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?You told me you had been in the city for just about four months when it played its trick on you. You were emerging from the hall of the Eros theatre and were about to wear your burqa in the foyer when Baba popped the question to you. ?Begum, do you really want to wear it?? You told me you paused for a moment, and then you shook your head. And that was that. The rest, as they say, is History.? Ammi: Letter to a Democratic Mother is a novel that takes the form of a letter written by Saeed Mirza to his late mother, a pastiche of memories that honour the political creed she stood for, the egalitarian spirit of democracy she believed in, the faith from which she drew strength.Through the fable of Jahanara Begum and Nusrat Beg, Mirza tells the love story of two extraordinary people by reimagining the lives of his parents. The century the three of them inhabit witnesses the demolition of a 500-year-old mosque, an unjust war fought in the name of an elusive justice, quiet personal revolutions, bitter bloodshed between neighbors and the changingfortunes of a scriptwriter who refuses to relinquish his principles. Shifting deftly from one form to another- short story, poetry, parable, legend, satire, travelogue, memoir, history, diatribe, film script - Mirza creates an unforget- table literary installation. Ammi moves seamlessly from a moving, magical tale of love and romance to a per- sonal testimony of growing up in India to a discourse between history and politics that presses into service Mulla Nasruddin, Studs Terkel, Ibn Senna, Ekalavya and Ra?abia Basri. What emerges is an unforgettable chronicle of love in a time of change and destruction, and a passionate political testament for the present. Combative and lyrical, moving and relentlessly inquiring, Ammi offers a way of seeing our history and our future that is impossible to ignore.ISBN - 9788189975364
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Pages : 392
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