Rashmi Narzary’s An Unfinished Search is a novel spanning well over a century and a half, tracing one family’s plight through the ever-changing political landscapes and borders of a country torn in three over the intangible but pervasive force of religion. The question of identity underlines the plot line, as protagonists across generations, Anjaan, Badaal, and Asman, find themselves on a quest for their lost bloodline. They go by the surname Hazratkandi, the name of their village, as they know nothing of their past or origins. The lack of rooted permanence that comes from a connection through ancestry is enhanced and made all the more prominent in the then political turmoil that India was undergoing, and the characters find themselves unable even to link themselves and their belonging to a land that was constantly shifting in nationality, and always evading the comfort of being permanent.
This unhomeliness plays directly into the hands of a patriarchy which insists on family lines being traced solely through the father, while the woman’s identity of her own is immediately wiped clean after marriage. It is with these burdens of a lack of identity that Anjaan seeks his father who had laid down his life for the country in the 1857 Battle of Malegarh as a martyr. This quest is then passed down to Anjaan’s son, Badaal, and eventually, to his grandson, Asman.
The steps leading up to the Malegarh War Memorial, now part of Karimganj, Assam
The novel makes for a captivating read as it journeys through the atrocities of an unnecessary war that rampaged and ravaged its way not only through geographical nations, but also mercilessly uprooted families, leaving them robbed of their very foundation – their identity.
“The Border Security Force and the Bangladesh Border Guards had agreed to bend the fence there just about so much as to not let the actual site of the Malegarh battle lie on a no man’s land” writes Narzary, in the prologue
Here’s an excerpt from An Unfinished Search which talks about one family’s never-ending quest for their identity in the midst of a country torn apart on political and religious grounds:
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‘Those are really well kept for graves on a lonely, far-off hillock,’ Asman remarked, looking around him. ‘Aren’t they! That’s what I do every time I come up here, child, I tend to those graves so that my father may feel loved and cared for, and may feel he belongs, in case this is foreign land for him,’ Anjaan replied.
‘And how do you know which grave is your father’s?’ Asman asked.
‘I don’t know, Asman, that’s why I spruce up all of them.’
Asman went around the graves, sitting next to each one for a while to look at it well enough, trying to see if he could find any clue that nature or fate might throw up at him. The grass felt smooth when he ran a hand over them.
‘You must have tended to them for many years now, dadajaan.’
‘I did. Otherwise, you would not have been able to come here and walk around.’ Anjaan pointed towards the thickets and said, ‘I used to have a broom of fine, thin bamboo sticks over there, child, go and see.’
Asman walked up to where his grandfather pointed and brought out the broom and the trowel. He tried to rake in the stray brown leaves around his feet as he checked out the broom.
‘The first ones I brought here got worn out and the trowel got rusted and broke. These are later ones.’
The inside of the Malegarh War Memorial: somewhere here rests a martyr who was said to be known only as Aryaan. No surname, no family name
‘You miss him, dadajaan? Your abba?’ Asman asked.
‘I never met him, to miss him.’ He paused before saying, ‘He probably didn’t even know about my existence. When the beginning of your life is such, Asman, and when the rest of your life is lived by the name of a village you don’t know is yours and yet go on living in it like a refugee because you don’t know where else to go and because you are held here for you want to find out where you actually belong and who in reality you are, then it’s a wretched life indeed, Asman, it’s a wretched life. Existence, yes, but a failed and lost one. A life that no man would want to live. And yet, I am living it. You know, child, each day that passes without any answer or clue, sees a little bit of me dying. I’m dying each day and yet living this life, Asman, I am. Because I have a search to finish.’
