‘Silent Wall, Speaking Stones’: Lives caught in congested histories, sacred geographies in Ayodhya
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Set in the city of Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, Nishi Chawla’s novel, Silent Walls, Speaking Stones, is a courageous tightrope walk across the quivering lines of mythology, history, faith, religion, and identity that go back more than 5000 years, and the similarly zigzagging, tottering strands of present-day politics. Here, Ayodhya is not just a sacred city but the pivot of power, driven by the rhetoric of dominance and cultural revival through forceful restoration efforts. Within this volatile socio-political landscape, the city is also seen as wrestling with the challenges of urbanisation: underdevelopment and poor healthcare, education and infrastructure.
The novel, spanning more than 400 pages, is a lucid exploration of how easily balances can tip in a city, both past and present. It examines how swiftly empathy, which underpins core human values, can be lost, addresses the persistent challenge of memory slipping into forgetfulness, and emphasises that peace is not merely the absence of conflict but the ability to manage conflict peacefully. Additionally, the novel highlights how humanity, which recognises the value of both the individual and the community, is often eroded in an unfeeling and repetitive manner. All of these factors, alone and together, pull in different directions, throwing the city into disarray...