Acknowledgements

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Although I bear sole responsibility for any errors and unintended omissions, this book is very much a collective achievement. I could not possibly have written it without the help of a great many people who contributed to its evolution in a myriad of ways. Numerous dear friends and extended family members were forced to read or listen to drafts of various sections of the manuscript. Their invaluable feedback pulled me out of bouts of self-doubt, offered me support on this difficult emotional journey, and helped me fill in gaps in the story. For their spirit of camaraderie and their wise guidance during the writing of this book, I am deeply indebted to the following individuals:

In India: Ghanshyam Agarwal, Sheela Agarwal, Shanti Bajpai, Kusum Bajpai, Rakesh Bhaiya, Prabha Bhaiya, Virendra Dangi, Prem Dave, Sona Godfrey, Kusum Jain, Indira Jena, T. J. Jitha, Anjum Joad, Anila Kothari, Khatija Khader, Vijay Kumar, Navin Lalji, Surbhi Manocha, Panchanan Misr, Mynoo Maryel, Anil Nauriya, Chandrabala Parnami, Apeksha Pendharkar, Kittu Reddy, Asharani Sahay, Sadhna Shrivastava, Ram Kumar Singh, Amita Sinha, Arun Sinha, Indra Kumar Sinha, Kamalapati Sinha, Kriti Sinha, Kusum Sinha, Niket Sinha, Prabha Sinha, Rajiv Ranjan Sinha, Suresh Kumar Sinha, Umapati Sinha, Aruna Srivastava, Jayati Srivastava, Prem Surana, Kusum Tai, D. D. Tiwari, Krishna Tiwari, Rashmi Tiwari, Vibhavasu Tiwari, and Hemchand Vaidya.

In Canada and the United States: Barbara Ballermann, Elisabeth Ballermann, Don Beacham, Janine Brodie, Rhiannon Bury, Eric Butterworth, Jean Crozier, Ann Marie Dewhurst, Dale Dewhurst, Chitra Divakaruni, Rosie Dransfeld, Caterina Edwards, Alvin Finkel, Ann Goldblatt, Lorelei Hanson, Myrna Kostash, Darlene Lavender, Manijeh Mannani, Karen Nielsen, Kel Pero, Jay Smith, Malinda Smith, Lorna Stefanick, Anneli Twan, Wanja Twan, Karen Wall, and Janice Williams.

I am fortunate to have a large “family of the heart”—my dilon ke rishte, to borrow Amma’s expression, so often quoted by my mother—scattered across several continents. It is impossible to name them all, but I especially wish to express my gratitude to my dear friends Valerie Luyckx and Thomas Mueller. Thank you, dear Valerie, for being the sister I never had—for your unstinted support, for our ardent discussions over the years, and for your infinite generosity of spirit. And thank you, dear Thomas, for your ability to combine the detachment of a clinician with unreserved affection and for sending me the piece by Alexander Stille to help me think through the dilemmas involved in writing about family.

I will be forever indebted to Abha Choudhary, my mother’s sister, for her gracious support. My aunt patiently answered questions and forgave my frustration when she could not recall minute details such as the kind of printing press that Babu owned or the name of the movie that Amma screened in Jaipur to raise money for home repairs. She also surprised me many times by remembering, for example, that Babu wrote poems, which he kept but never published, or that we once received a letter from him that was postmarked Pondicherry, the site of Sri Aurobindo’s ashram. As her knowledge of English is limited, she did not read the manuscript, and I am deeply grateful to her for trusting me to portray her fairly.

I am also indebted to the late Maitreyi Pathak (who appears in the narrative as Maitreyi didi) for sharing her memories of Amma and Babu—and for persuading Amma to consider a marriage proposal from a landowning family in Bihar. Without her, my mother and father would never have met, and neither I nor this book would exist! Special thanks to my brothers Peeyush Sinha and Amit Choudhary for being keepers of family history. I am especially grateful to Peeyush for his diligence in saving Amma’s one surviving diary, and his capacity to pay attention to details often compensated for my lapses in memory.

Two archivists—Antonia Moon, at the British Library, in London, and Vijay Kumar, at the Bihar State Archives, in Patna—went beyond the call of duty in assisting with my research, often directing me to sources that I might otherwise never have found. In an era of shrinking budgets, heightened scrutiny of research activities, and challenges to academic freedom, researchers everywhere should be grateful for such exemplary dedication to ensuring that crucial archival documents are neither destroyed nor hidden away from view.

Thank you to the incredible team at Athabasca University Press for bringing this project to final fruition and, especially, for helping an academic author walk the wholly unfamiliar territory of creative writing. I am immensely grateful to Lesley Peterson for her transformative editing of the manuscript—for her uncanny ability to unclutter my characteristically wordy phrasing while carefully preserving individual voices, for her sensitivity to the overall arc of the narrative, and for her close attention to issues of chronology. I owe a special debt of thanks to Pamela Holway, senior editor at AU Press, whose scholarly background lies in Sanskrit literature and whose knowledge of Indian culture and history proved to be indispensable. This book is the richer for her thoughtful questions and comments and her willingness to enter into narrative, both intellectually and emotionally. I am grateful as well to Megan Hall for her faith in the project and for her help with images and with the book’s companion website. Perhaps above all, I thank Athabasca University Press for its ongoing contributions to social justice and equity, not only through the books it publishes but also through its open access policy.

Finally, words are not enough to thank my dear husband, Sanjiv Shrivastava, the eternally patient physicist. He walked with me every step of this arduous but precious journey. His selfless generosity, boundless love, and incisive intellect have been my guide and anchors in times of crisis and uncertainties. No doubt he is as relieved as I am to see this writing project come to a conclusion. Breathe easy, my love, until the next one.