(July 5, 5:10pm)

Trying to collect few credible books on Kashmir... mostly non-fictions that have some accounts on how militancy, in its peak years of 1990-95 reflected in the lives of people...

Books which have more to tell about ordinary men living in far-off pockets, than ideologues or agencies shaping policy in downtown Srinagar..

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Actually, that's going to be a part of the novel... and no, it wouldn't be an analysis of issues or any attempt to pronounce judgement on either parties to the conflict..

It is very much going to be a story of deep and powerful attachment.. and the longingness for a quiet, happy life, which is common to everybody..

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But in order to test this attachment between people, and in consequence their very belief in human values, a disturbing plot was needed, for which Kashmir seemed to me apt..

And not that I am using a region (J&K) to serve tool for a commercial end... I can never possibly be that mean enough..

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But then.. Kashmir to me is a story of love, infallible and continuing in a situation where hatred would seem natural to even the morally upright..

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And that's what my novel is about too...

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