By Kalyani Thakur Charal, translated from Bengali by Asit Biswas

From Kalyani Thakur Charal, one of India’s most vital voices for Dalit women, comes this evocative novel about displacement, resilience, and rebuilding.

In 1947 and again in 1971, entire communities in the South Asian subcontinent crossed newly drawn borders, seeking refuge as partitions divided and reshaped nations. Kalyani Thakur’s evocative novel tells the story of her people, Dalits of the Matua sect, who settled around Andhar Bil, a local water body, in a newly formed country. This new bil, a reflection of the one they left behind, becomes a place where refugees slowly and painfully rebuild their lives.

Children play in and around the bil, the novel’s central character, while people fish and cook in ways that evoke the flavours of home. Festivals and boat races unfold, jute is harvested and sold, floods push people to higher ground, and marriages are arranged amidst property disputes. The still waters of the bil hold these stories, with the boroi tree standing in the centre, a silent witness to it all.

At the heart of this episodic, loosely woven narrative is the story of Kamalini, a young girl who will one day leave her beloved Andhar Bil for the city – just as her parents’ generation left their villages and their cherished bil for a new land.

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