ABOUT THE STORY Tarun, a young man—a new member of India’s vast urban professional class—returns home for Diwali to Muzaffarnagar, the small north-Indian town notorious for its communal violence. He brings with him some of the hopes and regrets shared by many young Indians today who cannot reconcile their values and realities with the expectations of their families, and who must wall parts of their lives off from their elders if they are not to wage war on themselves. But in Muzaffarnagar, Tarun discovers that new currents are seething even in this backwater. And yet the old world, even if there is something hapless about it, also asserts its rights in a strident voice, just like the grandfather in the story. On Diwali evening, Tarun begins to see his family—those who came before him, and those who have come after—in a new light, and is led to a new deal with himself.
Muzaffarnagar Diwali
TANUJ SOLANKI
COMMENT