Journalist Rahul Pandita’s new release follows a conflict reporter’s journey of finding home among people and the memories he has held on to in life
A scene featuring shikaras in Dal Lake. Kashmir is at the core of Pandita’s book. Pic Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons
In journalist Rahul Pandita’s new novel Our Friends in Good Houses (Fourth Estate), Neel and his family have lost their home in Kashmir. Neel’s father copes with the exile and his wife’s ill health by avoiding the thought of loss. However, for years, Neel yearns to “discover a ground” and find a home. Even in his old house, he believes, home felt distant. This perpetual search leads him to collect a few things and memories of people who inspired in him a sense of belonging.
Pandita’s writing is meditative in nature. His attention to detail makes it easy for readers to slow down and travel with the protagonist through his memories. We learn about his friendships with the locals, which become central to Neel and the nerve centre of the novel. For instance, a local grocer Lakshman’s good nature and warmth help Neel access the village from where a district collector had been abducted. His presence also supports Neel in gaining trust from the villagers and gathering information as a journalist.
Rahul Pandita
Poignant moments arrive, however, in the time he spends with such locals. For example, the boat ride he takes after wrapping up his assignment to visit Lakshman acts as a quiet gesture of his gratitude for Lakshman. Similar transient instances of intimacy, whether shared with Gurnaam or Gurupriya at the guerrilla zones, stay with you and make the novel an immersive, heart-rending read.
Excerpts from an interview.
How did the loss of home and a consequent search for it become central ideas in the book?
I think I wanted to sever the idea of homelessness from any event of physical displacement alone. In the modern world, many of us feel afflicted with a certain lack of ground. Also, the idea of home means different things to people. No matter where you are, home is at the heart of who we are. It is our gravitational force. By making it the theme of my novel, I wanted to reach out to people who feel this homelessness and tell them: Hey, you are not alone.
Why did you choose a non-linear, fragmentary structure for the novel?
Isn’t that how memory works? We cannot put it under the command of linearity. We keep going back and forth between the worlds we have inhabited and continue to inhabit. In that way, I have simply followed the path memory has shown my protagonist, Neel, who, as you know, has just a few similarities with me.
What did the process of putting these fragments of memory together look like?
The process of writing this novel has, in many ways, helped me make sense of the world I have experienced in the last two-and-a-half decades. It was not pleasant. But life in itself is beautiful. But whether it is or not, at one point I had to stop and start looking inwards. How I processed that is how the novel has taken shape.
The story includes multiple forms of violence as well as the narrative of the protagonist’s ailing mother. What were the challenges?
There were many. As a conflict reporter, I always left the ‘field’ with a dread in my heart. The dread is about a future pain — that, maybe, when I return next, some people may have already been consumed by violence. That dread has shaped at least one story’s trajectory in the novel, which was the most difficult to write.
Available Leading bookstores & e-stores
Cost: Rs 599
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