In the country of longing

In the country of longing -by Riyas Babu

A moving tale of countless lives and dreams  gambled away by powers spurred by self-centred pursuits.Over a spectrum of instances,their trajectory in life follows a constant fear about survival.A feeling that is very much similar once you look beyond the extraneous differences,be it in the swarmed Darfur refugee camps in Sudan or the Himalayan hilly town of Dharamsala.Regardless of their nationalities,the disasters that toppled their lives or where they fled to,they all happen to be the citizens of a country of longing.Universally,they are bound by their shared nationality of the land of the exiled.

The novel follows the narrative of a  journalist,who feels distraught about his inability  to make a worthy change in spite of his popular, eloquent stories on the unjust perpetrations he has witnessed.As he faces deportation for an especially provoking article during his assignment in Sudan,it breaks his heart to leave behind Hawwa,the orphaned little girl he met at the refugee camp.He returns to his native Norway  determined to save the child.When attempts for legal adoption fails,he prepares to smuggle the child across the Mediterranean to Italy and begins to coordinate with his refugee friends, who illegally transported themselves to Europe and continue to wait for their resident’s permits.Meanwhile he’s sent to Tibet on another assignment where he finds himself facing a similar situation that he can’t help but approach emotionally.

Even as the landscape shifts across the bleak camps,the blue Nile,Norwegian fjords,jammed Delhi streets,serene monasteries and a packed boat over the  rough Mediterranean sea,the dominant theme is a desperate will to survive when you do not belong anywhere and the world seems thirsty for your blood.Even so,there is no dearth of hope as we find three individuals from different corners of the world,bound by love and destiny,coming together to make their own little family.