KASHMIR BLUES: Deserted-Stolen Child's Search for her Birth Parents

Pleasurable read (In The Tribune today)
Kashmir Blues
By Urmilla Deshpande.
Tranquebar.
Pages 355. Rs 325.
Reviewed by Rajbir Deswal

YOU step out of your house with a purpose in mind, start encountering adventure and thrill with quite an indulgence or sorts, bump into myriad characters who start sharing their concerns with you by default or design; and you return home with a craving to re-live the experiences with a nostalgic pinch felt within, sums up the broad storyline of Urmila Deshpande’s Kashmir Blues.

If you are looking for finding a solution to the Kashmir problem, or if you are seeking information on insurgency, or even if you are vicariously and by way of fiction, attempting to "feel" the pain of Kashmir, then this book is definitely not meant for you. What the California-based writer has woven in her inimitable style is a personal quest that takes its shape in the most interesting scenarios obtaining largely in India. Kashmir does offer enough, but only in symbolic terms and allusions.

The fact of richness of Kashmir is manifest all over the book, taking into account its beauty and landscapes, people and their customs, trade and occupation, etc. But equally important is the lament looming large in the depiction of "Earth Paradise’s" lately "disturbed and distorted" predicament of which the author does not suggest a cure, and rightly so, for the fiction writer should not be found fiddling with facts that stare starkly enough.

Not that Urmila does not give out many facts about Kashmir but she does it only up to the extent they suit her plot. "Kashmir was once the jewel in the crown of India ... it could be that way again ... but only if all the issues were resolved ... though it is too late to reverse the damage done ...too late to re-educate the lost youth-mutilated by fanaticism, Islamic fundamentalism, economic devastation and a feeling of isolation..."

There is no central character in the novel around whom the plot revolves, rather nearly all of them make their appearance and look to be normal and not purpose-made. Naia living in Los Angles sets foot for India to find her "birth parents" with a photographer friend, Leon, after stumbling onto the fact of her being a "deserted-stolen" child.

The duo travels to Bombay and Delhi and finally to a village in North (Kashmir), where the War Lord in the making, Samaad, is as if waiting for them to guide their destiny while striving to save "from both the countries" his own inherited treasure of mines that produce Blue Sapphire.

Samaad, in fact, is the character in the novel who inspires mostly the positives, although he is placed in a situation where the likes of him are given to either insurgency or fundamentalist overtures. He is not only well educated but brainy too, and for whose blue eyes and mannerisms Maia is ready to fall in his arms. Being a Muslims himself, his clairvoyance in talking about Hindu scriptures and Lord Shiva and His "Third Eye", floors the likes of Leon and Maia.

Maia is just there with almost no action attributable to her own initiatives. She is addicted to drugs, and she loves Leon "just the way he was: manic, depressive, riddled with complexes and borderline OCD, and the most seeing photographer she had ever known".

Urmila has an interesting take on Bombay’s streets which have been "slept on, spat on, shat on, lived on, loved on, the stage of millions of little dramas, tragedies, comedies and romances". The writer is not charitable to Delhi either, when she describes, "shit lays about the streets, and then it dries up, and then it floats up into the air-that-we breathe".

Kashmir Blues involves a style not of keeping suspense and is thus a pleasurable read, although the fiction lovers always like the thrill. The writer is easy and comfortable with herself in weaving encounters of different tones and tenor at her given and subjective choice and selection.

The novel has its share of some flaws, too, when it comes to the technique. There are long pauses from one sequence to the other and a smooth transition is lacking which only the reader has to maneuver. Urmila’s very verbose style does good to her description and her recognition of observation, but it takes its toll on the readers interest which starts plummeting and dwindling. Also the novel does not relate to a specific time or period to which the reader can associate. This becomes all the more important while talking about Kashmir, because all the world has its eyes fixed on happenings on this Paradise on Earth!