Author Description

Review Roller-Coaster: My Early Years by Rao Rashid is filled with lively descriptions of pre-partition life in East Punjab and leads upto the early years of Pakistan. --Dawn Newspaper, books & authors, March 5,2006 Product Description The author was born in Haryana which encircles Delhi. His village, Kalanaur, was the centre of the Panwar Rajputs. The Rajputs were both Hindus and Muslims and there were many class and racial affinities between the two groups. Indeed being Rajput or not was a significant part of the definition of identity in that part of the world before religious differences assumed salience. This is a fact which many contemporary writers, blinkered by the two nation theory, conceal but the author has described it candidly. Similarly he has not concealed the fact that upper class men exploited lower class women sexually and even asserted the right of the first night(droit du seigneur) upon the luckless, low-caste, pleasantry. The author s mother was outstanding person who saved her children from feeling inferior and malnourishment. He brings out the courage, compassion and foresight of her character. His brother also helped bring his up and even paid for his education at Aligarh University. He describes his brother as a selfless intellectual deeply devoted to the common people. When he migrated to Pakistan he became a people s leader in Renala Khurd. It is a measure of Rao Rashid s humanity that he understands and approves of this kind of politics. The author narrates events about his school, village, family and university with frankness and simplicity. He gives us a fair picture of life in the village before the partition without making the Hindus monsters of iniquity and Muslims paragons of virtue. His praise of a Hindu politician, Sir Chotu Ram, is both generous and unbiased. He also does not hide the poverty of his house but what emerges strongly from these intimate portrays is the strong sense of family bonding and faith in the