BOOK REVIEW

Title: The Garden of Solitude


Author: Siddhartha Gigoo

ISBN: 9788129117182

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: Rupa and Co

Pages: 260

Price: 195

From the last couple of years there has been a sudden surge in the literary pieces related to the Kashmir conflict and its large scale of human tragedies. Every writer whether he is a native or non native tried his best to paint the conflict and it’s multiple ramifications in such a way so that the worldwide English readers can get accustomed to this forgotten conflict and feel the same pain, alienation and unending agony suffered by the common Kashmiri from the last two decades of armed conflict. It is good and a healthy sign to sensationalize and to romanticize the vicissitudes of conflict for the literary purpose but given the past turbulent history of valley, every writer has a moral duty to wield his/her pen with a sense of responsibility. There are continuous attempts from the different quarters to make this human issue more complicated and irresolvable so that to keep the pot of their interests boiling. Neither these chauvinistic writers can’t penetrate and disturb the social fabric of state and its demography nor can indoctrinate the common Kashmiri irrespective of religion or region by their vague literary lassitudes.

‘The Garden of Solitude’ is another addition to the Kashmir specific literary galaxy written by Siddhartha Gigoo, a migrant Kashmiri Pandit based in New Delhi. The main thesis of novel is the painful mass exodus of Kashmiri pundits from the valley in the early 1990’s and its agonizing aftermaths faced by the community at the various migrant camps. The main plot of the memoir revolves around the family of an author and their odyssey in an alien sky and the surroundings. The story starts in one winter night when the Lassa and his wife get terrified with some unidentified persons loitering in the chilly midnight at the gate of their house. That whole night the family couldn’t sleep and are waiting for the muezzin’s call to officiate the arrival of dawn. In the morning family decides to leave valley in the backdrop of growing militant activities and some mysterious incidents of the assassination of Pundits in the summer capital. The family flees reluctantly with scores of other families and landed in a school at Jammu with tales of fears and fantasies on their faces. Later in the second half of his memoir Sridhar, the main protagonist is trying to recollect the experience of migration from his grandfather Mahanandju and father Lasa. In this pursuit to maintain his identity with the garden of solitude he participates in the essay competitions and the conferences hosted by the Kashmiri Pundit Diaspora demanding a homeland within the homeland. The narrative technique of the novel is so simple and appalling that it panned the readers to feel and be sympathetic with their victimhood perpetrated by the unknown Machiavellian political characters.

The title of memoir or chronicle is catchy but the premise is dangerous as it touches the dark pages of State history. The narrator of story Sridhar in his childhood watches the amity and harmony of Muslims and Pandits in Kashmir. He watches at the same time the sudden rise of militancy, protests, crackdowns, Innocent killings, funerals and the euphoria for azadi. He is shocked to the marrow at the suspicion, mistrust, betrayal and the polarization of state on the theological lines.

Later in the second half of his exile life he finds solace and peace of mind in his writings that speak volumes of separation and longing for the garden of solitude.

“All I dream of now is a garden of solitude,

where I get a morsel of rice in the

morning and a morsel of rice in the evening”

The memory of grief-stricken faces of the exiles into the various migrant camps remained with him and followed him where ever he goes. Under the clout of identity crises and a deep desire to save the stories that are on the verge of extinction. Sridhar visits America, Varanasi, Allahabad and then back to Ladhak, where he meets an English born lady selling old books and shares with her the most peaceful time in the midst of lama’s and bare mountains of Himalayas. He eventually returns his homeland as a tourist and met Ali, his neighbor before visiting his ancestral house where he met a little girl Noor and her middle aged mother. He and Ali exchange sordid tales but the Giga’s whole onus and obsession remains with his identity crisis and the victimhood of his community. Which is totally bizarre and jaundiced perception to look and treat the overall suffering, pain and agony of all Kashmiri’s irrespective of religion and caste and to keep harping on the barb of identity crises and the return of homeland for Kashmiri pundits is ridiculous. There is not a single line on the Sikhs and Hindus, who stayed back in the valley and not a word of solidarity with the majority community which bore the most brunt of brutality and barbarianism from the last two decades. The memoir is not a must read book for all as the author himself restricted his plethora of ideas and perception to a one section of society which makes it a time pass literary activity and nothing else.