"[T]ime never seemed to be heading anywhere but was always circling, returning, and repeating, bringing the self back to itself."
This line from Anuk Arudpragasam's second novel, A Passage North (2021), hauntingly encapsulates our ongoing, living crisis – one that is marked by recurring lockdowns, waves of disease, and worst of all, the fear of death. As I made my way through the novel in July this year, the Subcontinent was still reeling from the ravaging second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Sri Lanka, cases and desperate pleas for help continued. Burial grounds – such as the one in Oddamavadi in the island nation's Eastern Province – saw a sudden surge in the number of bodies, also as a consequence of the revocation of the government's controversial mandate of cremating the deceased. Meanwhile, escalating clashes between Afghan security forces and the Taliban was a portent of yet another distressing picture for the country's civilians.
One of the questions A Passage North asks is – can one emerge unscathed despite being unharmed by conflict? The novel quietly reflects upon the discordance with the self, the emotional cost of displacement, and the survivors' guilt that continues to gnaw at those spared by violence and tragedy. A certain wistfulness drifts over the narrative, protracting time and slowing down the suddenness of occurrence.