Author: Abdus Samad
Publisher: Macmillan
Year: 2001
Language: English
Pages: 309
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0333 93191 2
Description
Translated from the Urdu original 'Khwabon Ka Savera', this work picks up the narrative from where most Partition Stories end. In the last few years several anthologies of Partition Literature have been published. This book is a timely sequel to Partition stories.
The collapse of the Zamindari system in free India pushes Khan Bhadur Zamiruddin's aristocratic legal heirs to the brink of penury. His mistress' sons are successful businessmen. What happens when patriotism and idealism fail to inspire a power-hungry materialistic society in which families are fragmented?
Samad's 'Dawn of Dreams' like almost all other fictionalized accounts of the partition locates itself in contradiction to the communalized narrations of the formation of Pakistan first offered by the Muslim League and then reinforced by various Hindu fundamentalist organizations.
Thus, the novel disrupts the grand historical narratives constructed by Pakistani scholars like I H Qreshi, KK Aziz, Aziz Ahmed and Muhammad Umar Memon, who see the emergence of an Islamic state in the Indian subcontinent as an inevitable and a natural culmination of centuries of jihad struggles by Muslim martyrs. For Samad, Pakistan is no more than an opportunist's creation, sustained over the years by a martial law administration, legitimized by the state police and state mullah.