Fourteen Springs of Separation

And eventually every love in our life leaves a colour inside our bodies—the black of abandonment, the blue of sadness, the red of passion—but there is a mud-coloured slime that the injustice of the loved one leaves. And that clings to the walls of the heart. I had broken out of prison, but I wasn’t free yet. Mehr, the twenty-something graphic novelist in Chandigarh stumbles upon a reference to Jind Kaur, the youngest wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. She is immediately taken in by her resolve and guileless courage. She seeks the help of Samarjeet Singh aka Sam of London, a maverick amateur historian to know more. Along comes the wry scientist Angad Sandhawalia, bearer of a weighty surname, bemused at his father’s obsession about his long dead kin of the Lahore Durbar. A lover’s grudge keeps the two distant, while the sleuthing around Jind continues. Sherry is the wannabe Punjabi singer while his father, the dhadi singer Suchet, who has sung of Jind in his vaars, has fought caste and class identity to find spiritual refuge in sacred Gurbani music. Mother Rani harbours some secrets from her youth. Together, the motley bunch resurrect the voice of Jind Kaur from the annals of time. In so doing, multiple strands from contemporary Chandigarh, 19th century Lahore and London, Pondicherry and Dharamshala dovetail in this exciting, new novel that enlivens Jind Kaur’s voice with an uncommon sympathy and verve.