The Garden of Solitude by Siddhartha Gigoo
T
he exodus of Kashmiri Pandits due to the increasing militant actions in the valley is one of the saddest parts of Kashmir’s history. In Siddhartha Gigoo’s The Garden of Solitude, we meet one such Kashmiri Pandit boy, Sridhar. Forced to flee his beautiful valley, Sridhar has now settled in Jammu, but the call of his beautiful home often leaves him restless. The book beautifully portrays the sentiments of people torn away from their homes, and how they manage to survive their new reality.
The Tree with a Thousand Apples by Sanchit Gupta
T
he fate of three childhood friends in Kashmir changes forever on the fateful night of January 20, 1990. The exodus of Kashmiri Pandits divides the three friends, as one is forced to leave everything behind and settle elsewhere. Twenty years later, following the harsh realities that life has dealt them, and with Kashmir continuing to be a victim of terror, the three friends reunite once again. Will the three friends manage to come together even though they’re each carrying old wounds and the grief of communal divisions, or will they forever remain separated by the exodus that ruined thousands of lives? Sanchit Gupta’s poignant book is a story of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits that portrays how a single incident proved to be disastrous across different communities. 56
NOVEMBER 2020 - WWW.DESHVIDESH.COM
