The Last Knot: A Flying Carpet Over Nineteenth-Century Kashmir

By Naveed Qazi

Shabir Ahmad Mir's The Last Knot invites readers into a Kashmir that feels both familiar and enchanted.

The novel follows a nineteenth-century carpet-weaver who dreams of crafting a flying carpet, a symbol of freedom, defiance, and imagination in a world tightly bound by tradition and power.

Mir's prose transforms the landscape into an actor in the story. Haer Parbat or Kohi Maran looms over the valley like a watchful guardian, Dal Lake mirrors the sky with uncanny stillness, and the surrounding mountains seem to follow every human gesture.

These descriptions carry the weight of history pressing on the characters, asking readers to feel the rough weave of the carpet, the cold stone of the fort, and the tension in the streets of Srinagar under Dogra rule.

The novel's structure mirrors the weaver's loom: threads intersect, loop, and form intricate patterns. Time bends and folds, while myth and reality overlap. Characters like Abli Bab, the dyer, and Heemal appear in fragments, inviting readers to stitch the story together.

This non-linear design can be demanding, yet it mirrors life in a place where every act of emancipation feels provisional.

At the heart of The Last Knot is the pursuit of aspiration under constraint. The carpet becomes a metaphor for imagining a life beyond the strictures imposed by craft-masters, rulers, and circumstance. Each step toward its creation feels like an act of resistance, a claim on possibility in a world built to constrain.

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