Blood Brothers : A Family Saga

Contents: 1. Prayaag. 2. Dreams. 3. Conversion. 4. Pleasures. 5. Dread. 6. Dervish. 7. Aphrodisiac. 8. Desire. 9. Krishna. 10. Words. 11. Sahibs. 12. Bridges. 13. Blood. 14. Brahma. 15. Friends. 16. Stars. 17. Offering. 18. Bikini. 19. Brothers.

"Blood Brothers is M.J. Akbar\'s amazing story of three generations of a Muslim family - based on his own - and how they deal with the fluctuating contours of Hindu-Muslim relations.

Telinipara, a small Jute Mill town some 30 miles North of Kolkata along the Hooghly, is a complex Rubik\'s Cube of migrant Bihari workers, Hindus and Muslims; Bengalis, poor and \'bhadralok\'; and Sahibs who live in the safe, \'foreign\' world of Victoria Jute Mill. Into this scattered inhabitation enters a child on the verge of starvation, Prayaag, who is saved and adopted by a Muslim family, converts to Islam and takes on the name of Rahmatullah.

As Rahmatullah knits Telinipara into a community, friendship, love, trust and faith are continually tested by the cancer of riots. Incidents - conversion, circumcision, the arrival of plague or electricity - and a fascinating array of characters - the ultimate Brahmin, Rahmatullah\'s friend Girija Maharaj, the workers\' leader, Bauna Sardar, the storyteller, Talat Mian, the poet-teacher, Syed Ashfaque, the smiling mendicant, Burha Deewana, the sincere Sahib, Simon Hogg, and then the questioning, demanding third generation of the author and his friend Kamala - interlink into a narrative of social history as well as a powerful memoir.

Blood Brothers is a chronicle of its age, its canvas as enchanting as its narrative, a personal journey through change as tensions build, stretching the bonds of a lifetime to breaking point and demanding, in the end, the greatest sacrifice. Its last chapters, written in a bare-bones, unemotional style, are the most moving as the author searches for hope amid raw wounds with a surgeon\'s Scalpel." (jacket)