Rooh

When Rooh tells Manav in a bar in New York that he ought to go to back home to the hills in Kashmir, he's suddenly thrown into the loop of his past-a blue door, white walls and a house at the end of a lane. Soon, the seemingly small worlds in which his memories reside coalesce into a giant mass and envelop both his past and present, like dark clouds covering a brilliant blue sky.

Two young boys on the cusp of growing up, the cruelty of being a refugee in their own country, a father who is unable to come to terms with this confusing reality-an undercurrent of pain sweeps through his life. In this stream-of-consciousness novel, the protagonist, Manav, makes a physical and metaphorical journey back to Kashmir and relives the past as a part of the present. Rooh emerges as a deeply touching story of tender but broken people he meets along this journey.

Translated from Hindi by Pooja Priyamvada.