The Partition had meant little to Aanchal Malhotra too, until she encountered objects that had once belonged to her family in an undivided India. In the session, The English and the Space they left behind, Aanchal Malhotra, the author of Remnants of a Separation, captured the history of partition through her painful and personal experience.
The book shares a notion of loss narrating wrenching stories, murders, bloodshed, friendship and the violence faced by every community during those days. Even the language used vernacular vocabulary to which she said, "For me the vocabulary of loss, trauma, violence and partition is always the vernacular vocabulary because it is the language of our ancestors in which you can comment on how you feel".
In her conversation with Prof. Latha Nair, Aanchal Malhotra also said, "We divided a nation that is not meant to be divided and now we are facing its consequence". She also pointed out the unbiased approach in the book that doesn’t criticise either of the countries.
The session concluded with Latha Nair remarking the her book as a unique attempt to revisit the partition through the absorbed memory of a time and place. She also stated it as an emerging testament to the struggle, sacrifice, pain and belonging to an unparalleled moment in history.