“The air is thick with rumours. Reports speak of the molesting of Pundit girls and the killing of Pundit men. Kashmiri Pundit families are fleeing the valley in wave after wave. But one man stands unmoved, refusing to give in to this mass frenzy.”

RAvi dhAR’s debut novel Orphans of the storm may be a quick read, but it is full of loose ends. For a book that begins on a powerful note – being a Kashmiri Pundit and the violent uprooting that the existence involves – the book fizzles out as the pages progress.

The only thing that makes one want to be kind to the book is the similarity of Siddhartha, the protagonist, to numerous young Kashmiri Pundits ousted from their homeland. The narrative spread over 29 chapters is the story of a Kashmiri lad whose family is uprooted by the outburst of militancy in Kashmir valley. It is about his efforts to support his father’s efforts to eke out a living in the migrant camps of Jammu and to educate himself. In the inhospitable environment of Jammu, he sees no hope of settling down, despite earning a master’s degree in English. The protagonist moves to Nagaland University as a lecturer in English, and falls in love in the midst of an overwhelming environment of political intrigue and racial conflict. The abrupt end of this love affair, however, hits him hard. As if that was not enough, he gets isolated in the campus politics that views him with suspicion for his proximity to both the groups of faculty. The murder of the college dean draws him into a shell.

Life begins to smile yet again when he completes his doctoral thesis and happens to travel together with his future wife from Nagaland to Delhi. The breakdown of the train by which they are travelling gives them time to come close and by the time they are travelling back from home, the bond between them is already sealed. Through the book, the author provides a quick look at the Kashmiri food, culture, language and, most importantly, the problems faced by the innocent people who have been driven away from their land. Orphans of the Storm takes its readers through the realities of brutality in Kashmir valley and how people struggle every moment to be at par with other countrymen.

Borrowing its title from the 1921 DW Griffith film of the same name, Dhar’s book has ambitious plans but seems half-baked in its efforts. The novel only begins the saga of the unequal struggle of a Kashmiri Pundit family to rebuild its world after the exodus from the valley, blames it all on politics, but without taking any stands. In that sense, it appears unconvincing.