Sujit R. Chandak
Abstract 111
At
the Margins of Imagining of the Nation:
Mirza Waheed’s “The Collaborator” and Siddhartha Gigoo’s “The Garden of Solitude”
Mirza Waheed’s “The Collaborator” and Siddhartha Gigoo’s “The Garden of Solitude”
Abstract
To
understand exception is of greater significance than to understand the general;
the general may not contain in itself the exception, but the exception contains
and has an understanding of the general. The exceptional state of affairs in
Kashmir from India’s Independence and particularly since the 1990s is a
significant phenomenon. Until 1990s, in all the conflicts, the people of
Kashmir were in the margins, with the fight being between the state of India
and Pakistan; post 1989 this changed, with the involvement of the common
Kashmiri. There have appeared a lot of accounts of this state of affairs in
Kashmir. Of special interest, have been the writings of those who either grew
up entirely or partly in these troubled times.
The
Collaborator, is the story of the teenage son of a village headman; all his
friends have disappeared to fight for Azadi; He is engaged by a captain of
Indian Army to go into the valley to count the dead and bring id cards, always
fearing he may discover one of his friends amongst the corpse. “The Garden of
Solitude” tells the story of Sridar, a Kashmiri Pandit boy, who has to leave
his childhood and the ancestral home behind when his family decides to leave
Kashmir.
My paper would attempt to understand the dissenting
positions taken by these two recent works of fiction, written by those who grew
up in these conditions emerging from the post 1989 conflict in Kashmir. I would
seek in my paper to bring out the innovative ways adopted by the writers in
expressing their dissent.
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