The Plague Upon Us — Book Review
Following the creative style of stitching smaller stories into a main bigger story reminds of a Feroz Rather’s benchmark work, and taking a cue from Mirza Waheed’s “The Collaborator”, debut by Shabir Ahmad Mir published by Hachette India is a book on Kashmir which you can skip. It’s a novel written for 2007 but aimed at a 2020 audience. “The Plague Upon Us” has failed to even get close to the benchmarks set by its precedents. The story struggles to find a theme to stick to, the characters fail to breathe and the storytelling (though subjective) is just not good enough to keep you hooked.
The story is set in the 90s of Kashmir when violence and conflict was at its gross peak. Obaid is born in a shepherd family and this division of class is subtly portrayed in the book and extensively talked about. Obaid often got to hear this remark thrown around by people that his parents were, from the perspective of caste, not a suitable match. “Kani phaetmex” — which loosely translates to “born out of a pebble” the one with an unfortunate fate, her mother says she was born out of a pebble. Then comes the horror when miltancy strikes — informers, militants, the army and the journalists. Obaid is caught in a web and he’s to navigate this web bonded by relationships, friendships, family and the ongoing conflict.
When Obaid’s father is declared dead after he’d gone to rear his cattle on the mountains, Ifktikhar Wani — a journalist visits his home along with his son Muzzafar. Muzzafar becomes one of the major characters of the book and in fact drives the narrative this book is based on.
The book is told in four tales each focusing on the lives of four main characters. The brewing love between Jozy and Obaid, friendship between Rabia and Obaid, the opportunistic zaeldars (landlords), the confused Obaid and the rebellious Muzzafar. Together these make it a fascinating and thrilling story but executed badly. Despite being an apparently dark book, the book lacks the vocabulary to support it as the story is narrated very plainly. There’s no strong backstory to any character and it feels like you are reading a newspaper report of a certain incident. Politically, the book has relied on workable approaches rather than showing the facts or for that matter alternative facts subtly. The book tries to show the human story of the conflict but gets lost in the politics of it. The author has played it safe, so I’ll also go with a safe rating of 2 out of 5. A book you can safely skip.
Rating : 2/5
