Voices from the Valley
Asma Rasheed
LIFE IN THE CLOCK TOWER VALLEY: A NOVEL by Shakoor Rather Speaking Tiger, 2021, 175 pp., 350.00
September 2022, volume 46, No 9

‘…be happy not only without love, but despite it.’

Shakoor Rather’s promising debut novel weaves an intriguing yarn around the mundane and the prosaic of Srinagar in 2008, including two lovers, a family and a neighbourhood simpleton. The plot-lines, in rather simple terms, are as follows.

The lovers: Samar and Rabiya are law students who meet initially in the battered matador van they both take to reach their university. After a month of glancing shyly at each other and offering tentative ‘Hellos’, there blossoms a ‘friendship’ that allows circumspect exchanges about corporate law, exams, and so on (p. 59). Things progress to dates at dimly lit restaurants and the relationship grows over the semesters, leading to hesitant kisses and embraces while the ‘Himalayan bulbuls looked on’ (p. 78). Their romance, sadly, comes to an end when Samar leaves for Delhi for higher studies and Rabiya’s wedding is arranged by her family. She sends him a message on his new smartphone: ‘If something can’t be taken to its logical conclusion, it’s better to leave it on a beautiful note’ (p. 174).

The family: Samar’s neighbour Sheikh Mubarak runs a Metal Workshop that makes exquisite metalwork, from household tools to customized gold-and silver-bottomed vessels and world-famous silver cutlery (p. 113). An important concern in his life is his pregnant cow and Mubarak searches frantically during the curfew break for injections prescribed by the veterinarian.

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