Conflict cruelly touches the lives of people who live amidst it. It’s not the dead alone that are the victims. The snow stories in this collection by Shabir Ahmad are joined together by the mutual thread of conflict and war in Kashmir. The beautiful imagery in these stories paints a sketch of profound anguish and hollowness that conflict induces in the lives of normal individuals.
In this essay, the author explores various definitions of literature and underlines how we understand the term ‘literature’ can have significant impact on how literature is produced, consumed and evaluated in Kashmir.