The Book of Gold Leaves (2014) is set in Downtown
Srinigar of Indian Kashmir in the 1990s. Faiz lives in a house of 18 rooms with
his three sisters, three brothers, his eldest brother’s wife and three
children, and his mother. The Mir family of Khanqah are Shia Muslims.
Faiz, a semi-literate papier-mache artist, was named
after Faiz Ahmed Faiz, one of Pakistan’s great poets. The novel commences with
Faiz painting deer, lions, and Mughal princes on a hunting trip with elephants
on the pencil boxes for a buyer in Delhi who ships them to Canada. His order is
for 500 boxes in 30 days.
Roohi dreams of romantic love and, at 20 years of
age, has already rejected six marriage proposals. She wants to undertake a PhD
at the local university. She lives with her brother Rumi, her mother, and her
father, Kabir Ahmed Khan, who conducts a city census in the streets of Downtown
Srinigar for the government. Rumi practices rifle shooting at night, near the
city’s shrine. The Khan family are Shia Muslims.
On a walk Faiz sees a girl in the window of a narrow
house in front of the shrine’s gates, with her long hair uncovered. Roohi sees
him too. She secretly follows him home and learns that he is from the Mir
family. To get to him Roohi befriends his sister, Farhat. Roohi writes a letter
for Farhat to give to her brother. He keeps the love letter inside the book of
gold leaves. The gold leaves are gilt foils that he uses in his paintings. They
arrange to meet.
To get into his house, Roohi and Farhat have an idea.
Roohi will pose as Farhat’s tutor in trigonometry. Roohi and Faiz see each
other furtively, in his home, but usually in the dark by the shrine, despite
Faiz’s oldest brother’s suspicions and Roohi’s younger brother’s incomprehension.
It is the 1990s and the time of the Indo-Pakistan
crisis in which the two countries are at the brink of war in Kashmir. The Line
of Control divides Kashmir into two parts: Pakistan-administered Kashmir and
Indian Kashmir. India moves troops into the region, and into Srinigar, to
prevent cross-border infiltration from Pakistan. The troops conduct raids and
training camps. Major Summit Kumar is in charge of the Indian troops in
Srinigar. He carries out the duties of his government. Although the chapters relating to him are minimal, he is critical to the
story.
Faiz’s oldest brother, Mir Zafar Ali, was almost
kidnapped during a raid in which soldiers snatched six young men, and his
friend, Faate Baaje, is killed. The city is under curfew, making it difficult
for Faiz and Roohi to see each other. Faiz paints, cries, and prays. Young men
take matters in their own hands, going into the bush for shooting practice,
maintaining that “it is better to vanish in a struggle against the enemy than
to disappear in some shady rumour-like interrogation cell.” This means a
prolonged separation from his home, family, and Roohi. He does not tell Roohi
before he disappears and crosses the Line of Control into Pakistan-administered
Kashmir, to learn the skills required to defend his city against Indian troops. Farhat “senses that not all of what her
brother reports may be true; it seems inconceivable to her that while Faiz is
able to send news of his safety he would choose not to get in touch with Roohi.
Events conspire to test allegiances, duty, trust, friendship,
and love. It is a story of revenge and betrayal, and of extreme tragedy. It’s a
region where I lived and worked and therefore I have an interest in literature
from Kashmir. Waheed expresses the intricacies of this region eloquently, particularly the descriptions of the setting. This is a well-written, enthralling, epic fictional
tale of family relationships, community and communal relationships, romantic
trysts, and love in a complicated regional conflict.
Martina Nicolls is the author of Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2011)
Comments
Post a Comment