Found a Treasure I Didn’t Realize I was Looking for in the Meadow of Flowers

When I found out that I would be going to Gulmarg for a literature festival, I was elated. My mother grew up in Kashmir and I have spent quite some time in my own little life roaming these meadows of flowers. I always thought that there was something literary about these wide-open fields, something left for a lone shepherd to write. In fact, like many writers are wont to do, I always imagined Gulmarg to be the scene where Franz Kafka’s last work, The Castle, unfolds. Something about the air up there and the land’s vastness, what better site for a literature festival could one dream of.

We writers arrived from all ends of the country to speak about our work and ourselves in the most enchanting Khyber resort, looking out into snow-capped rugged mountains. Not only did we indulge in innumerable cups of Kahwa whilst pouring out our words, we were also drawn to each other as fellow human beings, shacked up in one of the most beautiful places—a veritable jannat, a realm of its own— for two days. The panel sessions included writers of all stripes. We had horror writers, publishers, memoirists, young Kashmiri students, who just in their teens have books to their names. We talked about our writing, and some of the older writers shared with us and an audience filled with keen interest their exciting, eventful and often turbulent and difficult lives.

One of my favourite sessions was in fact the opening one, where Siddhartha Gigoo, a friend and a most beautiful human being and writer, interviewed three young writers in the most heartening way. It reminded me of how Rainer Maria Rilke once said that only love can touch literature. With such tenderness, kindness and patience, he allowed for these writers to express themselves.

One of the writers, Mahpara Khan, started her talk by saying that one might find it surprising that someone writing from Kashmir would choose fantasy as their preferred genre, that in a state ridden with such pronounced turbulent history, a young writer not more than twenty years old chooses fantasy as a means to express her dreams; and she does it so beautifully and with so much wit. Sitting in the audience I single-handedly cheered her on and tried to compel her to continue reading excerpts from her book that were admittedly—if not darkly so—deeply comic, the kind of comedy that produces tears.

After her session, I found her and spoke to her and her friends. I bought a copy of her book and asked her to inscribe something in it. She wrote, “Every book is a treasure map leading to some treasure. I hope reading this leads you to a treasure you like.” Come to think of it, in Gulmarg, at the Gulmarg Literature Festival, I found a treasure I did not realize I was looking for, after a long time.

Gaurav Monga is a writer and teacher originally from New Delhi. He was a speaker at Network18’s first edition of the Gulmarg Literary Festival.

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