Book Review – ‘Calling Sehmat’ by Harinder S Sikka

Book Review – ‘Calling Sehmat’ by Harinder S Sikka

Harinder S Sikka’s maiden novel, Calling Sehmat, is based on the basic premise that Kashmiris are as much Indian in their hatred for our western neighbour, as anyone else. The Indian-ness in them is so profound and committed that they are ever prepared to go to any extent to prove their love for their motherland, India. It is not hard to imagine from where this basic assumption of the author comes from. A retired naval officer, Harinder’s one sided obsession with Kashmiris may be shared by many Indians, including myself. The story takes a young and beautiful Kashmiri student in Delhi, Sehmat, away from her love to get married to a Pakistani Army officer who happens to be also a son of an ISI General. The purpose, understandably, is to spy from the household and pass on the information to the Indian intelligence. One such input warns the Indians of the presence of the Pakistani submarines in the Indian Ocean just before the 1971 Indo-Pak war – something that helps the Indians to help make a more accurate strategy which leads to the sinking of PNS Ghazi and the attack on the Karachi harbour. After the war, a pregnant Sehmat returns to India only to turn delusional as her college love takes her son away for a proper upbringing. A miraculous wanderer finally is able to revive here to normalcy by offering spiritual talks, much of which Harinder claims he has borrowed from Dr Brian Weiss’s ‘Many Lives Many Masters’.

The strength of Harinder’s narrative is that it is very straight and doesn’t allow too much of a room to the reader to wander – perhaps due to his Naval rearing. The description of the 1971 war brings about a much needed naval focus which many Indians may not be completely aware of. This, he claims, is the only part in the book that is not fiction. I read the book just after Basharat Peer’s ‘Curfewed Night’, which, though autobiographical presented a totally different picture of the Kashmiri’s heart. I feel Harinder braves the impossible, making his characters to fathom seemingly impossible abysses of realizations that readers sometimes find a tad too difficult to fathom. But then, as I said, he is a brave writer who chooses, perhaps consciously, to lend heavily on his fauzi upbringing. I for one will be looking forward to read more from him, to see which way his adventure takes him.