Debasmita Dasgupta’s graphic novel Terminal 3 strikes a note of hope for Kashmiris

After Naseer Ahmed and Saurabh Singh’s Kashmir Pending (2007) and Malik Sajad’s Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir (2015), another graphic novelist has chosen to tell a story set in Kashmir. Debasmita Dasgupta’s Terminal 3 unfolds against the backdrop of the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution — which gave a special status to Jammu and Kashmir — in August 2019.

The breakdown of communication between people in the valley and their loved ones outside casts its plaintive shadow on the plot that revolves around Khwab Nazir, a sportswoman from Srinagar. She is excited to represent India at an international jiu-jitsu tournament in San Francisco after raising money through a crowdfunding campaign. Directing her attention to sports is also an attempt to find hope and meaning for herself after her best friend Noor loses her eyesight during a stone-pelting incident in the valley. Apart from Noor, Khwab’s biggest cheerleaders are two men trying to resist patriarchy — her coach Omar, and her father Rafi.

When Debasmita Dasgupta began working on this book — Terminal 3 — published by Penguin Books this year, she wondered if readers might accept such a story from a non-Kashmiri like herself. Instead of shying away from the challenge, she decided to equip herself with reliable information and plunge in. Her background in the development sector helped in this regard.

Ode to sportswomen from Kashmir

“Because I am not a Kashmiri person, I wanted to spend a lot of time doing my research and understanding the kind of story that I would tell and what my standpoint would be,” says Dasgupta, over a Zoom call from the United Kingdom, where she is currently based. She supports the “own voices” movement in young adult literature that advocates for people from marginalized communities to tell their own stories but also believes that storytellers should “not have too many boundaries to confine their creativity”. She adds, “I can’t restrict myself to telling stories about Bengali women living outside India with a mindset like mine.”

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Terminal 3 is dedicated “to the fearless spirit of sportswomen from Kashmir”. Dasgupta’s research involved conversations with friends, journalists, and people working with community-based organizations to understand everyday life in Kashmir.

She learnt from reportage, documentary films, and photographic documentation by journalists Sanna Irshad Mattoo and Masrat Zahra, blogger Aamir Wani, and videos featuring football coach Nadiya Nighat. “The book has some influences from Pablo Neruda, Toni Morrison, and Ernest Hemingway. I love their work. They are not Kashmiris but they speak the language of the soul,” says Dasgupta, who also has a strong personal connection with Kashmir.

She reminisces, “As a child growing up in Kolkata, I used to visit Kashmir a lot. My father loved Kashmir, so he would take our family there during our summer holidays and the Durga Puja vacations.” She also had Kashmiri shawl-sellers visiting her house often. She recalls, “Khwab’s father, Rafi, is named after one of them. I used to call him Rafi uncle. He used to call me chhoti and bring apricots for me. We visited his house and met his entire family.”

A layered narrative

While Dasgupta carefully avoids presenting a critique of what happened in 2019, she invites readers to inhabit the setting through the ubiquitous presence of check posts and barbed wire and a colour palette — green, orange, red, green, brown — that reminds one of chinar leaves. She highlights the hardships people face when telephone and Internet services are suspended. Her visuals create a menacing atmosphere that captures the oppression they have to endure.

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She says, “What happened in 2019 was significant. Whether it was necessary or not is something that I will not comment on. I am not a politician, or in any kind of administrative position. My aim is to show how people’s lives changed overnight.” A Kashmiri friend of hers, who was outside Kashmir at that time, could not get in touch with an ailing father who needed medical treatment. “There are many such heart wrenching stories,” she adds.

As the story took shape, Dasgupta began layering the narrative further. At one level, Terminal 3 is about a Kashmiri woman’s journey of self-discovery where she prioritizes her career over societal expectations around marriage. At another level, it is about a father’s love for his daughter. Khwab’s father played football for 25 years but had to sacrifice his dreams for his family. They refused to support him. He had to set up his own business in order to prove that he was capable of shouldering all the financial responsibilities expected of a man.

The father figure

The theme of fathers who nurture daughters is close to Dasgupta’s heart. She says, “I initiated a project called ‘My Father Illustrations’ after the Nirbhaya rape case in Delhi because I wanted to tell stories of men who swim against the tide, men who are not perpetrators, men who care — especially fathers.”

She ran this project on Facebook, where she posted illustrations featuring father-daughter stories from various countries. She was floored by the response not only from daughters who are proud of their fathers but also from fathers who cherish their daughters. “I was moved to hear from Afghan men in particular. Media depictions focus on the Taliban, so people assume that all Afghan men are cruel,” she says.

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How did the crowdfunding angle enter the book? Omar tells Rafi, “Well, in short, it’s asking people, family, friends and strangers to donate money. It works quite a lot in the West.” Rafi wonders if a strategy that has worked in the United States of America or in Canada might work in Kashmir. Omar replies, “We can at least give it a try. Nothing to lose after all.” Rafi wants his daughter Khwab to fulfill her dreams, so he is willing to consider this alternative.

Dasgupta points out that her development sector background makes her focus on “concrete actions that people can take” instead of “talking only about the obstacles in life”. Therefore, she thought that crowdfunding would be worth exploring as a part of the graphic novel. She says, “It might seem unusual but help often comes from strangers rather than the people you know intimately. Something resonates with them, and they are willing to help others fly.”