Indian Army, released his book The Chenab Connection, a fascinating love story that traverses between India and Pakistan, in presence of a packed audience at an event held at the India International Centre, New Delhi.
Brigadier Shameem has served in the Indian Army for over three decades and witnessed the growing Indo-Pak conflict from close quarters. Speaking at the book release, Shameem said, ‘After I completed my fourth book, my daughter-in-law asked me to write a love story. I thought if it had to be love, why not base it on regional folklore? Two folklores that immediately came to my mind were Sohni-Mahiwal and Heer-Ranjha. Coincidently, both these folklores are from the Chenab region.’
The Chenab Connection is a fictional love story about an Indian boy and a Pakistani girl falling in love and managing to settle down and have a family under the looming shadows of hatred that has grown stronger over the last seven decades. The book looks at the crisis and its nuances through the eyes of people who are in love; because sometimes all it takes is love to conquer all. The book was launched by Brigadier Shameem’s wife, Nilofar, and was followed by a conversation with senior journalist, Tina Sharma Tiwari on the topic ‘Can Chenab connect the hearts and minds of the people like it connects the land?’
Over the course of the discussion, Tiwari said, ‘At the centre there is a love story but there is so much intrigue around it and the author has obviously drawn from his wealth of experience, talking about the army on both sides, the intelligence agencies; all of that gets woven into the plot and that’s very interesting.’
People across the literature and defense fraternity, including the author’s batch mates and senior army fellows, attended the launch. Rama Pandey, veteran TV journalist, theatre personality and the founder of RATNAV Foundation, said, ‘Reading the book, for the first time I realised that an Army man feels the same way a common man does. Everyone wants peace between the two nations and that can only be achieved through love, not war.’
The event ended with the author signing copies of his book.