The good wins over evil ... as usual

Gaurav Kanthwal

For a long time now the scenic locales of Kashmir valley have provided a perfect backdrop to the stories of bloodshed, emotional turmoil and human predicament.

Beautiful may be an understatement in describing the Valley but then so is the word troubled.

But, for writers and publishers, it is a delight, a perennial source of gut-wrenching and feel-good stories. Where on earth would they get the heavenly beauty juxtaposed to the base human nature.

Every year scores of fiction and non-fiction books come out in book stores, endlessly trying to tap the readers’ interest in this conflict.

Despite Stolen Dreams by Anita Krishan (63) is another addition to the long series this year.

It is Anita’s fifth novel and her second on terrorism after Tears of Jhelum. The story starts from there where it ended in the 2014 edition.

The protagonists, Wali Mohammad Khan, who was earlier described as a family man trying to secure his world within the four walls of his house, has been held hostage by terrorists. Wali escapes with his family, leaving everything behind. He flees to Delhi where he struggles to make a new start in a claustrophobic metropolitan. Somehow he gets on with life and gradually his family settles down till terrorists track him down and barge into his house in the dead of a night.

The novel tries to build up intensity by harnessing two contradictory forces on the reader. One is the brutal, mindless terrorism, and the other side is, soulful love with a message of peace and humanity. This conflict is the underlying theme of story with various sub-plots weaved into it to make it a multi-layered narrative.

The title of the novel, Despite Stolen Dreams, signifies the man’s constant endeavour to find peace and love in the face of adversity. Man’s dreams are his most cherished property and once they are stolen, he does not sit down sobbing over his lost world. Instead, he gets up, and re-claims his world straw by straw to bring happiness. That is the essence of human life.

The novel, written in third person narrative, is clearly divided into three parts; first, the turmoil of a Kashmiri family, second: the suffocation of a metropolis, and third: the final denouement.

Terrorists laying siege, hostages escape… the return of evil… and a happy ending… there is nothing new for the reader in the story and plot. As far as characterisation, there is a long list but most of them are flat. Shakeel, a terrorist who undergoes a transformation in the end, comes near being the only round character in the novel. The problem though is that his character has not been given the required space.

Anita’s craft lies in seamless weaving of a multitude of characters, aided by the skill of impressive writing.