Tales of Two Cities

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In Tales of Two Cities, two eminent journalists - Kuldip Nayar and Asif Noorani - give their personal accounts of the Partition of India, the killings and massive migrations which it provoked and their subsequent impact on Indo-Pakistan relations. As a young law graduate, Kuldip Nayar witnessed at first hand the collapse of trust between communities in Sialkot and was forced to migrate with his family to Delhi across the blood-stained plains of Punjab. He vividly describes his own perilous journey and his first job as a young journalist in an Urdu newspaper reporting on Gandhi's assassination. Asif Noorani, while still a schoolboy in Bombay, set off with his family by steamer across the Arabian Sea for the promised land of Pakistan, ultimately settling in Karachi. He gives his own compelling account of the difficulties faced by the new arrivals and the slow emergence of today's megacity with its dominant Mohajir culture. Both authors write with authority about their ancestral homes and their adopted cities, which have played so large a role in bilateral relations. This is a book about a trauma which transformed the subcontinent and still exerts a powerful influence today. These are personal narratives bringing to life a lost world of harmonious relations which each author in his own way is still to recreate.

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Kuldip Nayar is one of India's most well-known and widely syndicated journalists. He was born in Sialkot in 1923 and educated at Lahore University before migrating to Delhi with his family at the time of Partition. He began his career in the Urdu newspaper Anjam and after a spell in the USA worked first at the Planning Commission. He eventually became Resident Editor of The Statesman and Managing Editor of the Indian news agency, UNI. He corresponded for the Times for twenty-five years and later served as Indian High Commissioner to the UK during the V.P. Singh government. His stand for press freedom during the Emergency, when he was detained, his role as Chairperson of Citizens for Democracyand his commitment to better relations between India and Pakistan have won him respect and affection in both countries. His weekly columns are read across South Asia and he is the author of many books, including two on Indo-Pakistan relations, Distant Neighbours and Wall at Wagah. Asif Noorani is one of Pakistan's most versatile journalists, with a prolific output as a writer on cultural subjects, book reviewer, travel writer and humorist. He was born in Bombay in 1942 and moved with his family to Pakistan in 1950. While still at university in Karachi, he began editing Eastern Film, which became one of the country's most widely circulated magazines. In the mid-1980s, after fifteen years with a multinational in advertising and sales, he returned to the media, initially as General Manager Circulation for the Dawn group of newspapers and later as Editor of Star Weekend. He has been active in promoting better relations between India and Pakistan and enjoys visiting family and friends across the border. He has a passion for art, literature and music and a fine collection of vintage film songs and classical and semi-classical music from both countries. He currently works as an editorial consultant to Dawn newspaper and DawnNews TV and teaches media studies at a university in Karachi.