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Alaimentary - A Story of a Tale - 6
Gyan Pyaar
Brought up in an atmosphere of love and respect by their families, Alok and Alia
were extraordinarily disturbed by the random instances of skirmishes between
religious zealots and groups, writes Nagesh Alai
Alok and Alia, two youngsters in their brought up in a clime of ethics, integrity,
mid-twenties, pride themselves as great mutual respect and live and let live
grandchildren of the midnight’s children, principles. Alok’s and Alia’s ancestors were
an eponymous and famous novel by Salman respectively from the sister cities of Lahore
Rushdie, and destiny’s children, a science and Amritsar, also called as the twin cities
fiction series by Stephen Baxter. Literature in the undivided India of yore. Their great
students that both Alok and Alia were, they grandparents were in the civil services in
were fascinated by the theme of cohesion their respective cities, but the government
and disparity between the singularity work would often bring them together,
of the individual and the plurality of the which eventually morphed into close family
society in the former and the evolution of relationships with frequent family visits to
people physically, psychologically and each other’s homes.
sociologically in the latter. Their ancestors’ idyllic lives had been
Alok Mehra’s and Alia Murad’s great- thrown asunder and devastated by the run
grandparents were from conservative up to the end of the British rule and the
religious middle class families with abiding blood and gore of the partition of India in
faith in the inenarrable phenomenon 1947. Amongst the pervading animosity
called the Supreme. Both the families had and bloodshed, both the families had
emphasised on learning and wisdom as lost many of their loved and dear ones,
against conventional education and were not just relatives but close friends too.
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #51 | SEPTEMBER 2023 41
