The Weary Generations

Published in 1963, before Paul Scott’s Raj Quartet and Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, Abdullah Hussein’s Udaas Naslein was an instant bestseller. Now beyond its fortieth edition, it has never been out of print. Hussein leads us into a story of love and marriage between two people from starkly different social backgrounds, which also mirrors the uneasy ‘marriage’ between the British and their empire – both ultimately ending in estrangement. Naim, the son of a peasant, marries Azra, the daughter of a rich landowner, and their union is doomed from the start. Fighting for the British during the First World War, he loses an arm. Back home, and frustrated with the the subjugation of his countrymen under the Raj and aligns himself with the opposition. His ideals are swept away after Independence in 1947 when he realizes that, as Muslims, his family is no longer safe in their home and that they must migrate to the newly created Pakistan. An ambitious saga of the widespread disillusionment and social upheavals that led to the creation of Pakistan and and Bangladesh, The Weary Generations is a must-read for those who want to comprehend the historical origins of the tensions in the Indian subcontinent.