6 days ago
‘Loal Kashmir' review: Stories of love and longing from Kashmir
'Someone from outside Kashmir—if they have to live here even for a little while, they'd go insane," says Madeeha, a girl from Baramulla, in the story titled, Blue Salwar Kameez in Mehak Jamal's debut book, Loal Kashmir.
Poets have often called love an insanity, a disease that destroys the one who experiences it, steals their tranquility and sleep; its only reward being the sights, sounds and smell of the beloved. Loal Kashmir takes you into this world of love and insanity told through 16 non-fiction stories, exploring the human cost of conflict and the resilience of lovers in the troubled land we call Kashmir.
Loal, as Jamal writes in her introduction 'is the Kashmiri word for love and affection". In popular imagination, love and Kashmir are words that don't seem to go together. Jamal seeks to bridge that gap for the reader and present Kashmir, not from the perspective of mainstream Indian media, but as a land of lovers; the ones who would walk for miles just to get a glimpse of their beloved, travel outside the state during a lockdown just to hear the voice of a loved one, or prepare for a wedding against all odds.
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These stories, told to Jamal by people who have faced the twin demons of militancy and army atrocities for decades, are full of beautiful nuances, without being preachy. As her homeland limps back to normalcy after being the epicentre of the recent conflict between India and Pakistan—with scores dead, hundreds injured, and several houses destroyed in shelling—these narratives feel all the more valuable.
The book is divided into three sections—Otaru (Day Before Yesterday), Rath (Yesterday), and Az (Today)— each capturing different periods of Kashmir's history. The first part tells stories from the early days of militancy, where love letters and stolen moments kept relationships alive. The second section focuses on the years of protests and curfews after another bout of unrest in 2008. The final section, the most powerful, takes place after the abrogation of Article 370—which gave the state partial autonomy and barred non-locals from buying land there. During this period, an intense communication blackout made even a simple phone call impossible. Each story reflects the resilience of people who find ways to hold on to love, no matter the obstacles, their struggles blooming like lilies in marshy waters.
As the author puts it, her book is an answer to the question: what happens when you cannot communicate your longing for the beloved? One of the most poignant moments in the book comes in the story, Fight or Flight. A mother waits in a queue at Srinagar's Lal Chowk to wish her daughter Batul, an air hostess working in Saudi Arabia, on her birthday. The incident takes place during the Article 370 lockdown. Batul's mother stood in queue for eight hours to make a call that would last 60 seconds. During this brief call, she only managed to convey that the family was 'doing alright". In her second attempt, she sends a voice note through a conduit. Batul plays the voice note every day like it is a love song.
Of course, romantic love takes centrestage in Loal Kashmir, and the stories immerse the reader in a world of surprise proposals, tuition classes where teenage love blooms, rusty Matador buses and a love letter that saves a boy from being perceived as militant. In this world, romance coexists with death, grief, parental disapproval, army checkposts, violent crackdowns and mobile shutdowns.
The strength of the book lies in the intensity of emotions recounted in the stories, but perhaps more so in the story, Roohani, about the romance between Asad and Haika, a queer couple. Asad, a transgender man, is in a relationship with Haika, who is studying medicine in Islamabad, Pakistan. Just before the Article 370 communication shutdown, the two had a bitter fight which couldn't be reconciled because of the jamming of mobile networks. Asad, whose identity is not taken seriously by his father, becomes restless since he is unable to talk to Haika. Overcome by the need to hear the voice of the only person who truly sees him, Asad conquers his phobia of planes and flies to Punjab, merely for the chance to make a phone call.
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Another touching story is the account of Beena and Sakib, best friends whose arranged marriage was scheduled for 19 August 2019—days after the August 5 lockdown descended like a supervillain. Rather than postpone their wedding, Beena and Sakib proceed with remarkable resourcefulness, using their contacts to inform guests, source meat, arrange the nikah, and complete all the traditional Kashmiri wedding rituals. Their story becomes emblematic of both the resilience of Kashmiris and the normalization of conflict in daily life.
This is one the of stories in Loal Kashmir that opens a window into traditions largely unfamiliar to mainland Indians: wazwan feasts, the roles of manzi-kur, manzirath, and manzimyor (transgender marriage matchmakers). This world is poetic, tragic and joyous at the same time, symbolizing the innovation and flexibility of Kashmiris.
Kashmiri in Gaza resonated with me because of the boundary-crossing narrative and the fact that the affair blossomed in my hometown, Aligarh. Layla, a Kashmiri woman studying at Aligarh Muslim University, falls in love with Mahdi, a Palestinian from Gaza. Despite parental resistance and her father's deathbed command to his brothers to prevent the union, Layla ultimately marries Mahdi and relocates to Gaza, an experience that transforms her worldview.
Loal Kashmir is not just a window to a world of love and pain in the valley, but also the story of privilege and 'normal life' that the rest of India takes for granted. If there is one thing the writer could have improved on, it is the descriptions of places. We see the people and their internal struggles, but it would have been beautiful if we could have seen Jamal's homeland through her eyes.
In a state where holding onto love is sometimes the only solace, these stories represent a flavour of Kashmir often denied by mainstream media and cinema, guilty of showcasing the people of the valley as a monolith, a bunch of stone-pelters, anti-nationals or ungrateful citizens. Jamal, whose father is a Kashmiri Muslim and mother a Maharashtrian Hindu, seeks to set the record straight and does so with empathy.
Zeyad Masroor Khan is a freelance journalist and author of City on Fire: A Boyhood in Aligarh.
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