Book-Summary - ಕಶೀರ (Kasheera)

• Author: Sahana Vijayakumar
• GoodReads: ಕಶೀರ Kasheera

Kasheera is a novel and yet explains about various historical facts relating to Kashmir. One sentence that comes to my mind reading this novel is “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it”. After reading the book, I realised how much important it is to know about our history, our religion and our culture. This is not necessary to spread the word but to survive. There is so much misinformation being spread via media, internet, schools. Opinions are published as facts, propaganda are put out as news. We are made to feel sorry/ashamed/guilty about a concocted history. To understand what is truth and to maintain our own self confidence, we need to read about our history, our religion and our culture. Do not let others preach about our identity, our culture, our religion and our history. Read, discuss with those who know and come to your own conclusions. Read other religions texts as well to understand how different each religion’s perspective is.

The discussion between Narendra, Hrudhayanath Pandith, Sanjeev, TV discussions and articles written by Narendra reveal so much about the Kashmir, article 370, how Kashmir became part of India, how Nehru blundered on his tasks, Islam and its origins, how its initial days philosophy is carried over, how Kashmiri Pandiths exodus has happened multiple times.  The story of Kailash Pandith is really very disturbing and Narendra’s visit to abandoned Kashmir Pandit houses makes us so ashamed of ourselves to let this happen and not knowing anything about such incidents. The story of Basheer talks about the responsibility of each person to understand the religion by their own experience rather than dictated by selected few. In all this, Saleem gives so much hope and makes it a point to not paint everyone in a single brush.