The Garden of Solitude

by Siddhartha Gigoo

The Garden of Solitude is a poignant tale of a Kashmiri Pandit family driven away from the Valley in the wake of armed insurgency and political turmoil. Sridar, a young Pandit boy, is torn apart as he reluctantly leaves his home situated in the beautiful Valley along with his family. The family, like the other Pandits, settles in Jammu, where an entire generation of Pandits spends the rest of their lives suffering from a sense of loneliness and alienation. The older people are shattered due to the forced migration and many of them suffer from dementia as a consequence. Sridar soon begins to find solace in his writings and leave Jammu to pursue full-time writing. However, his love for his homeland brings him back to Kashmir; he is now writing a book on Pandit migration. He is pained to see how the forced migration to Jammu has transformed the once prospering and happy community of Pandits into a pained and estranged populace. Troubled by his tumultuous past, he is now trying to find answers to the questions that define him. The first novel in English written by a Kashmiri Pandit about the political turmoil in Kashmir, migration of Pandits and their life and plight in exile.

Genres: India

260 pages, Paperback

Published December 1, 2010

About the author

Siddhartha Gigoo is a Commonwealth Prize-winning author. In 2015, he won the Commonwealth Short Story Prize (Asia) for his short story, The Umbrella Man. He has written two books of poetry, three novels--The Garden of Solitude, Mehr: A Love Story, and The Lion of Kashmir--, an experimental fiction--Love in the Time of Quarantine--, and a book of short stories--A Fistful of Earth and Other Stories (longlisted for the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award 2015). He has also co-edited two anthologies, namely A Long Dream of Home: The Persecution, Exodus and Exile of Kashmiri Pandits and Once We Had Everything: Literature in Exile. His short stories have been longlisted for Lorian Hemingway Short Story Prize, Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, and Seán O'Faoláin Short Story Prize.

Siddhartha's short films, The Last Day and Goodbye, Mayfly, have won several awards at international film festivals. His writings appear in various literary journals.

For more, visit:

https://www.siddharthagigoo.com

Reviews

[Adv. Vandana Choudhary · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliantly-written book. All I can say is that this is the best book I have ever read, highly captivating and definitely a must-read for all those who wants to read some honest work, to know about the Kashmiri Pandit exodus.

[Lakshmi Narasimhan · Rating 3 out of 5]

a middle path approach to the kashmir conflict, almost in India the activist circle is pro-kashmir just for the reason that kashmir is against Indian government,but, they taught marxists never utter the other side of the story, crony activism has made kashmir the pseudo symbol of "secularism" , any body who is secular has to support kashmir is the wrong popular lines media nad activist circles take. None has dared to speak from a kashmir pandit point of view, even those political parties which speak for kasmir pandi haven't done much on ground as they see it as a way to whip the emotions across the country. this short novel is a great piece although less engaging at some places. A work of commendable nature.

[Seema Ravi krishna · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good storyline marred with bad writing. It is difficult to continue reading and i couldn't wait to be done with it. Bad characterization with no relevance to anything in the story. This is like some journal entries tied together to a loose fictional account without much conviction. The author is undoubtedly passionate about his lost homeland but it fails to strike a chord with the reader.

[Ashwini Sharma · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good book describing a path of self-discovery, but which was not given complete shape owing to a muddled train of thought.

[Smita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written

A pleasure to read. Equally joyful and sad. Some great and memorable passages in it. Presents an idealistic picture of the amity and love between the local Muslim and Pandit population of Kashmir. Don't know how true it is. But I want to believe it!

[Vr Murty · Rating 5 out of 5]

It will take you to a new world

[Swarnima Pandit]

This book was on my shelf for a good seven years, until a week back when I picked it up for my quarantine read. The plot/story line caught my eye, given how the Kashmiri-Pandit exodus of 1990s marked a decisive period in Indian politics. I hoped for a gripping personal yet political read, combining fiction in the backdrop of real events. However, I was slightly disappointed.

The author, himself an internally displaced migrant, covers certain aspects of Kashmir beautifully. The description of the picturesque valley, along with the aroma of traditional kehwa and lavasas places you in the heart of Kashmir. I was immensely fascinated by the description of Kashmir's native lifestyle and food habits, which brought me closer to the place. Further, it makes you travel to certain places with the protagonist, helping you take a journey of your own. These aspects helped me keep the pages turning.

However, there's a certain turbulence when it comes to the flow of this book. It keeps abruptly changing track, to the point of incoherence in certain spaces. These aspects dissuaded me from continuing the book, but I eventually did complete it. By the end of it, I did feel a personal intimacy with the Kashmiri Pandits and the idea of their brutal migration made me shudder in certain spaces. That, I believe, is the biggest takeaway from this book. It lets you become a part of their life and compels you to identify with the Pandits, their joys and pain.

Favourite Quotes

1. It is the land they want, not our hearts

2. Music drowns depression, and when it does so, it can unite you with the divine

3. For the migrants, tomorrow brings no hope, and today is a burden weighing heavy on their souls. There is nothing to look forward to.

4. We must remain mad, in order to be sane.

[Reading_ Tamishly · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a story telling about the days where there are freedom fights and restlessness amongst the people living in Kashmir. So many of the men and women have been killed in the process.
Muslims get targeted and killed. Women getting raped and murdered.
Young adolescents lured with the promise of training to gain freedom and in the process end up dying for nothing.
The story focusses more more in the Pandit community more than the Muslims as opposed to the plot.
The characters are many, yet not all of them do not hold much importance or connection with the plot.
Character build up is weak.
The plot lying somewhere lost in between the disconnected sentences.
The ending do not have much impact as it should regarding such a scenario.
The main protagonist Sridar was ok. Being wanting to become a well known published writer and the part he is playing in the story cannot be that well related.
Did not like anything about the book.
Well, this book as a whole is better than the first book by the same author.
In the coming days I doubt if I would ever pick up another book by the same author.
*Not worth the plot.
*Not worth your time and money.