A spellbinding tale steeped in Kashmiri folklore
Read an excerpt from The Last Knot by Shabir Ahmad Mir
The Last Knot by Shabir Ahmad Mir
by Shabir Ahmad Mir
‘Takes us through the fantastic in fiction [while bring] deeply rooted in realism’
FARAH BASHIR, author of Rumours of Spring: A Girlhood in Kashmir
‘Just like the protagonist of his novel, Shabir is a master craftsman’
KARAN MUJOO, author of This Our Paradise
‘A beautiful tapestry [woven] from the very lifeblood of Kashmir’
ATHER ZIA, author and professor
READ AN EXCERPT
Abli Bab turns to me once again. A faint smile upturns the corners of his lips. ‘Most of them do not believe in Sheba’s gift. It is blasphemy, they say. After all, alchemists supplanting divine dominion is nothing but sacrilege.’ The smile is all over Abli Bab’s face now. It has even crept into his eyes. ‘Sacrilege or submission. The choice is yours.'
But is it? Do I really have a choice in all this? Did I choose to suffer like this? Can I choose anything else but an end to this suffering? Can anyone ever choose anything but an end to their suffering? The choice, if any, is already made; it always is. One look at me and Abli Bab sees that I am way past the illusion that he is calling a choice. ‘But it seems that your choice is already made,’ he says, ‘Be that as it may. Now then, hear me and hear me good. It is a fact well known to all that Solomon’s sigil was a star. His signet bore it and it carried his royal command. And those who know will tell you this as well that Solomon’s treasures were never truly lost at all. As nothing is ever truly lost. Things tend to scatter themselves around us till time makes their presence oblivious. So oblivious that we no longer see them for what they really are. That is how treasures hide in plain sight. That is how Solomon’s treasures are hiding in plain sight. And whoever seeks them, let him be guided by the Solomon’s star. Find the star and perchance, it may lead you to what you seek,’ he says as I walk past him, over to the edge of the ledge.
‘Find the star and perchance, it may lead you to what you seek’
A shiver passes through the old city spread before me, as if someone had untied the knot that was the night. The pleas of dawn may have failed but the fort’s canonical command is not to be ignored. The old city is waking up. The houses are stretching themselves with yawns. The hearths are lit and blue smoke rises up like sighs. The doors open. Women come out. And the Jhelum finds a way into their houses – in pots and pitchers balanced on hips and heads as they sway down and back up the stairs cut into the banks of the river. As pitchers fill up, lips drooling with the spittle of gossip spill the whispers of the night and rumours of the day before on these steps of the yaarbal. Yaar – friend – and bal – place: a place for friends. A friendly place. A nice place to eavesdrop on this city’s secrets. A nice place to start looking for stars.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHABIR AHMAD MIR is a writer from Gudoora, a village in South Kashmir’s Pulwana District. He is the author of THE PLAGUE UPON US (shortlisted for the JCB Prize for Literature in 2021).