A siegefull love stories of Kashmir
Book: Loal Kashmir: Love and Longing in a Torn Land Author: Mehak Jamal Publisher: HarperCollins Pages: 343 inam ul rehman As I received the pre-ordered book I was impressed with its cover design and illustration of Veer Misra and Basita Shah. As a reader I always skip blurbs, quotes by others regarding books because I don’t want my opinion coloured by these, second, it usually is done to please the publishing house or the author. Hence holds no value for serious readers. The book, as the author states, fructified during the traumatic events of reading down of Article 370 and 35A in 2019 Jammu and Kashmir . Mehak Jamal’s book on love and longing starts with exuberance. In the early 90s when cordon and search operations were norm in Kashmir¬¬—where people used to be paraded before masked men sitting in armed gypsies—17-year-old Javid tries to dodge one such operation, notoriously known as a crackdown , but finds himself late to escape. As he moves to...