RED GLASS BANGLES

Abstract

Red Glass Bangles is a novella set in Toronto in the early seventies. A Sikh Punjabi bride named Sukhi finds herself in a whirlwind of adapting to life in Canada. Her inherited memory of the traumatic past, specifically of the violence against women during the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947, creates a psychological lens for her existential survival. In the prologue we learn about the communal violence in Katua, a village in Punjab, where dozens of women, children and men, including Sukhi’s grandparents and aunt, were murdered during Partition. The story unfolds in Sukhi’s voice as she struggles to balance her traditional marriage and aspirations of independence in Canada with her longing for family and friends back home. Sukhi’s mental state deteriorates. Eventually she loses her grip on reality and enters her own world, in which her art and imagination unfold the trauma of her past.