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Book Review: Jihad in My Saffron Garden by Roxy Arora.

Conflict on land, in life

This is one more addition to the post-conflict literature on Kashmir, from where come two parallel narratives. One is forced to think would the stories be the same had the Kashmiri Hindus not migrated from their motherland in the 1990s. That is another story.

Conflict on land, in life

throwback time: The Kashmir of yore is vividly described in the book... the Dal Lake, shikaras laden with exotic flowers and spices, snowy peaks and saffron gardens



Sumayyah Qureshi

This is one more addition to the post-conflict literature on Kashmir, from where come two parallel narratives. One is forced to think would the stories be the same had the Kashmiri Hindus not migrated from their motherland in the 1990s. That is another story.

In Jihad in my Saffron Garden, Roxy Arora weaves a story around Kashmiriyat, nascent love, friendship, loss and mourning. She starts off with descriptions of Kashmir as one would like to hear about it. The place called jannat (heaven), world famous Dal Lake, shikaras laden with exotic flowers and spices, snowy peaks and saffron gardens. But the story looks disjointed at times and fails to keep the reader glued.

‘Out of the two little girls, who had loved Kashmir with their life, only one was left’. And, this is the story of the girl who lived on.

Life comes to a naught for Roshina Kapoor, or lovingly Rosha, the protagonist of the story, after she loses her best friend Heena. A chasm between them is so huge to fill, created first by distance and later death. But Heena stays on in Roshina’s memory, forever.

The writer talks of friendship, of Rosha’s carefree life in Srinagar and her antics to catch the attention of Aafaq Qazmi, the Muslim guy who would eventually be her fiancé.

In ‘the most beautiful battlefield of the earth’, Roshina stitches together dreams with her love of life Aafaq Qazmi, but the world soon falls apart when her family has to flee Srinagar. She considers Kashmir her only home and hopes to return soon but that would never be.

For a twist in the love story and some trouble in the paradise of Roshina and Aafaq comes Saira Haider Ali, who would ultimately be the reason for the unending silence between the two.

As she bids adieu to the Valley, though unwillingly, Roshina’s homeland transmutes into a land of terrorist strikes, checkpoints and Army crackdowns.

The book talks about Roshina’s life in Jammu and Delhi after she leaves Srinagar and her unending miseries and longing for the motherland. Life goes on for Roshina, Aafaq and Heena, all trying to deal with their loss in their own separate ways. But the lives of all three change when Heena is kidnapped and raped by ‘men in Army fatigues’. Unable to bear the trauma, Heena takes her own life, shattering the lives of Roshina and Aafaq. Here on, the world becomes poles apart for the two lovers. Aafaq plans revenge for her sister’s death.

After many years, Roshina travels to her saffron garden once again on the insistence of her son, this time too to meet her friend and love who lay buried in their graves and to bring closure. Though Roshina all along lives with a lie that Aafaq is dead, he is not.

The plot fails to hold itself together with the author desperately trying to bind one part with another. Some stories of friendship and love linger on, but this one definitely doesn’t.

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