The Psychological Effects of Partition: a letter from a reader

Dear Amitav Ghosh,

Sir,I am writing fan mail – for the first time as a a woman just turned fifty. The Hungry Tide is probably one of the most incredible novels I have read and re-read, as well as recommending it to many friends. I congratulate you on such a magnificent book. I am English and I read it each monsoon when I lived in Bombay for a wonderful and harrowing couple of years.I recently enjoyed reading your blog about Jung and the Black Swan. I work as a psychoanalytically orientated Psychologist. Reading it reminded me of many strange moments that occur between a myself and a patient. The client suffering from acute depression who reports a dream of finding the bones an infant and I dream that she once had a twin. A week later,  when I gently inquire as to whether she ever had a twin (not disclosing how I arrived at this hypothesis)  she asks her mother and learns that was indeed the case and her twin had died in birth. Almost immediately her depression lifted.The case I describe, of which there are many others I could recount, are rarely touched upon and more perhaps from the world of literature and The Hungry Tide.May this fan of yours ask for your thoughts on a topic that matters to me?

I have decided to follow a path in life that simply won’t go away in my heart or mind. Perhaps we alway write about what troubles us, doesn’t make sense and only by writing we might find a way to make sense. The subject is the intergenerational dynamics of the Partition of India. Many of my clients over the last twenty years are Indian (NRIs but I also had a practice in Nariman Point, Bombay). Many of the clients challenges in life (alcoholism, work-addiction, hysteria) could be traced back to that terrible Asian Holocaust.  I ran a personal development group in Bombay for over a year and without exception, each man and woman in the group (average age 45) had parents who if they were raising their children today, would likely be diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). What each person in the group struggled with were issues of trust and forming healthy loving attachments that weren’t chaotic or disorganised.

What I plan to do is to write a non-fiction book about Partition, not overly academic. Although I am writing a fictional case study of about 10,000 words about work with a mother and son.  (I was lucky to talk to many elderly people in Bombay who experienced Partition and despite being a white English woman, people seemed to find great value in talking about their experiences.)

For some reason that I have no explanation for, other than the obvious fact of being  great admirer of your work, I wanted to reach out and connect with you.

My very best wishes, your fan troubled by the after effects of Partition,

Julia

Julia Noakes
Psychologist
Barncote, Swanborough, Lewes, BN7 3PG ,UK