Truth shall liberate you

Every family in India reenacts its version of the Mahabharata battle. The battle of Mahabharata started when a woman of the family was dishonored. Krishna had to intervene to save her honor.  The women suffer the most in all conflicts. Yet, it is the women who give birth to men. Men victimize women. In the long journey of life, women survive the storms when the dust settles. It is women who can clean up and convert a house into a home.       This is a story about three generations of a Punjabi Hindu family. Sanjay was an oncologist practicing in Boston. He returned to India despite strong reservations to take care of his mother & grandparents. Alka, Sanjay’s mother was born in Delhi. Her parents Anita and Puran’s families came to Delhi from Lahore.         Puran & Anita’s families were forced to leave everything behind and migrate to Delhi, India during the 1947 genocide and partition of India.     The British had colonized India for two hundred and fifty years. They looted and impoverished India. Indians helped them loot India. Indians helped the British repress the Indian masses so that the British could rule India with an iron hand.  Impoverished and exhausted by World War II, the British inflicted the last deathly blow to the unity of the Indian nation. They engineered the partition of India along religious lines. Indians actively helped them. Jinnah claimed that “Muslims were a separate nation and civilization. Hindus & Muslims couldn’t co-exist,”. Gandhi claimed that “a majority of Muslims of India were converts from Hinduism. He pleaded for Hindu-Muslim unity,”. Gandhi claimed that “the partition of India could only take place on his dead body,”. Yet the partition not only took place it led to the death of millions. Millions were displaced. Millions of innocent human lives were caught in this geopolitical game that led to the division of India. India survived and prospered.       Sanjay a young doctor who trained in America decided to return to India to be with his mother. He was doubtful when he decided to return to Delhi. “India thrives on chaos. How will I manage,” he asked his mother Alka.  “We thrived and prospered in this chaos. India enabled you to become a doctor. Your grandparents need you. I need you. What is the use of all the money that you earn in America if a stranger will light my pyre when I die? Come back, I will find you a cultured wife in India,” Alka his mother said.  Sanjay decided to return. He was convinced that family was more important than. Sanjay finds love in Delhi but goes through a lot of turmoil because his love interest Nitika has a secret.  Alka his mother had gone through much turmoil in her life after her marriage to Sanjay’s father. Sanjay’s grandmother had a torrid marriage with his grandfather.   Sanjay to his surprise finds Mahabharat-like battle lines being drawn in his grandparents’s family.   Read further to know how like the layers of an onion family secrets came out.  Author Sanjeev Bagga tells the tale of three generations of an Indian family caught in a clash between its traditional values and its modern ethos.