Ritu Menon

Nov 3, 2023 | theweek.in | Ritu Menon

The first thought I had [when the bombardment of Gaza began] was to write to the writers I know, and whom I've been in touch with, and express enormous sorrow, very great sadness at what's happening. Of course, there is rage, there is moral outrage, there is a kind of ferocious despair at what’s going on. But I didn’t want to communicate that to them, what I wanted to communicate is great sorrow at what they are going through and have been going through.

Aug 14, 2023 | daily.jstor.org | Noor Anand Chawla |Ritu Menon |Kamla Bhasin |Urvashi Butalia

Britain’s hasty departure in 1947 from the Indian subcontinent came with a hefty price. The region was partitioned into religion-based territories, with India populated largely by Hindus, and West and East Pakistan by Muslims. This division of land sparked unprecedented communal violence and led to a mass exodus of people and a tremendous loss of life, property, and identity.

May 8, 2023 | scroll.in | Ritu Menon

Shortly after Independence, Attia Hosain left India, and went to England. Pakistan was not an option for her, but then, nor was India, not now that zamindari had been abolished and all the erstwhile taluqdari families, like hers, left more or less bereft of their lands. Sunlight on a Broken Column (1961), her one and only novel, was also part of the memorable Partition literature of the time, written in an idiom of loss and longing.