The book refuses to move from postcard Kashmir to political Kashmir.
In touristy visions of Kashmir, Dal Lake has become an enduring postcard. A picture of a shikarah poised amid the lake framed by the Himalayas has acquired the status of a veritable logo for the timeless beauty of the Valley. The picture, so to say, is an evocation of the Valley and captures some distinctive essence of the place. But we may be making a serious error of judgment if the postcard infers the entire Valley for us. That is, if it leaves an undue imprint on our larger understanding of the Valley’s life.

More so, when the place, perhaps more than ever, lies starkly split between its lovely physical attributes and the political image. There are now two Kashmirs: one a physical one that has always been the locus of romantic dreams with Dal at its centre and the second, a Kashmir of mind, which reflexively scares the outsiders. A Kashmir that has been an unmitigated scene of murder and mayhem for the past two decades. Justine Hardy’s book In the Valley of Mist: A Family Story is poised precariously on the Dal side of the divide with tentative forays into the other side.

Reading this book, one cannot but come away with a distinct impression that this is a divide that Hardy somehow refuses to distinguish, bridge or even comprehend. A serious omission for an author who knows Kashmir for decades, right from the liberal Eighties when she could walk freely in Lal Chowk in her western clothes through the Nineties to the present decade when she takes care to fully cover her body and head. Hardy’s imagery too is sourced from Dal. It is a world of still lakes, lotus gardens, houseboats, high Himalayan peaks and carpets. Even the title doesn’t miss the mist.

... contd.