An innocent boy from across the border-raised on rhetoric, forged by ideology, and fed the slow fire of hate-steps into Kashmir with a single command: kill. But the mountains keep their own counsel, the valleys remember, and karma-quiet, relentless-has its own script. What begins as a mission becomes a reckoning: of loyalties and lies, of the stories inherited and the truths chosen.
In safe houses and prayer rooms, on parade grounds and in shadowed lanes, the boy crosses thresholds he did not know existed: between faith and fanaticism, duty and desire, obedience and the terrifying freedom of choice. Every voice he meets-a commander who smiles without blinking, a mother who waits without sleeping, a soldier who bleeds without breaking, a girl who refuses to be a footnote-tilts the axis of his world.
Under a sky sown with strife, what unfolds refuses a single shelf or label. It moves-sure-footed and unsparing-between love and loss, suspense and surprise, patriotism and betrayal, darkness and the first light of understanding, weaving them so seamlessly that the seams disappear. Borders harden and blur. Languages collide. Prayers rise for opposite victories. A lie, told often enough, sounds like a lullaby-until the dead begin to speak in medals and mourning cloth.
And when the gun finally lifts, every choice lifts with it: the roads taken, the roads denied, the small, stubborn hope that refuses to die. This is not just a tale of a boy pointed at a target. It is the anatomy of radicalization-and the possibility of return; an intimate portrait of fear and courage; a testament to the strange mercy of love in a world that profits from division.
Come for the chase; stay for the confession. Feel the plot quicken through intelligence briefings and back-room bargains; the winter bite on mountain passes; the festival lights that soften a city at war with itself. Here, allies are made in whispers and enemies in headlines. Here, redemption is not guaranteed-but it is earned, one unlearned hatred at a time.
By the final page, the question will not be who he became, but who we are when the story asks something of us. Read it once for the turns. Read it twice for the quiets between them.
Autorentext
Vikas Sharma, debut novelist and co-founder of Ritus Diet, holds a B.E. in Electronics & Communication and a CCEM from IIFT. An alumnus of Sainik School, Sujanpur Tira, he began writing plays at 14. His debut, Karma Backfired, reflects his discipline, patriotism, and flair for powerful storytelling.