Pod#72 - Independence Day(s) Special w/ Aanchal Malhotra! (feat. Jatin)

Happy Independence Day(s) India and Pakistan. This episode has been a bit of a process in the making. Remember Jatin from Pod#66(6)? The Delhi Horror Stories? Yeah so, remember when he mentioned how in his appreciation for oral history he casually mentioned Aanchal Malhotra and her book Remnants of a Separation? Well. We got the book and we tagged Aanchal on Instagram and we got talking and one thing lead to another and somehow she agreed to come on the show! An episode about somebody who's written an entire book themed around the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 could only be put up as close as possible to the 14/15th August period. So it's a few days late but still close enough that the thematic window isn't fully shut. Or so we hope. Oh and Rizwan & Sarkhail were still busy this weekend so Jatin came in clutch and subbed in to guest-host! Armed with his intimate knowledge of Delhi and Aanchal's own wealth of extremely direct experience on the matter this episode is long but so totally worth it. A great chat that we are very proud we got the chance to host. Check out the chapters below and links to all the cool stuff and people Aanchal mentioned during the talk! Things discussed in this episode: 1. 00:00 Intro 2. 04:09 What is Aanchal Malhotra up to nowadays 3. 07:47 How we got in touch 4. 09:18 Growing up in Delhi and the family bookstore 5. 15:38 Moving abroad to study art & how white people love turmeric 6. 23:41 Grad school and finding her identity 7. 28:40 Sabbatical from grad school & the discovery of memories in objects 8. 33:54 The Work begins & reflections around the separation of ‘47 9. 39:15 Realizations in Pakistan & the weight of the past 10. 48:26 About those who moved to the UK after the partition 11. 54:22 Historic ties between North Indians & Pakistanis that still connect us 12. 1:01:14 The Museum of Material Memory comes alive 13. 1:12:45 The traumatic weight of our past on historians today 14. 1:21:54 A sneak peak into Aanchal’s next book! THE LINKS: Aanchal's Twitter: https://twitter.com/AanchalMalhotra Aanchal's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aanch_m/ The Museum's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/museumofmaterialmemory/ Jatin's Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheDilliMirror Jatin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dillimirrorr/ Aanchal's work: https://www.aanchalmalhotra.com/writing/ The Museum: http://www.museumofmaterialmemory.com/ Mayank, The Delhi Wala: https://www.instagram.com/thedelhiwalla/ Partition Voices by Kavita Puri: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/partition-voices-9781408899069/ Anam Zakaria: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14125455.Anam_Zakaria Aanchal's article on the trauma of writing about history: https://scroll.in/magazine/890191/seventy-two-years-on-the-partition-is-inflicting-fresh-trauma-on-those-who-document-its-horrors Find all our previous episodes on SoundCloud, Spotify & Apple Podcasts and follow us all on Twitter! Links to everything below! SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/tprpod Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6PvTahp... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tprpod/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TPRPod Ali: https://twitter.com/themaholupper Rizwan: https://twitter.com/RizwanPehelwan Sarkhail: https://twitter.com/Sarkhail7Khan