Asman came closer and sat next to his dadajaan. His dadajaan seemed to be looking at something beyond the horizon, searching for something. ‘My own lifetime is over and wasted, it is for you and your abba that I need to carry on my search for our name. Keep in mind, Asman, the name Hazratkandi has been thrown at us out of disgust. When I was asked my name for the first time outside Hazratkandi, I had said Anjaan. I was asked for a surname. I didn’t have one. So, I said, Anjaan, of Hazratkandi. And I was labelled a Hazratkandi. Hazratkandi isn’t our family name. We have no name, no identity. But what kills me with remorse, Asman, child, is that I have passed these on to you. This existence without identity.’ The old man’s clouded eyes began to well up. The cloud in them was raining. Asman’s heart went out for his dadajaan. ‘It wasn’t my fault, Asman, that I didn’t know and still don’t know who I am. Or where I belong. But yes, it is my fault that...’ now he started to shake with sobs, ‘... that Baadal and you are living lives like me.’
The Memorial plaque, in memory of the martyrs of the 1857 Mutiny
Asman shifted closer to his dadajaan and put his arms around him.
‘I tried my best, Asman, I did. But with my limitations, I am yet to find my answers. And I am still searching.’
Asman quietly promised himself once more to carry on his dadajaan’s search. ‘Dadajaan,’ he said softly, ‘if destiny has it then someday, something or someone will surely come up, which will unearth all that you are searching for.’
His grandfather looked resigned. ‘I’m not even looking for much, Asman, I’m just searching for a name and a grave. Of which I know only one part. If only that is the real part.’
They both sat quietly for a long while, watching the occasional brown leaf from the bokul tree fall on the ground and listening to the stray crow fly over the graves.
‘We have become free from British rule, yes, but it is freedom of a different kind that I am desperately still searching for, Asman, it is the freedom from existence without identity.’ India and Pakistan had been liberated, but not Anjaan. He was still shackled to namelessness.
‘Shall we go home now, dadajaan?’ Asman asked gently, ‘amma will be worried.’ He stood up and held out a hand for Anjaan to hold and get up. Still holding on to the hand, Anjaan walked around the graves, bending to brush aside, with his free hand, dried twigs and fruit seeds dropped by birds on some graves. He showed Asman which graves had ants nesting in them, and which ones had roots of banyan.
‘Don’t let the banyan roots dig deep, Asman,’ he said, ‘or else they will strangulate the one sleeping inside.’ He knew every grave like it were his child, Asman thought. Or his father.
‘And during the last couple of summers,’ Anjaan said pointing towards the bokul tree, ‘a pair of emerald doves has been building their nest there. Don’t disturb them if they come again next summer. Let there be new life and birth even among the dead, Asman, they bring me hope.’
As they began to walk down the hillock, Anjaan turned back once more to look at the graves.
‘I wish I knew which one,’ he said, before walking down to his cycle.
‘We have become free from British rule, yes, but it is freedom of a different kind that I am desperately still searching for, Asman, it is the freedom from existence without identity.’ India and Pakistan had been liberated, but not Anjaan. He was still shackled to namelessness.
On their ride back home, they had to stop at the Indo-East Pakistan Interim Check Gate at Sutarkandi. This time there were a couple of other people too, signing before them. They had come to villages across Sutarkandi to visit relatives and were now returning. Asman wrote his name and the sentry put in the time of their return and let them go. This was the beginning of many more times that Asman would write his name there. It would soon become the Sutarkandi Indo-East Pakistan Border Outpost.
On the way, Anjaan asked, ‘What were the names the men before us wrote?’
Asman tried to recollect and said, ‘One was Mafijul Alam Haque and the other, mm, well, some Bhowmik.’
Anjaan closed his eyes and ran a palm across them. Asman knew what thoughts might have passed through his mind.
Asman would pass across the Sutarkandi border many more times. Because this visit to Malegarh was the first of many for him. It was also the last of many for Anjaan Hazratkandi.
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This excerpt, along with images, from An Unfinished Search: One Lineage, in One Village, through Three Nations by Rashmi Narzary, is republished with permission from Pippa Rann Books & Media. Get the book here.
