Gurmehar Kaur always wanted to tell a story. At the age of 12 when she first penned her ideas, she marvelled at how easily characters, stories and words escaped her nib. That’s when she knew, so many years ago, that she had to tell her own story.  But it is a story that has been 19 years in the making. “You know how it is: you live the same truth every single day of your life. Then one fine day, you are much older and capable of looking at it objectively. And that’s when I knew I had to write this down,” she says. Titled Small Acts of Freedom, Gurmehar’s debut book, a memoir, is a deeply personal cataloguing of stories from three generation of women — her nani (maternal grandmother) Amarjeet, her mother Raji, and Gurmehar herself. However, these are more than just stories — they are realities that the women in Gurmehar’s family have lived ever since she lost her father Captain Mandeep Singh in Jammu and Kashmir in 1999.

Gurmehar likes to describe Small Acts of Freedom as a simple story about “normal” people and a normal family. But flipping through the pages, tales of bravery looks one square in the eye. “There is an incredible story of bravery in every single household with everyone fighting their own battles to achieve what freedom is for them,” begins the student activist. Through her book, Gurmehar wants the readers to go back in time and acknowledge the freedom struggle that broke not just the shackles of drudgery but also those in our minds — setting our minds free. “It is important to look at all the effort that your parents, your people, and the generation before you has put in, and acknowledge it,” she says. 

The student activist rose to fame last year in February following a debate about war, peace and nationalism. It was then that a lot of questions about these issues were thrown at her from different parts of the country. But that, Gurmehar believes, wasn’t her problem. “It frankly was not my problem to deal with. If somebody has all this negativity and hatred inside them that they think they can pour out on someone who has an opinion — this hatred is their problem. This realisation, however, came with time. I just have to focus on what I need to do. That is all that matters — the work that you put in, the work that you do,” she says. 

Throughout 2017, Gurmehar had been juggling the book and college. “I used to write the book from 12 midnight to 4 am in the morning on most days since that’s when I’d be free after all the assignments and college work that I had. After catching up on sleep for the next couple of hours, I would be present for my first lecture at 8.45 am every morning,” she recalls.  Following this, there was both physical and mental exhaustion in store for Gurmehar. “There was also this thought that I didn’t want to miss out on anything. I didn’t want people to assume that I had so much happening in my life that I’m missing out on my grades. I had to prove myself in college and write the book,” she says.  Her debut book brings to fore a heavy subject — war and what it leaves behind. But if you were to presume her young self didn’t have much to offer there, the writer is ready, waiting to prove you wrong. 

Small acts of freedom by Gurmehar Kaur Rs 299, pp 304 Penguin Random House

“While I am young, this is also a topic I have been dealing with all my life, through all these 19 years of my life. It’s not something that I just started studying about, or knowing more about. It is the reality of my life. I have encountered, noticed, thought about and pondered over these issues for 18 years of my existence,” she begins. At the same time, Gurmehar has learnt to take such criticism in her stride. 

“Instead of seeing my age as a hindrance, I believe it was my greatest asset because I didn’t have any set beliefs when I was writing a book. I just knew I had to tell the story and as honestly as possible. It isn’t a book that I would have written much later in life,” she says.  At the end of the day, like any reader who wants to only get lost in the pages of a book, Gurmehar wants to offer her readers the same as a writer. “I just want to provide comfort to people through Small Acts of Freedom. I want them to know that life can throw the worst at you, but you can still change things about that,” she concludes.