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Much scholarly work, particularly from feminists, engages with different aspects and dimensions of violence, and with the aftermath of what are now episodes of history, such as the partition, the massacre of whole communities, particularly the Sikhs and Muslims, following the assassination of Indira Gandhi, the demolition of the Babri Masjid and the Godhra train carnage, to name a few. Life and Words goes back to two of these events, namely, the partition and the Sikh massacre of 1984. The attempt here is not simply another recording of the horror of the times but a deconstruction of ‘horror’ in order to unravel the complex ways in which it has entered into ‘the recesses of the ordinary’ and the even more complicated manner in which it is negotiated