Book: Rupture: stories on the sorrow of Kashmir
Translator: Dr Javaid Iqbal Bhat
Author: Rattan Lal Shant
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 144
inam ul rehman
For years I have been longing to read a book that makes me experience the Kashmiri Pandits condition in exile. Rahul Pandit’s much-acclaimed book "Our moon has blood clots” mostly dealt with Kashmir Pandits conditions in Kashmir peppered with exile ordeals in refugee camps. Siddharth Gigoo’s “Garden of solitude”, which came earlier than Rahul’s book, partly mentioned the ordeals of living in a single tent under the scorching heat. However, nothing comes to mind which tells different stories of the same exiled communities. In a way it's surprising that the Kashmiri Pandits haven’t written a lot on living in exile. Even only Ashok Pandit and Vidhu Vinod Chopra crafted two films—Sheen and Shikara. While the former is not much to be talked about the latter is a beautifully crafted film. But apart from that no Kashmiri Pandit, I think, tried to write or film anything of their exile. Or it just didn’t get published in the English language.
Rattan Lal Shant’s stories on living in exile would have perhaps remained in oblivion without Javaid Iqbal Bhat. Rattan Lal’s stories written in Kashmiri and translated into English encapsulates three decades of bonhomie, rancour, distrust, human bonding, loss, and life, et al.
As the translator of this book, Javaid sets the tone of every story with his abstract (which makes it easier for weekly reviewers to review). It starts in the year 1979. Two friends—Hindu and Muslim, returning from Jammu encounter a premonition of things to come while entering Kashmir. Rattan Lal’s finesse in bringing the undercurrent tension of a tumultuous year to the fore through a trivial conversation is what sets this story (Snow) apart.
After a couple of stories set in the late 70s and early 80s, the rest of the stories move to the 90s where Kashmiri Pandits are living in exile.
Of the 12 stories, 10 are set on post-migration. One of the stories (Water) is poignant where a Kashmir Pandit family returns to the Valley after 10 years to meet their former neighbour whose daughter has gone insane on account of her brother being killed in a cross-firing between militants and troopers. Caught in their own dilemma the Pandit family does not know how to console Taseleema. Rattan Lal captures Kashmiri Muslims’ dilemma when Taseleem’s father says, “There is not one plague after us! Maybe he (a militant friend of Tasleema’s brother) now feels that the military is patronising us! And on the contrary, even the military is not getting off our backs. Their spies are also doing circles around us.” In another story “Intervention” Rattan Lal shows the racist nature of Kashmiris, and when I write Kashmiris it includes everyone born in Kashmir. Here Autar Krishan comes to Jammu, seven years after most Kashmir Pandits had left the Valley, to lit the pyre of his mother-in-law. Autar Krishan’s refusal to migrate had convinced the Kashmir Pandits in Jammu that he has renounced his religion. Only when he assures that he has now come to stay as a refugee his community members had a “peaceful sleep”.
Rapture captures the essence of what the Kashmir Pandits lost, and their perseverance to preserve a past from which they were deracinated. The Pandits even lost their Gods in exile. This emotive tale is beautifully captured in “Gauri’s Dev Gaam”. A scintillating tale of a woman who is able to bring the Valley’s God to Jammu all by herself. It is a story of a woman against men, of tradition, of resilience, of never giving up, of loneliness, of indefatigability. Here is a story that has all the potential to become a beautiful piece of visual art.
Just when you are thinking that these stories are philosophical Rattan Lal, in his afterword, writes, “Characters in my stories, who have borne the struggle and restlessness of the last 15 years, are true, because their miseries, pain, compulsions, and mental apprehensions are based on truth. The attempt of my stories,” writes Rattan Lal in his beautiful afterword, “is that they evoke this truth of pain and suffering purely on the humanitarian plane so that the reader does not only remain a spectator but also carries a little of their pain.” This humanitarian plane is evident throughout the 12 stories. My surprise is that Rattan Lal’s fiction has not been adapted for picturisation. These stories have empathy, pathos, shrewdness, avarice, brotherhood, tragedy, and human bonding, et al.
About the translator
A translator’s craft is evident when he is not noticed. When the reader feels he is reading exactly the way the original has been written or visualised by the author. Here Javaid has done a commendable job. It is never easy to translate a book which is filled with “pauses”, rituals and customs peculiar to a particular community.
I know Javaid since my Amar Singh College days (2000-2003). We were four friends, and Javaid was the brightest of us all. During college days Javaid’s write-ups would regularly appear in the daily "Greater Kashmir". His writing was envious then. He was keen on two things: PG in English literature from the prestigious JNU, and make a career in academics. Unfortunately, in 2007/08 he was not selected as an assistant professor in the main campus of the University of Kashmir, and in his place, a person was recruited, whom even if you meet today you would come to know why our institutions have decayed. Instead, he was selected for the South Campus of the University. Javaid did his PhD at Ohio University, USA. This is his second book.
Design of the book
The publisher's OUP has given it a bland look. It looks like an academic book and therefore book surfers will instantly skip it. There are no pics of the author and translator as well.
Hopefully, this translation should spur more such collaborations between Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits. And while politics may continue to divide them literature will help them to live with their differences.
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