A History of Burning

Contents
 
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 
 Part One: 1898–1958
 
 Pirbhai, 1898
 Sonal, 1902
 Sonal, 1917
 Vinod, 1926
 Vinod, 1935
 Pirbhai, 1946
 Rajni, 1947
 Rajni, 1948
 Vinod, 1954
 Pirbhai & Sonal, 1956
 Pirbhai, 1958
 
 
 Part Two: 1962–1972
 
 Latika, 1962
 Arun, 1965
 Latika, 1968
 Mayuri, 1970
 Kiya, 1971
 Vinod, 1972
 Latika & Arun, 1972
 Rajni, 1972
 
 
 Part Three: 1974–1992
 
 Rajni, 1974
 Mayuri, 1977
 Hari, 1978
 Kiya, 1981
 Latika, 1981
 Vinod, 1985
 Latika, 1986
 Hari, 1988
 Latika, 1991
 Rajni, 1991
 Rajni & Vinod, 1991
 Mayuri & Kiya & Meetu, 1991
 Hari, 1991
 Rajni, Vinod, Mayuri, Kiya, & Hari, 1992
 Epilogue
 
 Acknowledgments
 Discover More
 About the Author
 Reading Group Guide
 
 
 Navigation
 
 
 
 
 
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Janika Oza
 Cover design by Albert Tang
 Cover illustration by Simone Noronha
 Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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 First Edition: May 2023
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Oza, Janika, author.
 Title: A history of burning / Janika Oza.
 Description: First edition. | New York : Grand Central Publishing, 2023.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2022053116 | ISBN 9781538724248 (hardcover) | ISBN
 9781538724262 (ebook)
 Subjects: LCGFT: Domestic fiction. | Novels.
 Classification: LCC PR9199.4.O97 H57 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20221104
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022053116
 ISBN: 9781538724248 (hardcover), 9781538724262 (ebook
 E3-20230317-DA-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Part One
 1898–1958
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Pirbhai, 1898
 
 THE LAST DAY PIRBHAI SPENT in Gujarat was ignited by a sun that could not last. The heat was a dry beast, scorching the fields yellow as gora hair. He eased himself onto a step by the water’s edge, letting his chappals graze the foam. Jamnagar offered him nothing. For as long as he could remember, every day was the same. By foot, or sometimes hitching a ride on the back of a cart, he wandered the streets, pleading for work. Today the landowner barely raised his eyes, and he knew he was probably one of many boys turned away. Look around you, dikro, the man had muttered. Do you see any rice, any grain? Dry, all dry. Come back after monsoon. When Pirbhai pointed to the white buds bursting across a field, the man laughed until he coughed. His lips cracked and blood pulsed on his stained teeth. Those are for British exports. Not for us.
 That morning, Pirbhai had watched his ma ask the gods for forgiveness, praying over his middle sister, whose bones clacked as though loose inside her skin. For days her body had expelled water—sweat-water, wiwi-water, chee-water—and now she was limp and dry as the crops outside. When his ma had turned to him and told him to try Jamnagar today, that a neighbor’s son had found work there last week, Pirbhai had imagined saying no. He had thought about rolling over on his sleeping mat, refusing to leave home and playing gilli danda with his siblings in the deadened grass instead. They would fight over who got to be striker and who fielder, and as the eldest, Pirbhai would get first pick. He would strike the gilli all the way to the sea, and his siblings would whistle, Ma looking on in awe.
 But he was thirteen, the oldest son, no longer a boy. If he returned bearing nothing again, Ma would suck in her cheeks, then silently scrape her portion onto his plate; a reminder of the strength he would need for tomorrow. Bhai, his mother always called him, brother, reminding him of who he was, to whom he was responsible.
 The reddening sky warned him to start his journey back, but the wind pulling off the water stilled him. He pressed his palms to his face, the imprint of the sun behind his eyelids a single ember. When he opened his eyes, there was a man. A merchant, his belt buckle polished and skin supple and oiled so that its brown shone almost gold. The man shifted a lump of tobacco in his cheek, exposing teeth like chipped bricks.
 “Looking for work, dikro?”
 Pirbhai nodded, eyeing him, too weary from the day to believe.
 The man opened his fist for a second. It was long enough for Pirbhai to spy a pile of coins, grimy but solid, winking in the late afternoon light.
 “You and I, we were meant