From Native to Refugee (Book Review of Basharat Peer's 'Curfewed Nights' by Lado)

Guest post by Lado

With the promise of sweetened nimbu pani or fresh juice I trailed behind my friend Sam into the Cafe Turtle Bookshop. One has to enter the Bookshop to get to the cafe. I’m usually excited about books, bookstores, the smell of books, new books,old books, comics but we’d just gotten waxed and I wasn’t in the mood to browse.


My friend recently quit her job and was quite happy to be back in Delhi and kill some time. She pottered around unaware of my impatient nimbu pani dreams. After I’d gently put across some hints to hurry it along, I finally asked her if we could “get a move on?” to which she replied by whipping a book in front of my face “I had terrible nightmares for a month – Lado you HAVE to read this book!”.

Ouch.

I’m not too keen on Indian authors as I’ve found some of them tediously slow and melancholic (especially diaspora writers).
I always say “I live in Delhi and see it everyday – I don’t have to read 600 pages on India’s poverty.” All it makes me want to do is kill myself.
I’m a fast reader but suicidal is not a feeling I want to sustain for 600 pages.


In any case I wanted to hurry along and get that nimbu pani but there’s no point in reasoning with Sam- stubborn Tauruses! She doesn’t get that buying someone a book is like buying perfume – its great if you have the same taste but if you don’t it’s a gift that’s likely to be unused or re-wrapped. Anyway I decided the quickest way to my nimbu pani was to shut up and go along with it. I could always pretend later that I’d read the book.


Anyway having seated ourselves and consumed our summer beverages, Sam and I decided to verbal spar, which turned into us bickering and then maybe having gotten heated up from the hair removal and the wait, I took some very regrettable shots at her. In any case things cooled down eventually, we ate a plate of spicy-chilli-nachos.I apologized for being an ass, but there was no escaping that I’d hurt her feelings.

I got home later and found the book in my bag – there was no way even I could justify not reading the book now.


It was a couple of hours well-spent. The book was engrossing and I read it quickly over a couple of mornings.The title of the book is ‘Curfewed Nights’ and it’s by Basharat Peer and he tells of having to grow up in a changing Kashmir; A living through of the “Kashmir stereotype”, one that underwent a horrible change – idyllic apple orchards to raging modern battleground.


The writer has a style I enjoy, it’s to-the-point, descriptive without being tedious and he manages to balance emotion that he feels (it’s autobiographical) with the events that are happening. He’s also had his journalistic training so he manages to put significant political events in without getting statistical. Through his personal experience you can feel how someone could have a personal experience of a political event, or how society reacts and how community and families are immediately affected by overreaching events like civil struggle and war.

I have to say I like-hate the book. Like it because it’s so well written and suits it’s purpose; Mira Nair said in an interview “If you don’t tell your stories, who will?. He tells the story of adolescence affected by war in Kashmir and does it spectacularly. Hate it – because it’s heart-wrenchingly sad. Kind of how the story of Kashmir is.
It stays with me as a metaphor for the beautiful state, the story of any displaced people, refugees who dream of a home that no longer exists.

Review: One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakurni

Summary: In an Indian passport and visa office in an American city, an unexpected earthquake traps nine people within the premises. The characters include an upper-class Caucasian couple whose relationship is disintegrating. A punky teenager and her Chinese grandmother, with secrets in her past. A Muslim-American man, whose life changes post 9/11. A graduate student haunted by questions of love. An African-American soldier who seeks redemption. And two visa officers who are on the verge of having an affair. As food and water supplies dwindle, the basement is flooding and no escape seems possible, these people share personal stories; "one amazing thing" they have never shared before, from their lives.

Review: This book is easy to read and fairly quick. I liked certain elements in it such as the concept of sharing personal stories, as tragedy strikes this group of characters. Each of them is subtly transformed by this process of sharing.

The book is quite short (It is 220 pages, I usually steer towards the 700 page novels) but she manages to bring the characters to life through their stories, as well as their interactions with each other. Some of the stories are definitely more powerful than others, one of my favorite being Jiang's.  Her story was the first one and after that my expectations were set high, so I felt disappointed by some of the others. There were images in the book that were vivid and memorable, such as Lola's beauty salon, Jiang's shoe store and the description of the bits of food. Other stories were not as effective. I was waiting for the soldier-Cameron's story, but felt a bit let down when it was finally revealed.  Tariq and Mrs. Pritchett's  story were quite clichéd and didn't really strike a chord with me.

Overall, it was an OK book. There is no doubt that Chitra Banerjee Divakurni is a skilled story teller but there are other books by her that I have definitely enjoyed more such as The Palace of Illusions, or even Queen of Dreams. In comparison, this book is much more forgettable; I did not get a lot from it. It was reasonably enjoyable but not of those books that stay with you.