The Outsider's Curse boxset

 The Outsiders' Curse Boxset

The Outsider's Curse (Book 1)

You will find plenty of books on Kashmir by politicians, journalists, army officers, Kashmiri Muslims and Pandits narrating their experiences. BUT you will never find—an outsider IAS officer's perspective.

Sonali Kumar, a starry-eyed young woman, joined the IAS in 1979 to make a difference to India. She was allotted the state of Jammu & Kashmir where she spent 37 years trying to understand the people of Kashmir, solve their problems and focus on development.

What she found was disturbing—an apartheid regime exists in Kashmir where the humanity is divided between insiders and outsiders; where outsiders nearly become second class citizens.

She tried to make the administrative system "people friendly" but soon became a victim herself.

Little did she know that her quest for development in Kashmir will become a fight against corruption, nepotism, communalism and anti-nationalism—all mixed together.

She doesn't realise that the vested interests she had hurt, will soon hit back. And may even cost her career, house, perks and happiness.

Will she succeed? Or will she fail?

Sonali Kumar, as an outsider, brings a fresh perspective to the Kashmir problem NEVER TOLD BEFORE. The book is worth reading for anyone even remotely interested in the Kashmir problem.

The Outsiders' Tales (Book 2)

Short stories from the celebrated author of The Outsider's Curse/Unmasking Kashmir that will tug at your heartstrings and make you think if the insider-outsider government led-distinctions in Kashmir have any human leg to stand on.

When Sonali Kumar, the first lady outsider IAS officer of Jammu and Kashmir, wrote her memoir, she was merely highlighting a curse every All India Service officer has to suffer in J&K.

Little did she then realise that so many other ordinary Indian citizens too suffer from the same curse. Their stories also need retelling. And that is what she has tried to do in the short stories that comprise The Outsider's Tales.

Ever wondered how does the wife of an IAS officer keep her sanity when her husband goes to the office every day?

Or, the CRPF constable who is ordered to stand guard at places that J&K Police won't touch with a barge pole?

Or, the barber who has the high and mighty of Kashmir as his clients, but when he needs help his outsider status becomes an albatross around his neck?

The stories are poignant and make you wonder what Kashmiris have really gained by following this old apartheid policy of the Maharaja of Kashmir?