Chhotu : a tale of partition and love / Varud Gupta, [illustration] Ayushi Rastogi.

Gurgaon : Ebury Press, Penguin Random House India, 2019.

166 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 22 cm

The year is 1947. The British are slowly marking their departure from the country. And while Partition looms large over India, Chhotu, a student-cum-paranthe-cook in the dusty gullies of Chandni Chowk, has other things on his mind-like feeling the first flushes of love of his crush, Heer, the new girl at school. When he finally decides to make a move, Chhotu soon finds the town's aloo has suddenly gone missing, reluctantly embroiling himself into the world of corruption, crime and dons. As he struggles to understand what freedom truly means, Chhotu realizes one thing is for certain-that his world, and the world of those around him, is about to change forever. Set against the backdrop of Partition and the horrors that followed, Chhotu is a coming-of-age story of an unlikely hero and a parable of a past that doesn't feel too removed from the present.

English

April 24, 2023