hello and welcome back to my channel so here today we'll be discussing the novel a golden age by tamima Anam in the previous video we have discussed the overview and the character sketch so in this video now let's let us understand some important events and the summary of this novel so in the beginning of the novel Anam provides a map discussing the three countries that is West Pakistan India and East Pakistan Anam has given us the background of the partition through this map so it talks about 1947 when India gained independence from the British Raj so after this Independence the nation was divided into three parts or else we can say it gave birth to two more Nation hence with the independence two more nations were formed that is West Pakistan and East Pakistan West Pakistan is now known as Pakistan please not that and East Pakistan is now known as Bangladesh and provides a background of how their Nation Bangladesh which was earlier known as East Pakistan was colonized D first by the British Army and then by the West Pakistani government so through this novel Anam highlights the Journey of East Pakistan and how it became Bangladesh an independent nation now the novel begins with the prologue and we see the setting is in 1959 Daka East Pakistan now why East Pakistan because because it is yet to get Liberation therefore we cannot call it Bangladesh so here we meet Rana hug the major character who is near the tomb of her husband ibal so rana's husband is no more he is dead now so here uh near the tomb Rana says something which I quote dear husband I lost our children today what does she mean by this statement is that her husband ibal is no more now and he was working in an insurance company and due to his untimely death it has caused a lot of financial crisis for Rana and her children soal and Maya so here we are introduced with another character whose name is Fe so he is bal's brother and rahana's brother-in-law so here he decides to adopt rahana's children uh with his wife Parvin as they both are childless rahana even files the case against him as she don't want to leave her children of she don't want to keep them away from her as they were the only family left with her however F being a barister manages to win the custody and the case uh declaring rahana as poor and weak mother to look after her own children then faes and Parvin take soil and Maya with them to West Pakistan lar rahana was also seen as an outsider by them especially by fa as she has her original roots from Kolkata India and later she gets shifted with her husband to East Pakistan and there she adopts the Bengali culture so here tamima Anam highlights the issues between Bengali speakers and uru speakers although being a part of a same family please make a note that a golden age is itself a contribution and diasporic literature so it reflects the theme of alienation the therefore here Rana is observed as an outsider so the novel starts getting more interesting with the second chapter as the setting changes to March 1971 here we see rahana has become financially stable now she has built a big house in Daka she names it as shaa and she has rented a part of it to Mr and Mrs S Gupta and another very important thing is that she also brings back her children back to Daka that is in East Pakistan which were earlier with f living in uh West Pakistan in the novel rahana also has a very good friend and a neighbor Mrs Chri who is a single mother of Sylvie as her husband leaves her when she was not able to give him a son Sylvie and soil are of same age soal and Maya as they have come back now they are studying in the University of Daka and they are quite grown up they are the activist and they are dreaming for their country to become liberated and independent from the West Pakistan's dominance another important twist in the novel is that soal and sylvi love each other however sylv's mother arranges her a suor whose name is sabir who is a leftenant sylvi and sabid marries each other when West Pakistani army attacks the places in Daka so now let's understand about the attack which was the the true incident that happened in Bangladesh in 1971 and also how Bangladeshi Citizen and the Army fought in the War anamir describes the true historic event that took place in Bangladesh on 25th March 1971 year shik mujibur Rahman announced the Bangladesh's independence from the West Pakistani dominance so he makes this announcement in the morning and West Pakistani army comes and attack the Bangladesh citizen at night on on the same date though being a fiction novel let's understand uh how it took place in Bangladesh and how the citizen experienced that thing so before the war and after the announcement of The Liberation uh Mrs Chi throws a party and she invites rahana and her children along with Mr and Mrs S Gupta so during this time East Pakistan is attacked by the West Pakistani army this attack is known as operation search light it was carried out at night by the military force on the order of President yahaya Khan of the West Pakistan so everyone witnessed the War uh it was basically a genocide a genocide is something in which massive killing happens and brutal killing and brutal rapes happen in in particular place of a country the only demand of the East Pakistan or now the Bangladesh was that to set up their own government under the leadership of shik mujibur Rahman to have their own flag and their own nation's name Pakistan was not okay with it even after Bangladesh was liberated all activists and all the soldiers of Bangladesh came together and they decided to fight against this Injustice rahana was very much scared for her children's involvement in The Liberation War as they were already the activist however with the passage of time rahana overcomes her fear she allows her son to join the MTI bahini that is the Bengali gorilla force and her daughter to join op press in Kolkata which was writing against the uh West Pakistani dominance and their Injustice so Rana being a major character highlights the struggle of identity crisis as earlier mentioned it is a contribution to to diasporic literature so here rana's struggle is that she is not Bengali or Bengali is not her Roots she was born in Kolkata India and her in-laws are Udu speakers from the West Pakistan so she has this question constantly that where she exactly belongs from and question was that whether it is worth fighting for the nation which was not her and and where she was not exactly born however the concept of bang adesh gets clear in her mind and she allows her children to uh involve in the fight Rana also allows her house sha to turn into a gorilla Hideout where weapons were kept hidden uh of the Bangladeshi soldiers even rahana and other female friends of her contributed silently in this war so they sued blankets from their old saries they made pickles and other food arrangements for the soldiers so during the war rahana meets major whose name is not mentioned clearly so he is the head of soil and the gorilla Army rahana was worried initially to allow a men in her house when she was alone in the absence of her own children but however uh they become more friendly with the course of time rahana gives him shelter as he was badly injured and she even takes care of him later their born grows was more stronger where major talks about his life and how he was married to a Hindu girl who who later died also rahana confesses how she had gained the money to build shaa and to get back her children from Lor it was not revealed in the previous chapter of how rahana gains a lot of money to build a house and gain back her children major tries to confront this in which rahana breakdowns and confesses how she gained the money so here rahana basically steals jewelry from an old Blind Man's house where she was called to marry him but however the old man was displeased by her behavior and he asks her to leave there Rihanna manages to steal some of the gold which was kept open and she does that uh because the because the man was already blind so nobody notice what she does there rahana and major fall for each other which she conf this is by the end of the war on her husband's tomb so the war which began from 25th March 1971 continues for the next few months so here rana's tenant Mr and Mrs sin Gupta get killed Maya's best friend sharmine is raped and is killed even so's friend joy and Arif dies sylv's husband is tortured and rahana however helps him to get release with the help of f connection but sair gets so much traumatized by the torture done by the Pakistani army he dies at the end uh originally the war ends with the collaboration of the Indian army with mukti bahini and both forces defeat the West Pakistan the war ends on 16th December killing over 3 million of the Bangladesh's population and over a million of people migrated to India so shik mujibur Rahman becomes the president of the newly formed Nation hence this period was a golden age for the Bangladeshi citizens so here we come to the end of the novel's discussion so this novel is described from a Bangladesh's perspective of not only how they see the war but how they have experienced it we also have uh novels written from the Pakistani perspective and also the effect post war mentioned in the major novels of Indian literature so if you interested in understanding the uh point of views of different nations over this partition you can read several literature produced in Pakistan maybe in India and then in Bangladesh and parts of Asia where this partition plays important role so if you like this video and felt anywhere helpful please share this video do subscribe this Channel and we'll see you in the next one