Kashmiri writer Jamsheed Ramsool calls this newly published book by Mir Khalid a “magnum opus.” This is the blurb from Amazon which indeed makes it look quite compelling:

“In 1989, an adolescent schoolboy from downtown Srinagar watched as his elders extricated themselves from university campuses, high-school grounds, handloom machines & farms to bear arms & fight a war of attrition against the Indian state.

Twenty-two years on, Jaffna Street was born from his explorations of the human dimension of the conflict appositely termed the Kashmir tragedy. Combining anecdotes, personal memories & extended interviews, the author takes us behind the scenes & headlines into Srinagar city’s ‘notorious’ perpetually politically charged downtown as well as its upper cityside belt to create a panoramic portrait of recent Kashmir history. He profiles ordinary people—hitmen, insurgents, artisans, failed Marxist intellectuals, mystics, exiles, gangsters & ordinary individuals—who wouldn’t make it even to the footnotes of history but have been crucial first-hand witnesses, participants or victims of some of the important events that marked the tumultuous & violent years of the insurgency.”