The contours of displacement

A collection of essays intricately weaves the stories of a Kashmiri family and their exodus from the Valley

Bird Milk and Mosquito Bones

Author: Priyanka Mattoo

Publisher:  Penguin Viking

Pages: 304

Price: Rs 699

Born in Srinagar, Priyanka Mattoo has lived at 32 different addresses across India, the UK, Saudi Arabia, and the US over the course of four decades. A few years after she was born, her parents decided to relocate abroad for work in order to gain the capital to slowly build their own house in Kashmir. On their trips, the family would collect decorative items and carefully bring them back. This is the context that provides the title to the memoir: “There is a Kashmiri phrase, chhari