In Kashmir, folktales often begin with the word dapaan—‘it is said’. So too do local narratives told and retold about the past, among people who have lived through nearly eight decades of a bitter contest between India and Pakistan.
This is a story about stories. In the hyper-nationalist din over a territorial dispute, Kashmiri voices are often drowned out. Yet the region is home to long habits of storytelling, its communities intensely engaged with history-keeping. For centuries, folk traditions of theatre, song and fable have flowed into a reservoir of common talk. Mythology, hearsay and historical memory coexist here without any apparent hierarchies.
By the time armed rebellion spread through Kashmir in 1989, many of these traditions had died out, or been forced underground. But they have left traces in the way ordinary people speak about the conflict—in their songs of loss, and jokes about dark times; in fantastical geographies, and rumours turning the Valley’s militarisation into a ghostly haunting. From Partition to the 2019 Indian crackdown, Ipsita Chakravarty discovers a vivid, distinctly Kashmiri vision of events that have often been narrated from the top-down. Her interviewees conjure a kaleidoscope of towns and villages shaping their own memories.
A collection of stories of love, longing and loss from a region that has witnessed decades of conflict, Dapaan seeks to answer the question: what happens when no line can't be drawn between your stories and your tragedies? What happens when one so seamlessly merge into another that nobody can tell when one stops and another begins.
Dapaan brings a gore-flecked reality of a tragedy wrapped in a packaging of storytelling. The intent is same, akin to that of art: to give comfort to the uncomfortable and discomfort to those cocooned in soft cushions of privilege. Kashmir and its inhabitants are struggling and Dapaan doesn’t let you forget that.
In Kashmir, folktales often begin with the word dapaan—‘it is said’. So too do local narratives told and retold about the past, among people who have lived through nearly eight decades of a bitter contest between India and Pakistan. This is a story about stories. In the hyper-nationalist din over a territorial dispute, Kashmiri voices are often drowned out. Yet the region is home to long habits of storytelling, its communities intensely engaged with history-keeping. For centuries, folk traditions of theatre, song and fable have flowed into a reservoir of common talk. Mythology, hearsay and historical memory coexist here without any apparent hierarchies.
By the time armed rebellion spread through Kashmir in 1989, many of these traditions had died out, or been forced underground. But they have left traces in the way ordinary people speak about the conflict—in their songs of loss, and jokes about dark times; in fantastical geographies, and rumours turning the Valley’s militarisation into a ghostly haunting. From Partition to the 2019 Indian crackdown, Ipsita Chakravarty discovers a vivid, distinctly Kashmiri vision of events that have often been narrated from the top-down. Her interviewees conjure a kaleidoscope of towns and villages shaping their own memories.
The book is teeming with words and phrases indigenous to Kashmiri. The author patiently explains us the meaning of each word, without making his book look like a dictionary. Not even once did I feel I was reading a word I didn’t know about. I loved the story about informants (called cats.) Have a look: "There were two kinds of cats in Kashmir. There were personal cats, regular informers on the payrolls of agencies. They carriedNon with their daily lives or joined militant groups but secretly passed on intelligence to the forces. The second kind of cat was a cat under duress, people who had been captured and tortured until they gave up names. Trouble was, anyone could be turned into this sort of a cat anytime."
The prose is honeyed and yet it brings a discomfort that’s the demand of the story and its nature. The author writes: "For the night is crowded with terrors in Kashmir. There is the raantas, also called the daen, with her feet turned backwards and her dangerous sexual appetites, There is the van moenu, or forest man, cousin to the yeti, who lives in the woods. The wolf-like bram bram chok, a spectre with a lamp on its head. The cat-like yachch, who calls two and a half times, wuf-wai, wuf-wai, wuf. It wears a fez. If you can steal the fez, untold wealth will be yours. But if you try and you fail, a dire fate awaits you. Some say the yachch is only a cat sneezing. Still, if you hear it call at night, stay indoors."
Steeped in Kashmiri folklore, these are stories that sings.
Dapaan isn’t just a book—it’s a story telling experience. Ipsita Chakravarty has created something truly rare: a work that brings the voices of everyday Kashmiris to the forefront, in all their humor, sorrow, memory, and myth.
Told through interviews, folklore, dark jokes, and ghost stories, this book shows how deeply storytelling runs through Kashmiri life—even in the face of decades of conflict and silence. I loved how it blurred the lines between oral history and legend, fact and feeling, making space for the kinds of truths that don't always show up in official accounts.
What struck me most was how Dapaan captures memory as something communal and alive. It doesn't try to offer one version of history, but instead holds space for many—conflicting, poetic, even fantastical.
This is one of those rare reads that lingers in your mind long after you've finished. Highly recommended for anyone interested in Kashmir, in the politics of memory, or simply in the quiet, powerful ways people keep their stories alive.
Dapaan tells us the histories and stories of Kashmir that are hidden from view, unless you are from the Valley, and it does so with beautiful, evocative writing. It's a book that will haunt me, and force me to come back to it again and again.