Rumours Of Spring (Paperback) Paperback – 22 April 2022

Farah Bashir’s book “Rumours of Spring” is an extremely poignant account of life as an adolescent in Kashmir of the 1990s, the Kashmir that was full of conflict and uncertainty. Nothing has changed for Kashmiris as of today, but we shall not go there.I was gutted. As I was reading the book and when I finished reading it as well. I am still reeling from Bashir’s experiences as young girl in the valley – what her family and friends had to go through, and the trauma that will never go away. Some wounds never heal. Maybe that’s how it is meant to be.The book starts with the death of Farah’s grandmother, Bobeh. The chapters follow the day of her funeral, compartmentalized into Evening, Night, Early Hours, Dawn, Morning, and Afterlife. Each chapter reveals more about Farah’s life and that of her family, amidst the turmoil – life that has changed completely, leaving only memories of the days gone by.A young girl grows up under constant curfew, sudden raids, gunfire, and talk of death all around. A young girl grows up waiting to go to school, checking when the phone works – whether the school is open, and the buses are plying – checking whether she can go to school – dependent on whether where she stays is a sensitive area or not. A young girl has to constantly hear of deaths of loved ones, of cousins, of how you have to be careful – cannot go here and must go there with someone, and then to imagine what life must be like in places that are not Kashmir.Bashir’s writing is devoid of sentiment but full of emotional heft. It doesn’t want to make you cry, as much as it wants you as a reader to empathize and understand the way things were. At the same time, she is trying very hard not to judge – the government, the Indian army, and even the militants for that matter. She is only stating her truth – the one that she experienced, the one that her family faced, the truth where everything we take for granted is full of terror and crackdown.Time plays such an important role throughout the book and yet not. Bobeh’s body has to be kept at home for a day, because of curfew. Time passes then – slowly for Farah and her family, as somehow relatives and friends come to console, memories rise. When you could freely listen to music, when freshly baked bread could be bought without fear, and when you could go to one room from another in your house without the fear of wood creaking, leading to the army asking questions and perhaps even shooting a stray bullet.Farah interweaves the history of a state and a country – including its politics with her personal spaces. From her friends who are Kashmiri Pandits and have to leave without a word in 1990 to the siege of the Hazratbal shrine in 1993, when she loses all will to study and do better. Everything is acknowledged, everything is remembered with the intention of it being forgotten.Rumours of Spring speaks of what is lost, what remains, and hopefully what will not be lost. It is a chronicle of a girlhood, but also negotiating spaces of beauty, grace, hope, and identity in the midst of chaos, terror, and death.

A memoir of a girl growing up during the most volatile times in the Kashmir valley. The author narrates how post 1989, everything in Kashmir changed. There was a growing anger among the youth of Kashmir, which resulted in insurgency, which in turn resulted in militancy and ultimately the increased presence of Indian Army in the valley, making Kashmir one of the most militarized zones of the world. This book, however, captures how these factors affected the day to day lives of the people of Kashmir.The writing style is simple yet very impactful, and you can read it one sitting. The author is a photojournalist, and usually a photojournalist tells a story with their photographs, in this novel she created a moving picture with her words. You are transported to the location, and you can feel the suffocation, the trauma, and the tension of living under the constant watch of the army. You can feel the frustration of being stripped of most of your rights, you feel as if someone is chocking you.A short, crisp and very well written book that everyone should read to understand the everyday lives of people of Kashmir under Army control.

Kashmir.Be it the snow-clad mountains of Gulmarg, the serene enormity of the Dal lake, the pristine majesty of Gurez, Nubhra and Pangong, the icy-dicey roads of Zojila, the tulip gardens of Srinagar (which compare no less to the tulips of Keukenhof)— no other place conjures instant images of illimitable beauty than a mere mention of Kashmir. A name that evokes a thousand overwhelming emotions, even for one who has never been there.Yet underneath all the beauty lies an insidious climate of death, torture, rape, arson, anxiety, detention, dispossession, displacement, fear, hopelessness, an endless grief— of a society caught halfway in a saga of unrelenting animosity between two neighboring nations. A dazzling sunlit valley gradually destroyed and pushed into darkness by belligerent ideologies. A world that searches constantly for rumours, of spring.Through ‘Rumours of Spring’, I discovered a distinctive image of Kashmir (Srinagar in particular, where Farah Bashir’s outstanding debut memoir is set) spread across a prismatic panorama. Farah’s journal takes one back and forth over events and incidents in her life starting from the day of the passing of her grandmother, to days after the funeral. In between are vivid narratives of the writer being feared dead, doomed love, letters and burnt post offices, cross-fire battles, endearing characters bearing an uncertainty of their making it to the next page, while a constant shadow of draconian atrocities permeates through the fabric of everyday life in Kashmir. Drawing strength and stories from those around her, Farah weaves her world with a touch of magic, writing in a soft and sensitive voice sprinkled with Kashmiri words and citations, with a most helpful glossary at the end for the layman.‘Rumours of Spring’ is an anthology of poignant poetry in prose, in every word running a little over 200 pages. This is a work to be read and shared with all who must understand what life truly is like growing up and living in Kashmir.•••Follow me on instagram @rondeview_