Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. A Kashmiri Ambagsman weaving a traditional carpet. Photo: Wikimedia Commons Summary Shabir Ahmad Mir’s new novel, ‘The Last Knot’, balances aesthetics and politics. The author proves that it is possible to experiment with structure and ideas, while he remains rooted from the harsh reality of his people’s lives, Shabir Ahmad Mir’s new novel, The Last Knot, is in Kashmir under the Dogra rule, but the general mood it has traced is not a million kilometers from the darkness. The most important actors of his story are the Muslim watch -weavers of the state, who had to pay excessive tax in the 19th century under the reign of the dog kings. Although their workmanship is very valued, these carpet weavers could not save themselves from prosecution by the ruling elite. The price of deviation from their profession can be deadly, including death, so running away was not a solution. The community was kept under a strict watch, tied to weave mats all their lives, tied their thumbs to the weaving, as the narrator puts it at the end of the novel. The outcome of their hard labor – the precious things of beauty they produced – made no trace of their inhuman effort, all the blood, sweat and suffering it made of the weavers. The protagonist of Mir’s story, who lives under this oppressive regime, is not an ordinary weaver. He dreams of creating a magical carpet, which is able to fly inexplicably over the vast hills and valleys of his homeland. Like those living in topics and conflict areas, his wish is to find freedom of a life that is presented to a state of servitude. His Wusteh, or Master, annoyed by his ambition, is sending off his apprentice to seek Abli Bab, the thumbless Weaver, who lives in a secret cave in the mythical haer parbat. Like the fantastic adventures of Amir Hamza, the fleeing weaver’s journey to the creation of his magical carpet is crossed by deadly enemies. But unlike the exploitation of the folkloric hero, this flesh-and-blood man must weather the storms of a merciless world, where soldiers are out of his blood. Mir tackles the tragic consciousness of a hamlet-like figure in his protagonist, which is forced to devise madness to deceive the tyrants on his route. He finds refuge at a rangur, a seasoned dyer, who, despite his control during his trade, cannot cooperate the perfect blue, a dye that will not run out under the influence of the elements. It is the only secret of his trade that his ancestors did not pass on to him, a fate from which he has no salvation. The Weaver, who lives as a needy Moutt (Madman) with this Dyer and his daughter Heemal, finds himself in possession of the mysterious key to the color blue. But his discovery is lost in a cycle of deception – the Dyer betrays his daughter, who betrays the Moutt, who in turn betrays her, and so on. Also read: A Kashmiri writer wonders why states are afraid of poets. The last knot is a lot of fascinating stories – some from history, others from folklore and oral traditions – that constantly spread the novel, such as Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and the Sea of Stories. Mir’s design is complicated and complicated, such as a finely woven carpet, where facts and fiction merge to create truths that no folklorist or historian had access to. The novel may return to the past, but the author’s consciousness is very informed by the realities of his time. The result is a tapestry made of time, tightly tightly tied like an expertly woven carpet, where the wires of past, present and future can no longer be unleashed. Despite his social realistic scaffolding, The Last Knot is a deeply modernist novel, which is told by episodes that overlap and repeat the reader in a dizzy thousand of stories. The progression of the plot is not linear, and the end is not neat either. Like his debut novel, The Plague on Us (2020), Mir does not make it easy for the reader looking for a structure – one that will lead to an inevitable crescendo. Instead, he likes to post his narrative with references – especially for Greek mythology, Oedipus Rex, and the blind prophet Tiresias in this novel – while turning a web of words that entices the reader to keep turning the page. It may be tempting to describe the last knot as a work of magical realism, but it would be a service of the novel. More appropriate, the novel looks like a Hall of Mirrors, where the atrocities of the past and present reflect each other in an endless desire to create a premonition of the future. Just as the British Kashmir sold to Gulab Singh, the dogra ruler, for an amount of £ 75 Lakh in 1846 after the Amritsar Treaty, the same colonial rulers left the region in a brilliant to the independence of India and Pakistan. While Hari Singh, the last ruler of the Dogra dynasty, Kashmir joined the rule of India, his actions caused a conflict that continued to this day, with no end in sight. Also read: Book Excerpt: An Army General looks back at the 1948 View Full Image Indo-Pak conflict by Shabir Ahmad Mir, Pan Macmillan, 192 pages, £ 599. The last knot is almost like a preamble to things to come, but both novels fit into the intellectual vision of Mir’s career as fiction writer – one that he set out in an essay he wrote for Lounge in 2021, shortly after being nominated for the JCB Prize that year. As he wrote, he raised a rhetorical question: ‘There is too much blood for good literature in Kashmir, says author Arundhati Roy. Should I then, my aesthetic rule the supreme and the blood,? Or should I overwhelm the blood of my people and overwhelm my art and reduce everything I write to lakes? ‘ It is not easy for a writer characterized by the tragic history they have inherited from running the fine line between aesthetics and politics, to refuse to let their creative impulses undergo by a desire to speak on behalf of their people who have been living through violence and injustice for centuries. With the last knot, Mir has proven that it is indeed possible to experiment with shape, structure and ideas, while he remains rooted in the harsh reality of his people’s lives – the impossible -knotted past, present and future that they all bind together in an ordinary tragedy. Catch all the business news, market news, news reports and latest news updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. More Topics #Features Mint Specials
‘The Last Knot’: A novel rooted in Kashmir’s past, present and future
