The Collaborator

Mirza Waheed

Penguin

R: 499

Pp: 308

For the two countries separated by the sketchy Radcliffe Line, Kashmir has forever been a trophy for their political egos. It has been a tool of convenience, an object of power, war and diplomacy, that much too often pushes into oblivion the flesh and blood of that land and its people.

Mirza Waheed, in his debut novel, The Collaborator, brings back that flesh, blood, and life to the largely faceless mass of Kashmiris, which most of us view, with an estranged sense of pity and confusion, as too far away to even care. That?s what conflicts do. They eat up the humane aspects of a region and its people, under the hideous dark shadows of ?larger? political and territorial games.

The book is a brutal, chilling and a heartbreaking story of the predicaments and tribulations of a 19-year-old Kashmiri boy, who resides in the isolated Gujjar village of Nowgam close to the Line of Control (LoC) separating ?this Kashmir from that Kashmir.?

Through this boy?s eyes, heart and mind, Waheed weaves a story of melancholy, suffering and pain, that leaves the reader trembling at times, and at times in deep thought on how many boys might actually share the very same story. It is Kashmir of the early 1990s, when the wave of militancy swept much of the valley, the village of Nowgam is deserted with most families moving away except one, the family of the village headman, the narrator?s Baba (father). The boy is forced to work for an army officer, Captain Kadian, which requires him to venture into the valley to take account of the corpses, and recover whatever possible from them?ID cards, arms and ammunition, etc.

Under this broad setting, the story progresses, oscillating to and fro from the past to the present, through the ?now and then?, ?then?? and ?now?? of the book. The boy dwells in the past, as do most people who have lost everything around them. His longing for his friends, who like many crossed over to fight for azadi, and his fear of discovering them among the innumerable mutilated and disfigured corpses sets a haunting undertone to the narrative. A heart-wrenching and a soul-stirring piece of work, and a harrowing and nightmarish account of life in Kashmir back then.

The writing is full of metaphors and is simple yet lyrical, with strong and effective visual imagery that comes out as one of the most effective attributes of the story. There are seamless transitions from the real world to a world that is nestled in the mind of the narrator. Moving away from the complexities, Waheed presents a simple story of a simple boy and a simple village, which under the intense hues of conflict, lies suffocated, perhaps in many parts of the valley, waiting to be told over and over again. It?s not about politics, it?s not about conflict, but it?s about life, friendship, passion, ambition, and everything basic to the human heart and mind.

But the book doesn?t fare quite well in terms of drawing a line between fact, fiction and fact-based fiction. It merges, overlaps and can be confusing for most of our sensibilities. And while it certainly is an interesting read, it fails to maintain a uniform pace in terms of storytelling, at times accelerating, and coming to an almost halt at the others. This book is about making a point to a large extent, apart from providing the ?real? account of ?a war that is too real.? And maybe that?s the reason why the story keeps going in circles, picking on the same sentiments over and over again, which does seem a bit drab. It does qualify as a promising debut, but just that. However, more importantly, Mirza Waheed?s arrival on the literary scene gives us a voice from the valley that can?t be ignored anymore.

The Collaborator is definitely worth a read. If not so much for the storytelling, at least for the story it seeks to tell. Advice on reading? Well, for starters, read with an open mind.