In another story “Intervention” Rattan Lal shows the racist nature of Kashmiris, and when I write Kashmiris it includes everyone born in Kashmir. Here Autar Krishan comes to Jammu, seven years after most Kashmir Pandits had left the Valley, to lit the pyre of his mother-in-law. Autar Krishan’s refusal to migrate had convinced the Kashmir Pandits in Jammu that he has renounced his religion. Only when he assures that he has now come to stay as a refugee his community members had a “peaceful sleep”.

Rapture captures the essence of what the Kashmir Pandits lost, and their perseverance to preserve a past from which they were deracinated. The Pandits even lost their gods in exile. This emotive tale is beautifully captured in “Gauri’s Dev Gaam”. A scintillating tale of a woman who is able to bring the Valley’s god to Jammu all by herself. It is a story of a woman against men, of tradition, of resilience, of never giving up, of loneliness, of indefatigability. Here is a story that has all the potential to become a beautiful piece of visual art.

Just when you are thinking that these stories are philosophical Rattan Lal, in his afterword, writes, “Characters in my stories, who have borne the struggle and restlessness of the last 15 years, are true, because their miseries, pain, compulsions, and mental apprehensions are based on truth. The attempt of my stories,” writes Rattan Lal in his beautiful afterword, “is that they evoke this truth of pain and suffering purely on the humanitarian plane so that the reader does not only remain a spectator but also carries a little of their pain.”

This humanitarian plane is evident throughout the 12 stories. My surprise is that Rattan Lal’s fiction has not been adapted for picturisation. These stories have empathy, pathos, shrewdness, avarice, brotherhood, tragedy, and human bonding – all mixed in it.

About the translator

A translator’s craft is evident when he is not noticed. When the reader feels he is reading exactly the way the original has been written or visualised by the author. Here Javaid has done a commendable job. It is never easy to translate a book which is filled with “pauses”, rituals and customs peculiar to a particular community.

I know Javaid since my Amar Singh College days (2000-2003). We were four friends, and Javaid was the brightest of us all. During college days Javaid’s write-ups would regularly appear in the daily "Greater Kashmir". His writing was envious then. He was keen on two things: PG in English literature from the prestigious JNU, and make a career in academics. Instead, he was selected for the South Campus of the University. Javaid did his PhD from Ohio University, USA. This is his second book.

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