Book Review: Piecing together fragments of a landscape torn by conflict

Book: This Our Paradise (Novel)

Author: Karan Mujoo

Publisher: Penguin eBury Press, 22 April, 2024

Pages: 240

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Anuradha Bhasin*

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
― Rumi

Human tragedies in a militarized conflict are shaped by events, circumstances, and resultant human behaviour.

Those who are condemned to suffer its consequences are caught in its midst with little or no control over the twists and turns of events and actions of others. They are left to endure, survive, and make choices that are often not of their own volition but conditioned and limited by the circumstances, collective or personal, they find themselves in.

In retrospect, they also have the choice to recall the traumatic course of events with bitterness or look for meaning in the personal and the collective loss.

In his debut novel, ‘This Our Paradise’, Karan Mujoo, attempts to do the latter, allowing Rumi’s light to seep into the wounds and scars of displacement and exile, of a paradise lost, of deepening mistrust on all sides, of blood spill, fear and collective suffering.

In this poignant and thought-provoking novel, Mujoo masterfully weaves a tale of two families – Pandit and Muslim – caught in the crossfire of the Kashmir conflict, subtly dwelling on the complexities of the war and the human condition with no choice but to endure its multi-folded consequences.

Set in Kashmir of 1989-90, it is not just a tale of exile told in black and white, it is a story of Kashmir through a nuanced exploration of the gray areas of Kashmir’s most turbulent phases in history, told with a peppering of the burden of history and the different hues of political ideologies and religious identities that breathed across the landscape.

The story follows the intertwining fates of a middle-class Srinagar-based Pandit family, whose idyllic world is consumed by uncertainties and fear, and a poor Muslim family in an imagined village in Lolab Valley called Zogam. The story is interchangeably told through the perspective of an eight-year-old Pandit boy in the first person and a young Muslim boy, Shahid, in the second person.

Torn apart by distance, religion, and class, it is a story about how their lives intersect – leading to loss and grief on both sides, as the characters navigate a landscape where political ideologies, in which religion and armed rebellion are intertwined, suddenly carry life-or-death consequences.

The author deftly illustrates how war erodes the glue that holds society together, and lacerates the foundations of morality, as people navigate the landscape of chaos and uncertainty, making choices for physical and psychological survival with possible impacts on the contours of the larger landscape and on each other’s lives.

Through simple and elegant prose, Mujoo gives life to his empathetic characters, exploring the malleability of identity in times of strife. We see an embittered Shahid, despaired by economic conditions, corruption and rigged elections, crossing the borders to rebel against the Indian state he holds responsible for the misery of Kashmir. The AK-47 wielding youth returns to fight an ‘enemy’ and also faces a moral quandary, struggling every night with phantoms as blood spills on the roads.

Through the eyes of a playful eight-year-old boy, we see the world of an ordinary Pandit family – caught in the rhythm of mundane life – together with their Hindu and Muslim friends and acquaintances who make up their world.

We see this world shaken by whispers and violence that begin consuming the streets. As many Pandits begin to leave the Valley, the family toys with the option till Vicky’s name appears in the ‘traitor list’ and his life is snuffed out by bullets. The family leaves – ‘a home built by things, moments, emotions dismantled and thrown in the back of a truck.’

The author while dealing with the suffering of exodus, dismantles the many stereotypes about the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits that have existed for a long time. Instead, he sees an environment stemming from historical conditions and circumstances – which he hastily sketches – to bring in more shades of what Kashmir was enduring in those times. And yet, there are times when the narrative almost endorses some of the imagined linearities.

He writes about youth driven by years of sense of oppression and hopelessness, and motivated by religion, ready to launch an armed political struggle. This complexity is blunted in one line as he writes of youth going ‘Apor’ for arms-training: “all of them had two things in common—a fanatical zeal for Islam and a desire to rule Kashmir on their own terms.”

But through much of the narrative, he’s careful not to resort to simplistic binaries. There are no heroes and no traitors.  Well-fleshed-out characters exist in all hues.

He writes about Muslim neighbours who warn the Pandit family of the lurking dangers, of being helpful, of being trapped and consumed by the same sense of fear.

The novel primarily focuses on the Pandit family and Shahid’s family. Other briefly mentioned characters intersect their personal lives. And then there are characters inspired by real-life people. There’s the fire-brand orator Syed Shah who contests the 1987 elections, is leading but it is Rizwan Shah who is declared a winner. There’s the commander of a pro-independence militant group, Master Malik and his aides – Missile and Molotov Nanvai. Most names are fictionalised. But some like Sarla Bhat and Girija Tickoo are not.

Though the novel has two protagonists, it is the narrative in the first person that emerges as more powerful. Shahid’s character is vivid, yet remains a little distant. The former is probably guided by the author’s personal memory and experience and thus plumbs the depth of the predicament of the Pandit family. The author perhaps realizes this limitation and uses the shift from the first-person account to a third-person.

The complex landscape of Kashmir forms an important part of the book but exists as a blur – slightly being revealed, once in a while to provide a context to the reader. The author lets the reader take a glimpse and then carefully and deftly directs them back to the main characters.

In less than 250-pages, ‘This is Our Paradise’ provides a powerful snapshot of lives caught in a conflict, offering a nuanced understanding through a narrative that is racy, gripping, and elegant.

It lays bare the scars and yet makes a case for healing. It is brutal and yet it is uplifting.

Take for instance these passages:

• “What we heard was of no comfort to us. In a solemn, staticky broadcast, the newsreader informed listeners that Triloki Nath Wali, a lawyer from Anantnag, had been shot dead by militants. We listened to the bulletin but could not fully comprehend it. How could mere words convey such terror? How could we understand the thud of a bullet hitting the body, the blood oozing out, turning the asphalt black? Or the eardrum shattering sound of a bomb? The shrapnel whizzing through the air puncturing lungs and livers? A grey, cold body lying in the street? A note warning people not to pick it up? We heard these words on the radio, but we did not understand them. The literature of violence had to be lived to be felt. And we were yet to reach the page where our story was written.”
• “While the world has galloped forward, while governments have toppled, revolutions have been crushed, economies have collapsed, massacres have been committed, home, somehow, remains unchanged. The sleepy streets of Zogam were exactly as Shahid had left them. The same people lived the same lives in the same houses, completely unaware of the tectonic shifts taking place around them. For a moment, Shahid felt a pang of desire for this simplicity. What need was there to get caught up in the whirlwinds of life?”
• “The chinar trees rustled above us as we crossed the courtyard and headed towards the exit. Men and women, having forgotten the world and its vagaries, slept in the shade of these gentle giants. How wonderful it was, sleep and the amnesia it offered.”

The book’s greatest strength lies in the author’s ability to humanise the conflict by refusing to categorise characters as mere victims, perpetrators, or bystanders. Instead, we witness individuals grappling with impossible choices, their actions dictated not by personal conviction but by the merciless tide of circumstances. It not only speaks of a ripple effects of Kashmir’s conflict, it also appears like an attempt to open a dialogue, and reclaim a Kashmir that has been lost under the burden of turn of events in the last few decades, the divisive stereotypes and the unbridgeable binaries.

For all its minor shortcomings, Karan Mujoo’s contribution is significant. Its voice and message cannot be ignored.

*Anuradha Bhasin is Managing Editor of ‘Kashmir Times’.

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