Tears of the Begums is the first-ever English translation by Rana Safvi of Begumat ke Aansoo, originally written in Urdu by Khwaja Hasan Nizami, a follower of the Sufi order Chishti-Nizamiya and a descendant of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya.
Keertigan the novel asks several difficult vertiginous questions—what makes an entire group of people spontaneously come together to murder someone? It asks questions of journalism—what does it mean to report on such heinous crimes, which voices get represented and which inevitably get lost or left behind.
Lappujhanna doesn’t actually shy away from juxtaposing the past with the ongoing larger political stirring, even though this happens from an early teen’s perspective. Readers will definitely find themselves searching for their own childhood while meandering through the writer’s recollections of his own in the small town Ramnagar—also known for Jim Corbett National Parkin Uttarakhand
‘Stories are not just mere entertainment; the essence of stories is integral to our existence. If they were to vanish from our lives, we would transform into lifeless puppets, devoid of guidance on our roles and purpose.’ In PalliPaar, Rohekar weaves a complex web of narratives from various perspectives, each laden with themes of male chauvinism, violence, death, and jealousy.
The rise of the neo-colonial matrix of power along with a regressive turn towards cultural nationalism also unfold as significant themes of the narrative.
The unassuming bicycle, mocked and dismissed as a poor person’s vehicle, becomes a symbol of the relentless pace of life that is driven by sheer will but punctuated by the vicissitudes of life. It is ironic that this vehicle is later co-opted by capitalism. It undergoes quite a journey from being the target of derision and a fossil from a bygone era to a fashionable symbol of fitness, though now woefully out of the reach of the common people.