Valley of The Naked

The story of Valley of the Naked is a slice of history of the Kashmir valley told in the background of an organized and spontaneous, funeral procession, on the death of a king of Kashmir more than two decades before the Partition of the subcontinent in this background it is a strange tale of hopes and aspirations, of fears and hatred, of faith and helplessness of simple, religious oppressed poor honest and beautiful people of the valley of Kashmir. The death of the King, the funeral procession, the royal cremation, the calculated political response of largely organized Muslim majority population, the ritual-like-reaction of the knee-jerking politically devided Kashmiri Pandit society the shrewd and diplomatic approach of the British Resident and the cold-stillness of the dumb-deaf vast rural population of the valley forms the visual texture of life and times in the valley of Kashmir. In the first half of 20th century when undivided India engaged itself in the struggle for independence from British colonial rule, the churning of collective psyche of long suppressed Indians and consciousness of the subcontinent produced men like Gandhi, Jinnah, tagore and iqbal who lead one-sixth of the world population in a bid to secure a better tomorrow. India worked like a volcano. Other divergent forces emerged. Bose, Lal-Bal-Pal. All brothers, Maulana Azaad, Bhagat Singh and many unknown teachers, lawyers professionals, farmers, masons, housewives and students who worked hard and finally shook the foundations of the British Empire in India. Inspired by the Indian experiment but deliberately distanced from its playground, there was a parallel political movement launched by the Muslims majority of the Kashmir valley against the autocratic rule of the Hindoo Dogra king of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Set in the spring of 1925, this political struggle of Muslims and social reform movement of Kashmiri Pandits of the valley forms the background of this novel. It is a story of politics and politicians, of leaders of faith and their egos, of healers and torturers, of poverty and lust. This is a sad and awful tale of poor, helpless, honest, handsome Hindoos and Muslims of Kashmir who for centuries have silently and poverty from the hands of a long string of rulers who never belonged to them.