It’s the winter of 1946. A truck leaves the village of Campbellpur after news of the impending Partition pours in. It is carrying people who don’t know where they will go. They have just heard words like ‘border’ and ‘refugee’, and are struggling to understand how drawing a line might carve out Pakistan from Hindustan. As they reach the border, the caravan disperses and people go their own ways. Gulzar’s first novel tracks the lives of the people in that truck right from 1946 up to the Kargil war. A novel on what the Partition entailed for ordinary people, Two is also a meditation on the fact that the division of India and the carnage that followed, once set into motion, kept happening inexorably and ceaselessly, and people like those who left their homes on that truck never found another home; they kept looking for a place called home, a place to belong to.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Gulzar
Gulzar is one of Indian cinemaâs most sensitive and creative directors; a lyricist par excellence; one whose work never fails to surprise, bring a tear to the eye or a smile on the lips; a humble man with humble beginnings who is unafraid of experimenting. A career that began more than three decades ago comprises a rich repertoire of not just films, but also authoring several anthologies of short stories, including Raavi Paar and Other Stories. One of the two immensely popular television serials that he has directed has been on the life of Mirza Ghalib, who commands Gulzarâs heartstrings, and the most recent one is based on the works of one of Indian literatureâs greats, Munshi Premchand. Winner of the Sahitya Akademi award, Gulzarâs interest in literature is more than just a passing fancy. He writes poetry, short stories, all his works have been translated into English, and he is the creator of the three-line poem, called Triveni. Writing for Gulzar, is his first love, his passion, his junoon, his life breath!
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