Author: Asif Tariq Bhat
Language: Kashmiri
Publisher: Ali Mohammad And Sons
Pages: 151
Reviewer: Qaisar Bashir Lone
Amidst Dreams And Musings (Khaban Khayalan Munz), a debut Kashmiri novel by Asif Tariq Bhat, is a beautiful tale of love, of dreams, sympathy, empathy, munificence, destiny, being content with what one has, marginalizing the other, status of girls, and some beliefs and taboos. The novel has seven chapters and stretches over to 151 pages. Told through omniscient point of view and set in a fictional region, that resembles the Middle East of 5th century, Asif seems to recreate Paula Coelho’s The Alchemist and Akhtar Husain Azmi's Neel Ka Musafir with a different dream, protagonist and plot. In some chapters, he seems to have been influenced by Azad’s Daryav or Tennyson’s The Brook and the Japanese folktales (Mason’s Tale). However, with the seamless flow of incidents and skilful dovetailing of events, which actually makes the novel unputdownable, the author has succeeded in his venture.
Arham, the protagonist of the novel, is abhorred by the conservative society he is the part of– he is unlike them, he has strange, uneven eyes. However, he is a man with different head, heart and hand: he always thinks good for the good of humanity; helps the needy, and learns new skills patiently and perfectly. By instinct, he loves to travel different places, and so for, he had travelled Jazbail, Ludmaan, Turaak – fictional towns – besides many other places, where he had seen different people (some welcoming and munificent and some hard-core conservatives) following unlike cultures. To all these places, he had accompanied his camel, his sole companion; and on his travels he had spent his hard earned money.
One day, he hears from a group of old fellows of his town that there’s a holy place somewhere, magnificent and splendid in every respect. He aspires to visit it. However, he has no ready money to travel to the holy place; he has no work; he won’t beg either, but he is desperate to visit the place. He doesn’t know what to do. However, destiny helps him: it so happens that he saves a dyer’s son from drowning; and it gives him a chance to work at his shop for three months, learn dyeing and earn money for his travel.
After receiving his hard earned money from the dyer, his master, he leaves for the holy place. He happens to pass by strange and unknown villages and towns until finally he reaches a town, whose people are welcoming yet indulging in taboos like auctioning new-born girls: it reminds us the dark times of the Arabs who practised this (they buried their daughters live in graves).
Next morning, he resumes his journey and travels some miles under the scorching sun. As the sun goes down, he decides to rest under a tree. He gathers some thorny bushes and lights it. In the flames of the fire, he sees a beautiful girl. Is it a hallucination or reality? It appears to him as if the girl is extending her arms and asking him for a warm hug. He follows her signals and gets himself seriously burned. He shrieks with pain.
Luckily, there happens to be a caravan staying a few yards away. Hearing the cries, the guards who were on vigil rush to the spot. They find a young man writhing in pain. Taking pity on him, they take him and his camel to their tents where he is given a special treatment. Since, he won’t recuperate overnight, they take him along to their king.
By the advent of Arham, this city is blessed with rain after years of waiting. The king realizes it. He asks his Hakim that the man is to be taken special care of. Well, he does. As he recuperate, the king wants to give him a cash reward for turning out to be a blessing for his city. However, he does not accept it. He, rather, requests him to give him some work so that he can earn some money that he shall give as a token of thanks to his Hakim. The king agrees and gives him a job of teaching the Quran to kids in Madrasa.
After some months, as he is done with the work, he takes his hard earned money from the king and leaves to give this money as a token of gratitude to the one who has nursed him during his illness. When he walks into the tent, where the Hakim resides, he finds, to his astonishment, the same girl he had seen appearing in the flames of the fire that had burned him. He thanks her and offers the money as a token of gratitude. However, she does receive it. Meanwhile, a conversation begins between Arham and the Hakim, whose name is Isra. She tells her tragic tale to Arham. Arham comes to know everything about Isra – when she was a little girl, she was sold by her parents to ward off their ignominy. Arham offers her to accompany him next morning. And to that, she agrees.
Next morning, Arham together with Isra leaves for the holy city. They walk some miles until they reach a village – its inhabitants naturally welcoming and munificent. Here, they come to know that they are a few miles away from the holy city. This motivates Arham to continue his journey. As the night approaches, Arham happens see the holy city brilliant with lights. However, it is late night and it is night safe to walk ahead. Therefore, they rest for the night in a ruined palace. Lying supine, he sees the sky brilliant with stars: he wonders about the impermanence of power, art, life…. In the meantime, sleep overtakes him. That night he has a dream – he and Isra enter the holy city, they find two precious stones, he becomes the king of the holy city, marries Isra, takes Isra to Jazbail, where they abolish the age old custom of girl auctioning and counsel people of the city that girls are as important as boys, and here, Isra meets her mother who had sold her when Isra was a little girl. Finally, when they bid adieu to the city of Jazbail, they leave for the holy city. However, they had to spend the night in the same ruined palace. He finds some agency coming toward him and beheading him with a sword. This awakens him from his sleep and he finds himself near the ruined palace, shown to him by Isra a few hours ago. He realizes that it was but a mere dream. And in the meantime, he finds Irsa dead, killed by a man wearing a black colour clock. He wishes to walk up to Isra. He cannot: his legs are tied with a rope.
His face veiled, the man who was wearing black colour robes, walks up to him and says ‘Until now, millions of people in the world had set out to search for their destiny, but no one succeeded, how dared you think you would?’ Saying this, the veiled man whips his horse to go. The horse drags Arham: his eyes are looking towards the holy city that slowly and slowly fades before his eyes. With this the novel ends.
To sum up, reading Amidst Dreams And Musings (Khaban Khayalan Munz) was indeed a treat. Thank you, Asif. I wish success for your book. And I hope, in future, you will write a novel in the backdrop of contemporary happens.
