Killings on all over... no one gives any importance to death anymore. People come and go... It’s those, who are on the run, seeking refuge to be kept alive”.
Killings on all over... no one gives any importance to death anymore. People come and go... It’s those, who are on the run, seeking refuge to be kept alive”. Humra Quraishi’s Meer is a novel set in the turbulent 1990s. It is the story of Husna Hakeem whose Alzheimer’s-stricken father and brother are hacked to death in their hometown Bareilly during riots triggered by the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
Denied shelter and fearing for her security, Husna travels to the Valley in search of a shawl-seller whose sons were also slaughtered by right-wing fanatics back home. Little does she know that she will meet her destiny in the form of Meer, an unconventional, violence-abhorring man who becomes her soulmate. As they live an idyllic life in Meer’s dunga, Husna cannot be happier. But this happiness is rudely interrupted when, on the night she gives birth to their child, she is forcibly separated from Meer and sent back to her hometown. Months later, Husna returns to a Valley torn apart by violence, determined to find answers, her newborn, and, most of all, Meer.
She lands in Kashmir amid curfews and crackdowns. A place occupied not just by the police and the politicians, but by lingering memories. She comes across burnt and semi-darkened homes, empty school compounds, compounds overflowing with garbage and piles of rot. Buildings and human forms deadened by the constant onslaught. Fear gnawing deep, frustration running high. Poverty consuming lives. There are gaping graves all over, ready, waiting, hungry to swallow flesh and bone.
In her quest for her loved ones, Husna faces several challenges, from being devoured by one of the lurking forms, carrying the additional burden of burying the remains of a baby to being saddled with another dead form. Amid firings and crackdowns at every step, Husna is checked and rechecked, groped, turned and twisted. She leaves a bloody trail behind her.
Meer is a story about Husna’s survival. The plot is gripping and full of twists and turns. Quraishi describes the ongoing violence in the Valley and how it affects the lives of those living in the conflict zones. She tries to describe the mindset of an average Kashmiri who lives in constant fear and uncertainty and faces humiliation. She also tries to fathom the trauma of families awaiting the return of missing sons, brothers, husbands, fathers and grandfathers. Her novel carries an abundance of emotions of varying hues and shades. Besides narrating the turmoil in Uttar Pradesh after the Babri Masjid’s demolition, she also portrays very beautifully the landscape of UP, with its huge mango trees, the place where she grew up. Her bold portrayal of dark times and darker realities is hard-hitting. At times, her words are thrown at you randomly, and then altogether with a force that shakes you.
Meer is weaved around fractured relations and disturbing truths about lives in conflict zones. It is a story that will leave you with more questions than answers, but they are questions that need asking.
