The Long Line of Hope (Paperback)

Stories of love, loss and longing lie buried under a thin and worn out sheet of hope in Kashmir. Every human heart breathes hope, every human soul pumps hope in and out of its heart. It is hope alone which gives to Kashmir and its people a reason for existence, every new sunrise, the warmth of a fireplace, the smell of its saffron fields. With hope indeed is bound up the legendary tale of the resilience of its people.Two lovers trapped apart from each other in the murky discourse of 'occupied versus normalised' Kashmir, under the penetratingly scrutineering eyes of the state's armed forces, are hopeful that despite heavily constraining military presence, their love for one another will keep them inseparable.A little girl in a bordering village has lost her pet bird which has flown away in a moment of inexperienced carelessness. She comes to believe that her bird has crossed over onto the other side of the 'line' which separates 'this side' from 'that side'. In conversation with a man in uniform she desperately hopes that there will be a 'war' so that men from 'this side' can cross the 'line' and bring her lost pet back to her.An old man owning a tea shop is hopeful that a long line of trucks as a part of an army convoy will finally lift his fortunes. The longer the line of vehicles, the greater is the prospect of good business. War preparedness is vital for keeping his hopes alive.In the migrant quarters in Jammu families of Kashmiri Pandits spend days and nights in hopeful remembrance of their very own traditions and festivals, cooking a trademark dish with meticulous affection, lighting lamps before a deity long exiled along with themselves, and read policy papers and obscure court rulings with a worn out but hopeful heart.This story chronicles four distinct, inter-related yet somewhat contradictory tales of hope and shows how hope is not always an accompaniment of love, peace, and justice but can also be a function of agony, deprivation, anguish, and inter-generational seething rage.