Jyot survives Partition only to become a chaurasia, one who lost her family during the riots of 1984. Violence continues to stalk her even as she migrates to the US and she faces the racism that plagues America post 9/11. Nooran fills her mother’s piece of Bagh embroidery with images of her own – the flies that she saw buzzing around her dead family’s bodies in the aftermath of Partition. Mr Malik tries to assuage his ancient guilt by helping the dispossessed and the displaced Sikhs in America who suffer in the aftermath of 9/11. The Radiance of a Thousand Suns spans multiple generations that were caught in the turbulence of Partition and in the violence spawned by the Khalistan movement, Operation Bluestar, the assassination of Indira Gandhi and 9/11. Wistful, elegiac and quietly compelling, this is a saga that carries within it the fragrance of Punjab and the spirit of its many displaced residents.