Farah Bashir's Rumours of Spring recounts her own experiences as a girl growing up in turbulent Kashmir. The book is semi-autobiographical and recalls the horrors of insurgency in Kashmir, particularly it's devastating effects on the lives of ordinary people.
Each part of the book describes a particular phase in her life. Growing up in the 90s, when terrorism besieged Kashmir, she recounts how her family - living in a large mansion in downtown Srinagar, bears the brunt of losses in family business, snatching way of personal freedoms, simple pleasures and mostly, the liberty to live the life they want.
The language is intimate, drawing you within, as if you are a fly on the wall in her drawing room, observing things. She paints images through her words and descriptions. Of a shuttered window, of an abandoned attic, of closed cinema halls, and barbed wires, marching boots and flashing searchlights.
She focuses on the impact that army clampdowns and constant policing had on ordinary lives like hers. The surveillance, the curfews, the curbs - all come alive in her succinct descriptions and vividly narrated anecdotes. She doesn't condemn, she merely describes the effects, the manner in which ordinary people changed, their mannerisms and reactions got altered, their goals and ambitions morphed into something else. As a journalist, her keen eye captures every small detail, and she entwines these into personal stories.
My only grouse is that she somehow abstains from denouncing the active role of terrorists in destroying the peace in Kashmir. Army excesses are described in detail, but what about terrorist threats and their constant browbeating of ordinary citizens? Every coin has two sides, so where is the side condemning the terrifying violence unleashed by the separatists?
I would have appreciated it if she could have shown how terrorism tore into the social fabric of Kashmir, shattering any semblance of peace for ordinary people. How it destroyed the innocence of children, battered the security of the aged, and snatched away the young into a dark hole of violence.
It is definitely a thoughtful read for every Indian. Rumours of Spring accurately illustrates Kashmir's descent into chaos, chalking out the destruction and ruin caused by constant civil unrest. Wish it were a little more balanced in its approach.
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