Kashmir recently arrested attention when Donald Trumpclaimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate on the issue. Butweeks before the US president’s utterance, an utterly absorbing novel hadbrought the Valley to vigorous and thrumming life in the pages of theinternational press.
Madhuri Vijay’s debut novel “The Far Field”, abouta young woman’s life-altering journey from Bengaluru to Kashmir, created quitea flutter, receiving rave reviews, both for its lyrical style and grippingstoryline, in publications such as The New Yorker, The Washington Post and TheGuardian.
“Every part of the public response to the book hassurprised me. I tried to prepare for the worst, namely that the book wouldappear and disappear without a trace, but readers and reviewers alike have beenextremely kind,” Vijay told PTI in an email interview.
Born and brought up in Bengaluru, the 27-year-old US-basedauthor has completed her MFA (master of fine arts) from the University of Iowa.
Winner of the Pushcart Prize, a top American literaryhonour, Vijay spent several years in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda district whereshe volunteered at a public school.
“Teaching there was one of the most challenging andexhilarating experiences of my life and I came to care very deeply for the kidsand their families,” she recounted.
Vijay also spent a considerable amount of time in Kashmir asa traveller. She has read extensively about its people and the fabled beautyimmortalised in so many books and movies.
“Kashmir, to me, is composed of a particular landscape,a group of people I love and respect, and a cherished set of memories,”she said about her association with the Valley.
Published by HarperCollins, the book traces the journey ofShalini, a 30-year-old from Bengaluru who embarks on a journey to Kashmir tofind a Kashmiri salesman she believes has some connection to her mother’spremature death.
The journey turns out to be a transformative experience andcarries her to the brink of a devastating political and personal reckoning.
Blending fecund imagination with fine-grained novelisticvirtues, Vijay deals quietly with big themes – love, loss, grief, compassionand conflict – and offers a stinging critique of our long-held beliefs indemocracy, peace and the rule of law.
She has a Dostoevskian flair for suspense and melodrama, andher narrative has a Stendhalian briskness, enabling quick shifts from the humorousto the intellectual and the emotional.
“Living at the other end of India, I almost never hadoccasion to think about what was going on up there. My textbooks wereunhelpful, my teachers never discussed it, the news was cursory, and even theadults around me hardly mentioned Kashmir, except to cluck over the lost beautyof its landscape.
“This is not to denigrate the milieu in which I grewup, but to point out an obvious, oft-overlooked truth: human beings tend tocare more about matters that feel close to them, and Kashmir felt very, verydistant from Bengaluru, both literally and metaphorically,” she said.
It wasn’t until Vijay was well into her twenties that sherealised the incongruity of this distance.
“It made me ask myself questions about the nature of acountry, the nature of a citizen, and the novel was born out of thosequestions,” she said.
Brimming with astute observations and intellectual clarity,her book turns the conventional understanding of Kashmir on its head.
It encourages a complete rethink on the part of those who,as one of her main characters Bashir Ahmed says, “Think that people shouldbe happy with whatever they get, even if it isn’t what they want”.
Meticulously conceived and richly textured, “The FarField” is a supernova in the wan firmament of recent fiction on Kashmir.