Jaffna Street is essentially unsettling. Not because
it talks about the horrors that war brings upon its causalities, but because it
is neither a testimony nor a polemic. It’s very easy and
convenient to take sides, when you talk about conflicts; but that’s not what
literature is meant for. To tell stories as they are require a certain amount of grasp
at things; on the ground. Khalid not only had his ears to the ground, being
born and brought up in downtown Srinagar, what substantially was the hot
seat of an armed revolution that began in late ’89, but he also his heart in
place. Jaffna Street is written with tremendous panache. It’s like the
famous designer from Italy Enrico Coveri taking to word-smithery. Detailing is
to the point, editing crisp, without really dragging ever.
From the political evolution of the 1980s generation coming
of age and seeking to lay their claim on the 1931 ethno-religious political project, their
flights across the LoC into the arms training camps and their encounters with
idealistic long forgotten pioneers of
the insurgency. From the story of a survivor of the Jammu pogrom in 1947 to the
unknown political face of Meerakh Shah,
the celebrated mystic, From the travails
of an NC worker who suffers bereavement in state inflicted violence and in the
end dies a violent death, the bakra
diehard Fayaz whose life is totally altered because of his devotion to the
Mirwaiz family and its politics, Khalid
suffers no biases,everything is exhaustively dealt upon even the long dead
prophesier of Safakadal whose utterances still provoke messianic undercurrents
in that area.
The part about the student gangs and professional
gangsters, existing in the 70s and 80s of Srinagar, seemed to me like watching
Sergio Leone’s epic gangster movie Once Upon a Time in America. The brazen use
of knuckledusters, shootings, substance abuse and the introduction of word
Mandrax in our daily vernacular. The fierce rivalry between the Gaw Kadal-
Batmalyun gang on one side and the Dalgate gang on other, throws up characters
like the eccentric James Wood’s Max in the movie did. ‘M’ as he is referred in
anomaly in the book, fits the bill perfectly. Fond of extravagance, gadgets and
high life, M treads on a path full of danger. Growing up in a marginalized
family, in a city-side ghetto, M rises up on ladder of crime, carving a niche
amongst wise guys. If M is ambitious and boisterous, then there is a De Niro
like Noodles Mac too- the old gang leader of the City Side boys gang, who
though later on, given an opportunity, after stint in insurgency and prison
refused to dabble in politics, admonishing the loathed separatist politics. Mac
in his days may have been ruthless with his Kukri and chains, but he carries a
conscience. There was a certain air about those guys, of that generation. Men
of honour. It is something any downtowner can tell you. I’d my share of my
cousins too, from this generation; driving their Yamaha’s, adorning their walls
with George Michael posters, sporting aviators, wooing girls. For me they were John
Rambo clones. How I wished to be like them, like any fan would.
There are moments where the book absolutely lights up.
Story of Nazir Gaash, the Marxist of Safa Kadal remains my favorite part of the
book. The part is dealt with tremendous maturity by the author. A
nonconformist, Nazir Gaash’s self searching forays early in his life takes him
to Buddhism. Unable to satiate his existential crisis, Gaash’s intellectual
pursuits, piqued by a curious mind, take him to the world of Marx and Western
philosophy. The author mentions how his own intellectual growth took shape on
Gaash’s shopfront, appropriately named Edible Link, where he would often engage
in the world of ideas. The city could still bear a nihilist son. But all this
changed at the throes of the war. People like Gaash wisely kept to themselves,
for the bullet had no respect for ideas. His sphere of Sartre and Kant was
somehow washed down Jhelum.
It must have been around 2ish in the morning, when I
was reading Gaash’s story. I closed the book on my chest and kept gazing at the
chandelier on top of my head. I don’t know for how long was in this state. The
abject absurdity of life and a long abyss that we look through occupied my
mind, with Gaash’s convictions and intellectual odysseys at the back of it. I
don’t know what beckoned my wife. She woke up from her sleep, turned the lights
on at the corner of our hall, where I’ve my library and where I usually read.
She jolted me. It was quite a moment, in the introspection of a man and the
world he saw largely at. Lost in the oblivion. The existential desertion. And
the larger futility of life.
The story of Ijaz,
son of a artisan, fondly called Ija: a well behaved, soft spoken boy, is
very poignant. Though it’s short but it pierces one like a bullet. Buoyed by
the calls for arms revolution, Ijaz like host of others disappeared in the
summer of 1990. He had joined a group that was going to cross the LOC for arms
training. Contaminated water had made Ijaz sick. Dehydrated and feverish he
couldn’t continue with the rest of the guys and was abandoned in the forest.
Ijaz didn’t die of enemy bullets. He was a consumption of war. A mere
statistics in the end. A number. And that’s the misery and the truth of a war.
Khalid has narrated it, as it is, which is not only brave but also a far cry
from the beaten victim card played by us.
Khalid has spoken a language unknown to those who read
about Kashmir conflict. He is not only brazenly honest but also bitter. Bitter
at the mediocrity surrounding us, which we unfortunately and shamelessly
celebrate too often.
A quarter and a century
ago, writer David Bellos says he was talking to a French friend
about paucity of literary material on the Algerian War, accusing France of voluntary
amnesia. He reached to his shelf, pulled down a tattered paperback, and said without any
words: There was a literature of the Algerian War, and here it is. The book was Daniel
Anselme’s La Permission. Jaffna Street is right up there.
about paucity of literary material on the Algerian War, accusing France of voluntary
amnesia. He reached to his shelf, pulled down a tattered paperback, and said without any
words: There was a literature of the Algerian War, and here it is. The book was Daniel
Anselme’s La Permission. Jaffna Street is right up there.
The review appeared in two leading daily's.
http://www.kashmirtimes.in/newsdet.aspx?q=65649
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/op-ed/neither-a-testimony-nor-a-polemic/246307.html
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/op-ed/neither-a-testimony-nor-a-polemic/246307.html
