“Nimmo would tell women today to speak up, whatever the cost”

Powar was candid about her regret at not writing the novel in Punjabi in the first place. “I actually feel sorry that I did not write it in Punjabi originally. But this story had to be in Punjabi. It is Punjab’s story,” she said. For her, translation was not merely an artistic exercise but an act of responsibility. “Whatever my land has gone through, whatever its history and its traumas are, I want them recorded and documented in the language of the soil.”

While Partition literature often foregrounds politics and power, Powar deliberately turns the lens towards ordinary lives. “The biggest tragedy of Partition was the human damage,” she said. “Many people think of it only as the creation of a new nation, but the real story is about families being torn from their homes, their land and their roots.” One moment in the novel captures this anguish when a Muslim family asks how a land where their ancestors are buried could suddenly stop being their country. For Powar, this sense of dispossession, rather than the redrawing of borders, is the true heartbreak of Partition.

Sahnewal itself is rendered with striking detail. Powar reconstructed the village through memories of childhood holidays spent with her grandmother, oral histories from friends and family and records of the British Indian Army. Trees, fabrics, ornaments and everyday objects are carefully observed. “Every texture, every sound and every shade of village life mattered,” she said, adding that these details were essential to the story’s authenticity.

Women’s lives form the emotional centre of the novel. Patriarchy, Powar noted, was “the air women breathed”. Yet within this restrictive world, women displayed resilience and quiet strength, holding families together and protecting one another. She was careful not to romanticise them. “I did not want to paint them as goddesses. They are human, layered and flawed, full of hurt and courage at the same time,” she said.

This complexity is evident in characters such as Hanso, Nimmo’s co wife, who begins as resentful but gradually recognises where the real injustice lies. “She sees Nimmo’s pain for what it is and even stands up to Hukum. That mattered to me. These are women who are pushed down, but not broken,” Powar said.

A trained psychologist, Powar brings a clinical understanding to her portrayal of trauma. She spoke of how women were conditioned to endure and internalise guilt that was never theirs. “Honour was tied entirely to a woman’s body, not to her integrity or heart,” she said. During Partition, this warped idea of honour led to families killing their own daughters to protect reputations, while men’s actions went unquestioned. “Those contradictions sit at the core of patriarchy,” she said.

Writing the Partition scenes was especially difficult. Powar described the pain of uprooting and the loss of identity as something that cannot fully be captured on the page. Yet she anchors the novel in human resilience, particularly through Nimmo. “I wanted her to be ordinary, not exceptionally beautiful or gifted. Just a girl any woman can relate to,” she said.

Raen Bhaee Chahu Des is part of a larger literary journey. Powar is currently working on a sequel centred on Tara, the child Nimmo leaves behind, along with forthcoming books on the women in Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s life and on Punjabi legends and folk tales.