Seeing Beyond the Omen
‘Amid Dreams and Destinies’ is a profoundly moving novel that situates individual yearning within the broader philosophical, cultural, and spiritual contexts of Kashmir and the Islamic world. Originally written in Kashmiri as Khwaban Khayalan Manz by Asif Tariq Bhat and sensitively translated into English by Faheem Ahmad, the novel is both a work of imaginative fiction and a meditation on exile, belonging, and the universal human search for meaning.
At the centre of the narrative is Arham, a marginalised figure burdened since birth by superstition, social exclusion, and inherited fears. Marked as a bad omen because of his unusual eye, Arham grows up in a society that views difference with suspicion. Yet Bhat refuses to reduce him to a passive victim. Instead, Arham emerges as a philosophical traveller—a common man whose journey unfolds both inwardly and outwardly. Through his experiences, the novel interrogates how societies manufacture “otherness” and how fear often disguises itself as tradition and custom.
Viewed through this lens Arham’s journey also carries the quite but unmistakable contours of a Buildungsroman charting moral, psychological and spiritual growth rather than conventional social advancement.
One of the novel’s most powerful achievements is its rich allegorical texture. The elusive city of Muqaddas operates on multiple levels: as a physical destination, a spiritual homeland, and an ethical ideal. Never confined to a single geographical space, Muqaddas becomes a universal metaphor for justice, dignity, and inner peace. In this sense, the novel remains deeply rooted in Islamic belief and Kashmiri cultural memory while simultaneously aligning itself with broader allegorical traditions.
Bhat’s prose draws heavily on oral storytelling traditions, a quality that the English translation captures with remarkable fidelity. The narrative voice often assumes the cadence of a ‘dastaan-go’, echoing ancestral rhythms and collective memory. This stylistic choice situates the individual firmly within the communal and lends the narrative considerable emotional depth. Ordinary spaces—markets, bakeries, paint shops, deserts, and caravans—are transformed into symbolic sites where questions of moral responsibility, free will, and fate are explored.
A particularly compelling episode is Arham’s apprenticeship with the colour-maker. Here, colour transcends its material function and becomes a metaphor for perception itself—how society “colours” individuals through prejudice and fear. Arham’s quiet success where his master falters subtly disrupts hierarchies of knowledge and skill, reinforcing the novel’s assertion that human worth is not determined by social validation.
Faheem Ahmad’s translation deserves special recognition. Translating a culturally dense Kashmiri text into English without flattening its emotional and spiritual nuances is no small feat. Ahmad succeeds in preserving the idiomatic warmth, cultural silences, and the unspoken weight of gestures, allowing English readers to enter a distinctly Kashmiri world without alienation or opacity.
Ultimately, ‘Amid Dreams and Destinies’ is a novel about the courage to imagine beyond rejection. It raises unsettling yet necessary questions: What happens when one is alienated within one’s own world? Is backwardness a geographical condition or a state of mind? Can creativity itself become a form of resistance? Rather than offering easy answers, the novel provides something more enduring—a compassionate and intellectually resonant exploration of what it means to seek belonging in a society structured around exclusion.
As both a significant translation and a powerful literary debut, ‘Amid Dreams and Destinies’ stands as a quiet yet enduring reminder that the most sacred journeys often begin in loneliness and culminate in self-discovery.
Aiman Habeeb Reshi, Research Scholar at Subharti University Meerut.
