Amil and the After by Veera Hiranandani is set against the backdrop of the partition of erstwhile united India in 1947 which resulted in the formation of two new nations, India, and Pakistan. The Partition, one of the largest migrations in human history, witnessed unimaginable violence, loss, and the separation of families across both borders. Half Hindu-half Muslim Amil, his twin sister Nisha, along with their father, grandmother, and family cook, Kazi are forced to leave their home in Mirpur Khas in Pakistan and seek refuge in India amid the rising tensions between the Hindus and Muslims in both countries.
The story begins on New Year’s Day in 1948 in Bombay, (Bombay was officially changed to Mumbai in 1995) where the family moves after Amil’s father gets a new job at a hospital. Amil and Nisha struggle to adjust to their new life in this bustling city and long for their simple, uncomplicated lives in Mirpur Khas. Amil is lonely and he longs for a friend and a bicycle that he can ride with abandon. His loneliness is worsened because their mother passed away when they were babies. At Nisha’s suggestion, Amil draws pictures as a love letter to his mother whom he misses terribly. It is his way of staying connected to her. While Nisha constantly writes in her diary to express her innermost thoughts, Amil uses drawing as his outlet for the churning emotions he fears might erupt from within him. Through his love for drawing (and dislike of reading and homework), Hiranandani addresses Amil’s dyslexia by describing how “the more he stared at [the numbers], the blurrier they became. They started to seem less like numbers and more like picture patterns…[where] a 3 looked like an unfinished 8.”
Amil meets Vishal in school, but there is a mystery about Vishal because he is secretive about his background. Like Amil, he too left Pakistan, but unlike Amil and Nisha, Vishal lives in a refugee camp close to their school. They develop a tentative friendship in school but at home, Amil struggles with his troubled relationship with his father, who always seems to expect more from him than Nisha. When something happens to Vishal, Amil draws on his inner resilience and displays remarkable empathy and moral courage to help his friend while grappling with the social and politically tense environment of a newly formed nation.
Amil and the After is a story of hope amidst the trauma of the loss of home, of un/belonging, and the displacement of friends and community. As we learn toward the end of the book, Amil means hope and how there is always a light even in the darkest times. The story continues from Hiranandani’s The Night Diary which is about Amil and his family as they struggle for survival after fleeing Pakistan for India during the Partition. Hiranandani writes with deep empathy and sensitivity about families and their lives uprooted during Partition, drawing from the lived experiences of her own family, when her Sindhi grandparents migrated to India from Pakistan. The Sindhi community is native to Pakistan but in the aftermath of the 1947 Partition of British India, most Sindhi Hindus and Sindhi Sikhs migrated to the newly independent India. While there are Sindhi communities across India, they are concentrated in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Rajasthan.
There are many books by adults on the theme of the Partition, (I recently read Kavita Puri’s Partition Voices) but this story offers a distinct viewpoint narrated by the twelve-year-old protagonist, Amil. How does a child process the senseless violence of the world? How does one heal from the trauma? How does leaving a familiar place and moving to a new land impact a person’s psyche? Amil tries to find the answers to these burning questions by drawing about a world that is not torn apart by religion, but one that is connected by love and understanding. In a poignant moment in the book, he draws a picture for his mother of a hand holding a broken egg. “Mama, how do we put it back together?”
Hiranandani demonstrates an impressive ability to give the reader a glimpse into the inner mind of a child contemplating borders, divided nations, the complexities of identity, about “lines, roofs, and walls, [and] if anyone cared whether he was Hindu from here or there or both Hindu and Muslim or any religion at all?’ The author also touches on Amil’s PTSD which manifests in his occasional panic attacks triggered by his memories of the trauma of leaving Mirpur Khas.
Amil and the After is a wonderful book for young adults to learn about the Partition narrated from the perspective of twelve-year-old Amil. It is a story of survival growing up in a world fraught with conflict. It is also a story of hope, and of the strength and spirit that resides in each one of us when we are faced with challenging circumstances in our lives.
Ages 8-12
Published by Kokila, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
