About the Book
My Life, Pakistan and the Great Balidan
Every act of creation has the potential to change the world, whether a little bit at a time or all at once. The creation of Pakistan, in 1947, certainly changed the geopolitical landscape of the world forever. But the lives of more than fifteen million people were changed as well, with the partitioning of India sowing hatred and division between generational neighbors, turning long-standing harmony into brutally violent dissonance, and displacing entire families from their ancestral homes.
This is the personal memoir of Author Zaki Sabih, who nearly eighty years ago found himself among those displaced millions, torn from both his homeland and his idyllic childhood for reasons he was far too young at the time to understand.
But it is more than a memoir as well: It is the story of the millions of Indian Muslims who were slaughtered and betrayed in the name of Pakistan; an overt criticism of religious extremism and ultranationalism; and finally, a fiercely taken stance on the vital importance of secularism in all aspects of the political sphere.
Zaki Sabih
About the Author
Author Zaki Sabih has long been a student and serious reader of history, focusing particularly on that of India, Pakistan, and Islam. After witnessing the generational trauma inflicted on his people and his family by the partition of India, and the suffering of his mother, in particular (who carried with her the pain of it for the rest of her life), he was determined to gain a deeper understanding of both how and why it was ever allowed to come to pass. It is with this long- and hard-earned understanding that he has now chosen to write this book … in the hopes of ensuring that its story is never repeated, and its people never forgotten.
When he is not writing, working, or reading, Zaki enjoys simple pleasures, such as gardening, coin and stamp collecting, playing chess, and writing poetry, with his first collection of poems, The Weightier Matters (AuthorHouse) having been published in 2022.
Zaki lives with his wife, Shaheen, in New Jersey, USA.
