Two Read online

  People who have read drafts of the book have termed it a novella, as my first attempt at long-form fiction. I am not sure what to say. For me, it is a novel; it has an arc of its own that has a beginning and which makes its way to an open end. The length is immaterial. It is what I needed to tell the story. When I can say what I have to in a few lines, I do it through my poems. When a few more sentences and paragraphs are needed, I fall back on the short story. The people I encounter in Two, the journeys they make, needed a little more elaboration than was possible in a poem or a short story. That is what dictated the form and the length. The rest is all for academics to debate.

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  In the winter of 1946, a truck full of refugees leaves Campbellpur for the ‘border’ after news of the impending Partition starts trickling in. Uprooted from the only place they know as home, the refugees keep travelling in search of roots. How many lifetimes will it take them to find their home?

  ‘Two is about the Partition of 1947, a cataclysmically tragic event that Gulzar lived through … What was one land became two, separated by an unbridgeable gap that made millions refugees overnight. Some ten to fifteen million people – men, women, children, young and old – were displaced by a destiny they did not choose. It is estimated that some two million lost their lives in the frenzied bloodbath that accompanied this division.’

  – From the ‘Introduction’ by Pavan K. Varma

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Poet, author, lyricist, film-maker, screenplay and dialogue writer, Gulzar is one of the towering figures of Indian cinema, culture and literature. He was born in Dina (now in Pakistan). He has a number of poetry and short-story collections to his credit. He has recently published two volumes of translations of Rabindranath Tagore’s poems, Baaghbaan and Nindiya Chor. He is also one of the finest writers for children in the country. He is a recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Padma Bhushan. He received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2014.

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  First published in hardback in India in 2017 by Harper Perennial

  An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers India

  A-75, Sector 57, Noida, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India

  www.harpercollins.co.in

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  Copyright © Gulzar 2017

  P-ISBN: 978-93-5177-520-1

  Epub Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 978-93-5177-521-8

  This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Gulzar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.

  Cover design: Saurabh Garge

  Cover image: Getty images

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