had been given primary education at home. She acted in Peter Mayne’s west end play the Bird of Time in London, in 1961. Phonix fied and Other Stories is the collection of short stories by Attia. She dealt with the theme of partition and day to day life in India. The stories also contain the theme of the role of woman in the household. She has only written one novel Sunlight On Broken Column. Her unfinished novel No New Lands, No New Seas. Later the first part of the novel was published as distant traveler, new and selected fiction. Her only novel the Sunlight on Broken Column, which is an account of her partition experience. She has presented the experience of the partition through the fiction the novel is an attempt to patch-up the Hindu-Muslim relationship. her writing shows the time of Pre-partition and its aftermath. Niaz Zaman on Attia says that, “Hosain, a minority writer, stresses the folly of partition through laila who suggests that, despite the pain, despite the loss, India is large enough from the other religious groups, but those co-religionists who deny that people of different religion can live in India” (125) 70 Attia Hosain’s work throws light on the society to which she belongs. she has presented the feudalism and the day-to-day experience of elite women. Sunlight on Broken Column enjoys great fame for its presentation, its plot and its characterization. Her works has touch of traditionalism as well as modernity. She used to write in English, at the time when very few Muslim women writer used to choose English as their medium of expression. She in her works presents the multicultural, pluralistic and synaptic view of society . Attia Hosain was a friend of Mulk Raj Anand. She sent her work to Mulk Raj Anand for the appreciation. He was the first to recognize the literary abilities of her he observes. “I suggested her to adopt T. S. Eliot’s manner and to gather the remnants shored against the ruin i felt if she could write her autobiography. Not necessarily for publication, but to fix certain things. She might see that, beneath all the painful memories, she had developed a new kind of personal identity, contained in a family cost, but imaginatively free I asked her to read iqbal. Then the soul would like to appear like an emanation from the body.” The novel Sunlight on Broken Column is an autobiographical in the sense that it presents the social and political implants of Attia the creator. The novel covers the time from 1932 to 1952 – a period which was recorded in the history for its socio- political upheavals. Attia presents her contemporary society through the fiction. The novel portrays the social cultural and political circumstances of writer’s own time. Attia believed that the difference of culture is not the reason of the partition of India, but there were personal motives of ‘getting better life’ which was the result of the two separate nations. Her work Sunlight on Broken Column shows the relationship of Hindu and Muslims as well as the sectarian strife of Shia-Sunni. She believed that both Hindu and Muslims were fought against Britishers from a century and they maintained tolrant in their attitude for each others diets and beliefs. The character she chooses portrays the secular culture of Lucknow. Hosain has criticized the politicians who had spread the poison of communal hatred. She has presented the nostalgia of partition as Md. Kamran Ahsan commented, 71 “Sunlight on Broken Column presents Hosain’s nostalgia for the pre-partition days. This is the first novel, written by a Muslim that evinces the divisions of Muslim league. The partition is not directly portrayed, but with its implications on social, cultural and political life”. Attia has presented the culture of north Indian-Muslims.She was one of the true representator of her society. The partition brings many social and political changes of in the society political party like Muslim league was supported due to the fears of economic decrease or what Saleem calls ‘hind phobia’ her work is an attempt to present her own concept of nationality she her herself had participated in the national movement she was inspired by the philosophy of Gandhi. She has presented the destruction, violence and hatred of the people. She talks of partition with heavy heart in her novel, “And in 1947 came the partition of the country, and the people of India and Pakistan celebrated independence in the midst of bloody migrations from one to another”(283) Hosain shows the futility of the partition. The writing of Attia is a glimpse of pre-partition are, a shared culture of Hindu-Muslim is a proud factor of Indian culture. According to Anita Desai, Hosain’s work is ‘monuments to the past history of north India before Pakistan’. One finds the image of undivided country, the past of Muslim Taluqdar feudalism, traditions of aristocratic Muslim family and its dictates. Attia Hosain was one of those who instead of moving to Pakistan, choose to went foreign, because this very of leaving her own country and to be a part of newly created Pakistan is something hunts her mind. She has portrayed her pain through the medium of her short stories and novel, a theme of partition can be seen in all of her work, like the writer of partition such as Amrita Pritam or Khushwant Singh and others, her works does not directly paints at partition but its ramification on different spheres of life such as social, culture, political, economic and religion. Attia’s work is the collection of all those changes that occurs with the passing of time on the lives of people affected by partition.
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