YouSaid · the spoken record

Mishal Husain

lines on the record
59
first
2024-12-23
most recent
2024-12-23
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “Yes, so this shawl, some of you might have read the book already because it's been out for a week. So those of you who have right in the introduction, I mentioned being given this as a wedding present by my mother's cousin, Sharmin. And when she gave it to me, she said, this shawl, this bit of embroidery, is the border of Asari. And that sari was given to my mother, i.e. my great aunt, on the occasion of my grandparents' wedding in 1940, when they got married, the bridegroom, my grandfather Shahid, he had five sisters, and their parents gave all five of them Asari for the wedding. And this particular cousin of my mother's was the daughter of one of those recipients of the Sari. And the Sari had frayed badly over the years, but just the border, which is the sort of most robust part of Asari designed to, you know, when you're walking, it's not going to...”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “To be citizens of Pakistan did involve a great deal of loss for three out of the four of them who were born in the territory of present day India. The title of the book, Broken Threads, it seems to me a metaphor for the whole story, but it also relates very specifically to a specific thing. So tell us the story of the wedding gift,”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “In South Asia. And I thought, actually, there's a story to tell about that group of people who were born in colonial India, who I think until the 1940s didn't think that independence would come, certainly didn't think it would come so soon, perhaps didn't even think it would come in their lifetimes, actually, even at that point. They certainly were born in a time when the British Empire looked like it was not going anywhere. 1931 was the inauguration of New Delhi as the capital of British India. Everything that we see, the Lutians, buildings and the layout, all of that was only inaugurated in 1931. And 16 years later, the Empire in India was gone. newly weds and parents of young children. And this huge seismic shift during which they chose”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “So I knew that my grandfather Shai had published a partition diary. So I knew they'd lived through amazing times, and I talked to my grandmother, Tyra, quite a lot about it. And then, so I think somewhere I thought I'd probably maybe write about them and that period in history. And then I thought, actually, I've got an Anglo-Indian grandmother who was mixed race. And my father's family had a story to tell too. And as I thought more and more about it and read more of the bits and pieces of writing they'd left behind and also listened to some tapes my grandmother had left behind, she said at one point, my generation was not really complete for a long time afterwards, meaning after 1947. And I thought her generation. And I thought, these are the people who in Britain we would call the wartime generation. And in America you'd call the greatest generation. And they were the founding generation of independence.”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Condition. Well, let's go back to the beginning then and tell us the impulse to write it then, given that it's been in the making for three years or so? Yes. And they're sort of, I knew that my mother's family in particular had seen some extraordinary times around just before and indeed after 1947 because my mother's parents shyed and Thyra, he worked for the last British commander-in-chief of the Indian Army as it happened in the 18 months before independence. And Claude Orkinleck, Phil Marshall Orkenleg, who had been a great Second World War general, and was in the hierarchy of British India the second most important person in British India. There's first the Viceroy and then the Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army. So he lived in the house that for all of you who know Delhi, Tin Murdibhavan, it was the home of Nehru as Prime Minister of India for many years and is today a museum. So that was Aucken Leck's house.”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Don't remember that. I remember feeling it for sure, but I don't remember saying it. But actually today I saw that Matthew Dankona did this review and in it he said, I look forward to the subsequent volumes and this chill passed over me and I also thought, I hope my husband doesn't read this because honestly the idea of subsequent volumes will fill him with horror as well. But this has been quite an epic. It's sort of part family saga and part There's some quite tough politics and tough periods of history in it but I felt all of that was true to my family's life you know because they they lived against this backdrop of major events that changed the course of their lives but obviously amid all of that life goes on you have marriages and children and divorces and you know every every other aspect of the human”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Through both Empire and independence. And that just sounds like a fairly straightforward sentence for those who don't know how traumatic and devastating that transition was from empire to independence. So it really is a vast landscape. And what she has done so brilliantly, I think, is to capture the stories of individuals that aren't just her grandparents. And we're going to talk about all of that tonight. Michelle, first of all, I don't know if you remember, but after you finished writing your last book, you told me that you would never write another book again.”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “Seen her. Astonishingly control seven leaders from the parties not so long ago and she is also going to be doing the big debate as we approach the election on the 26th of June between Rishi Sunak and Kir Starmer. So there's that to look forward to. But we're here today to talk about this, which I think is a really special book because it does a thing about big history in just the most captivating way. It's the story of her four grandparents”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Thank you very much, Connor. It's lovely to hear so many of you. Can't see you very well at the moment, but thank you all so much for coming. It's an absolute pleasure to be here on the stage with Michelle. We'd never done an event together, I don't think. We haven't. I'm being interviewed by Professor Ik Valle. I hadn't quite thought this through fully, Connor, until you introduced her in that way, because I obviously know Razier as my longtime student. And you're going to be interviewed, which is not a comfortable place for you, I don't think. So true. Be gentle with me, everyone. I'm not sure I can ask for that, really. People always say about very well-known people, oh, they don't need an introduction, but actually I was saying that's a bit mad. They do need an introduction. Michelle Hussain is a broadcaster, journalist for how many decades now? Two and a bit decades. Two, yeah, yeah. Presents the Today program on Radio 4, the 10 o'clock news on BBC One. Many of you will have...”

    2024-12-23 · Intelligence Squared · The 12 Books of Christmas | Mishal Husain on Family, Empire and Why Partition Still Matters · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT