My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.”
----Anne Bradstreet
Nayeema Mahjoor, an Indian writer, pens a terrific and gripping tale of one woman and an Indian state fighting against injustice of the government and the so-called society's norms that oppressed the freedom of both, in her new book, Lost in Terror. Here the author weaves a sad and heart breaking story of a daughter of the valley disrupted by war and this woman gets caught up between the crossfires from both ends, one fighting for freedom and the other oppressing the rebellions.
Synopsis:
Cast in the background of the uprising against the armed forces in Kashmir in the late 1980s, Lost in Terror is the tale of a young, educated, career-conscious woman who finds herself sucked into a maelstrom of death and destruction. She also cherishes the dream of Azadi and plays strong to face the wrath of Indian soldiers. But when she finds her husband’s discreet links with gunmen obsessed with the dream of Azadi, she becomes fragile and begins to lose her hold on her home, her relationships and Azadi itself.
When her dreams for a perfect family and a thriving career are turned upside down and her life comes to a standstill due to the turmoil around her, fate offers her a leap of faith—but will she take it?
The author herself here decodes her life story during her childhood, adulthood and womanhood days in an unrest Kashmir, when the fight for freedom by the mujahideen has just began, followed by the deployment of the Indian army from the central government of India. She meticulously pens her unharmed and free childhood days filled with reading story books, playing with her sisters and her father, strolling freely in the streets of Srinagar and so on, and how her father against the wishes of the so-called society and her relatives, sent her and her sisters to school citing equal rights to education for Kashmiri girls. And also how her father never scared away from allowing her daughters to go outside the perimeter of their homes to get a job and earn money, despite of the resistance from the society. Although her education and job became a challenge for her after marriage where though it was welcomed that a daughter-in-law can go outside and earn money like a male member of a family. In her in-laws house, her marriage gradually began to turn nightmarish for her with the changing times in Kashmir. So along with Kashmir's injustice, the author too has to face the injustices imposes on her not only by the society but also by in-laws as well as her husband. In fact stepping foot outside the home can became a big gamble as the roads and the normal means of life was dominated by the army and one slight error in the movement can make her a culprit in the eyes of the army. She tried hard enough to stop her marriage from shattering into millions of pieces but as the conditions of Kashmir deteriorated, and so her marriage too became a constant struggle for her to keep up with her marital life.
Previously, I've read four novels on Kashmir and by Kashmiri authors, among them, there was one female author, who penned a fictional story about life in Kashmir, but after reading this book by this female author, I'm surprised to find out that Mahjoor has strikingly brought out the real-life hardcore pain that she underwent with during the resistance period in Kashmir. Although the books penned by the men were all equally arresting and realistic enough to strike a chord in the hearts of the readers, but reading this particular book where the author has specifically carved a sorrow-filled yet horrifyingly honest biography about women's life in Kashmir. Hats off to the author for not being shying away to pen the most embarrassing and struggling periods of her life, that will not only grasp the readers but will also make them think beyond the beauty and charm of this valley of paradise.
Six months back, I went for a trip to this very same valley of paradise called Kashmir, where there's no doubt that I was greeted by the sights of the snow-capped mountains, clear blue streams, green flora and the untamed beauty of the Kashmir, but hardly I got any hint to the pain that the folks of the valley endured during the time of resistance, despite of the fact that every nook-and-corner of the valley is now under Indian army's protection. During my stay, I bought some Kashmiri fiction books those helped me to get the real picture of Kashmir. The author, in this book, has vividly portrayed through her simple and articulate writing style that will help the readers get a visually bright and clear image of the Kashmir during the 90s. While reading, I was once again, teleported as well as transported to Kashmir that embraced me with open arms.
Although this biographical tale does not majorly focuses on the struggle or the negative aspects of the freedom struggle movement in Kashmir during the 90s, but mostly captures the pain of a Kashmiri woman and the oppressed lifestyle they lead behind the black veil and under the dominance of the male figure in their household. The one thing that irked me a bit is the fact that the author failed to capture the sorrow inflicted upon the people of Kashmir by the jihadis strikingly, whereas the author did not once failed to capture the pain inflicted by the army and the government of India, so this is where the book as well as the author let me down on being mildly partial towards the lost cause.
The character sketch of herself and so her family member from her thoughtful father to her rogue husband to her grief-stricken sisters to the daring and loving sister-in-law to the neighbors to the careless as well as careful folks of Kashmir are well crafted out with realism and truth in their voices and demeanor. The characters will maintain a firm grip into the minds of the readers all through out the story and not even for once will let the readers to turn away their heads from this enthralling yet evocative story.
Overall, this is a thought-provoking yet sorrowful story of one woman fighting and trying to stand against the society's dominating rules against the women, set against the quaint backdrop of Kashmir.
Verdict: An eye-opening account about the lives of people, especially women in the valley of mountains and wild beauty.
Courtesy: Thanks to the author's publishers from Penguin India for giving me an opportunity to read and review this book.
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Author Info:
Nayeema Mahjoor is a leading journalist and fiction writer of Kashmir. She has previously worked as news editor (Urdu) at BBC World Service in London for two decades, and travelled from South Asia to the Middle East to Europe in search of big issues facing people, particularly women. Her unique style of short-story-writing has earned her fame in literary circles and been translated in other languages. Her novel Dahshatzadi was published in India and Pakistan a few years ago.
Visit her here
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