O Yasmeen… Book Launch

 

The “Why” of O Yasmeen…

I wrote O Yasmeen... to bypass the forensic history of 1947, for example, who killed whom, where the border lies—and replace it with a spiritual cartography. The novel opens in Chand’s Tea House, a metaphysical space that wasn’t "built" but “arrived” between a cobbler’s stall and a heap of broken radios. Here, the visitors are not merely characters but archetypes of moral injury, and the book itself becomes a testament to the dignity of the unfinished.

In most trauma literature, the goal is “recovery”—an attempt to put the pieces back together. O Yasmeen... argues the opposite. My protagonist, Bose, fails precisely because he tries to “repair” the past—to find Aslam, to recover Yasmeen, to suture a wound that history intended to stay open. The book posits that some betrayals, like the Partition, are absolute. To try to “fix” them is to lie about their gravity.

This narrative establishes a moral boundary: we do not own the pain of others. We cannot narrate it away, fix it, or redeem it; we can only witness it. This book seeks a language for the feeling of displacement that has no place in official history books. It is a prayer for those who have no country__a post-testimonial liturgy for the millions who lost their homes and identities and were told to “move on” by new nations. This book exists to say: your grief is valid, even if—especially if—it has no resolution.

Compared to Kul Pralay, which evolved in parallel, the destruction of Dwarka is not a problem to be solved but a destiny to be absorbed. When Dwarka crumbles, the question is not “What is right?” but “What survives after the right is done?” Just as Dwarka’s end was a “civilizational fatigue” rather than a punishment, the grief in O Yasmeen... is an ontological state, not a temporary illness. In Kul Pralay, the Flying Fortress "Saub" is not just a machine but a “flying curse” made of “Shalva’s humiliation, Shishupala’s ashes, and Amba’s silent gaze.” 

Likewise, O Yasmeen... maps physical objects and places using the coordinates of emotion and memory.

I thank everyone who took time out of their busy lives to attend the book launch and graced us with their esteemed presence.