Adarsh Ajit
Name of the book : Gulliver in Kashmir
(A book of cameos)
Author : Arvind Gigoo
Publisher : Notionpress.com
Price : Rs 200
Gulliver inflicts a wound on the positive attitude towards life when one reads these cameos. Recreating Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver, who exposes all in Kashmir, Gigoo through the lense of Gulliver, makes all Lilliputians listen to the various voices. The continuous follies of all have brought a colossal wreck to Kashmir. The gap between Kashmiri Pandits (the aborigines) and the Kashmiris Muslims (converts) has widened. Gigoo’s Gulliver discovers two different philosophies in Kashmiri Muslims and Kashmiri Pandits living in exile. Bomb blasts, shutdowns, martyrdom, killings, azadi, Pakistan, calendars, guns, drugs, crossfire have become new culture of Kashmiri Muslims whereas diabetes, arthritis, sunstroke, malignancy, dialysis, cataract, dengue, MRI, CT Scan have unfortunately become the destiny of Pandits due to the deeds of Kashmiri Muslims, leaders, Government India, Pakistan and the human rights activists.
Gulliver watches the happenings on the 19th January in 1990, the episode of Gawkadal and the aftermath on 21st January, when the Tourist Reception Centre saw exodus of Pandits.
Gulliver observes that Kashmiri Muslims are not Indian and Kashmiri Pandits can never be anti- Indian:
E-mail ID
‘Your email ID?’
‘secession @quitkashmir.co.in’
‘Your email ID?’
‘accession@migration.co.in’
Exodus of Pandits is a blot on the biggest democracy of the world, India. Gulliver observes that Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 lived in huts, cowsheds, tents, and were deprived of meeting their biological needs. Some cameos paint horrible scenes. A couple enters a bathroom to make love but a couple is already there. Daughter on reaching puberty understands why her parents panted in the dark room. But the most shocking and tragic cameo is titled Dark Room:
‘I am not she. She is sleeping by my side. I am me.’
The hand retreated.
A thought provoking cameo, Disease scans the causes of diseases of Kashmiri Pandits in displacement. Gulliver notices a doctor asking the Kashmiri Pandit if he suffers from any disease. He replies that he is impotent. Gigoo makes Gulliver ask a bachelor Kashmiri Muslim for the cause of his bachelorhood. He hints at the atrocities committed on him in the interrogation centre:
Bachelor
‘Why didn’t you marry? You are forty-six now.’
‘Papa Two!’
Gulliver says that materialistic attitude has enveloped everyone and everything. Hypocrisy and rigidity dance to the tune of selfishness. No one reads books. Gigoo through a cameo Author mocks at an author who reads his own book. Even literary awards have become funny acts. Honouring one another with shawls destroys creativity. Gulliver feels sad that some Muslim writers got the literature festival Harud cancelled whereas the same Muslim writers participated in Jaipur Literature Festival:
‘Harud’
‘We do not want Autumn here. We are the Winter.’
Apart from a few cameos which Gigoo should not have included, Gulliver in Kashmir is full of multi-dimensional stories of historical events, cultural eccentricities, literary hypocrisies, socio-religious and politico-economical blackmail, moral degradation and ideological bankruptcy. Local, national and international events from literature, culture and sports to terrorism, everything is visible to Gulliver. Gigoo unmasks Hurriyat leaders and those common Muslims who made safe havens for their own children by putting the innocents as a cannon fodder in the the jaws of death in the name of Islam, Pakistan and freedom. But, shamelessly, they are not hesitant in rejecting the Indian aid on one pretext or the other. Their hypocrisy is the hallmark of their character:
Saliva
Sweet saliva drips from the dangling tongues when the funds for developmental works are sanctioned.
The Kashmiri Pandit community has lived in torn tents and one-room tenements in miserable conditions. Their animal-like existence in 1990, tortures and atrocities committed on them by the Islamic zealots and the so-called freedom fighters, their plight and their sorrows have been sold in the international market to counter anti-India propaganda of Muslims. Interlocutors, delegations, human rights violation organisations do not value their opinions, as they are non-existent in the Indian vote bank politics. Surprisingly Gulliver observes that the foreign delegations are not shown the two-room flats now.
Delegation
Let us visit these people also and listen to them as if we are serious about them.
Gigoo resorts to satire when he connects such types of political and social happenings with Gandhi:
Three monkeys
The three monkeys are the model for them all. But instead of ‘evil’ it is ‘truth’.
Gulliver also comments on the devolution of Kashmiri Pandits from Brahmin to batta to Pandit to migrant to Kashmiri Pandits to Nobody. Gigoo dives deep in the pages of history to find out the reasons of the repeated exodus of the Pandit community. He sneers at the proponents of return:
Fools
‘Why do those Pandits want to return?’
‘Fools return to die.’
Gigoo has not spared even separatists, exiles, India, Pakistan, Nehru, Jinnah, Sheikh, Junior Abdullahs, Muftis or Gandhis. That is why he believes that no leader has anything to offer now. Mufti was for ‘healing touch’, Azad gave tulip garden. The big problem is that Kashmir’s problems remained unattended and now it is on the verge of no return.
I have some reservations and complaints against Gigoo. Do cameos highlight only negativities? Kashmiri Pandit community, since day one of their exodus did not compromise with the education of their children. They smilingly bore all the tortures and stood firm for the survival. Why is there not a single sentence or cameo about these things? Why is there not a word of praise for them? Some cameos are not of the standard of the author. In spite of the Appendix at the end of the book, the readers need author’s help to explain many.
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