When
I left Srinagar on 22 January 1990, I
was in my 20s. I was escorting my sister
to Delhi. We had to leave because three
days before, militants had given a call
for jehad across the Valley. Kashmiri
Pandits, soft targets, were reluctantly
trickling out. There was no doubt in my
mind that I would returning in a few days
for my final-year college exams.
It took me 13 years
to return.
|
Ashutosh
Sapru
is the National Editor Design,
Hindustan Times
|
Day 1-
A decade of devastation
As the plane
scissored over the Pir Panjal ranges pointing
me home, a mist as wet as a December morning of
my birthplace fogged my eyes. Naively, I tried
to clean the window as we landed at Srinagar.
Out in the bracing 8-degree wind, I ran straight
into the warm arms of my friend Fayaz.
Everything went by in
slow motion, cushioning me from changes wrought
by over a decade of devastation and creation.
From the car; I saw greenery had given way to
a mushrooming of bright new yellow, red and
blue houses. We passed the majestic bungalow
of Jamat-e-Islami leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani.
Hordes of gun-toting security personnel crisscrossed
the streets. Bunkers punctuated every corner
and crossing. I rattled off names of roads,
to show that for me, nothing had changed. Or
so I wanted to believe.
"Can we Kashmiri
Pandits come back home now?" I asked. Fayaz
assured me everything was normal.
But was it? Is it?
We stopped at my college.
The principal and teachers were all there-as
if time had stood still, only adding grey to
hair and wrinkles to skin. Masood sahib took
me to his room and other teachers steamed in.
Soon, I was weeping shamelessly in the arms
of Aftab Ahmed, my drawing teacher, and his
eyes mirrored mine. I collected the addresses
of my classmates and friends, and left with
a dinner invitation from Masood sahib.
Leaving my luggage at
the hotel, I walked out to Lal Chowk for a cup
of coffee at my favourite Shakti Sweets. College
girls and boys, hipper than I remembered, chattered
in Urdu, rather than Kashmiri, over snacks and
music. Walking back, I saw a security guard
push three boys out from an autorickshaw with
the muzzle of his gun, for a thorough frisking.
People here have got used to it, but to me it
seemed they lived in a huge prison, moving within
walls tightly guarded by the police.
That night at Masood sahib's
house, a smouldering kangri and hot kahwa melted
away the dark and cold. We began to talk politics--what
could we blame the misfortune of my generation
of Kashmiri Pandits on?
It was the reason I had
come back. Had we left without the dignity of
a memory? Had we left behind a vacuum irreplaceable
by ideology or power games? Or had we been routed,
like in any old battle, stripped of honour and
possessions, never to return without the use
of equal force?
"Do you miss us--the
Kashmiri Pandits?"
Replied Masood sahib,
"In our heart of hearts we feel your absence".
He said common people felt nothing had been
achieved by militancy. But undeniably, the chasm
between Pandits and Muslims has widened irreparably.
Masood sahib and his wife
dropped me back--it is now safer to go out with
one's wife after dark. There is no middle ground
to stop at here; people oscillate like pendulums,
between work and home, safety and fear.
Day
2-House hunting
You might
remember the Shankaracharya Temple from Mission
Kashmir. As a schoolboy, I would run up and
down the hill on which it stands. Now the cab
hiccuped to a stop for three security checks.
Even God is not safe here, I thought and went
for a shikara ride on Dal Lake.
I lay in the shikara,
watching kids rowing boats. A few tourists on
a houseboat were having pictures taken in traditional
Kashmiri dress.
Back at the college, my
friends, more long lost brothers, waited for
me for that special cup of camaraderie--drizzled
with a hope that youth inspires, warm with the
belief that the world can be changed.
A couple of friends came
with me to my house in Lal Nagar. We went down
the lane once lined with Kashmiri Pandit homes.
The nameplates had changed; houses not sold
off looked shrunk and dirty, like badly washed
clothes.
Three new houses and encroachments
encircled 'my' house. Our plot had been divided
into two and a new house stood over 'my' badminton
court. We knocked for long before a nervous
lady opened the door. Soon, I was sitting in
what was my study, the tea suddenly salty with
my tears. "Don't lose heart." the
new lady of my house said. "We are like
your parents, too. Come and stay with us in
the summer".
I went to see my Muslim
neighbours--once the only Muslim family in our
lane. The son, Maqbool, hugged me. His mother
was soon wiping my face with her chadar, recalling
how my sister used to give her medicines when
she was ill. She loaded me with walnuts and
almonds for my parents, asking me to bring them
back for the summer now that things were "normal".
Her eyes were dark wells, sad like the ruined
temple on the river bank across the colony.
The day kept rewinding
in my head like a nonstop reel. That night I
could not sleep. We had saved our lives, but
lost everything else.
Day 3-Temples
as fortresses
A big blast
split the morning, followed by rounds of firing.
My friend said everything would be fine in 15
minutes. If that's all the time it took between
war and peace!
The famous Kheer Bhawani
temple is a pilgrimage for Kashmiri Pandits,
definitely worthy of the full CRPF battalion
I found guarding it. Swami Vivekananda had stayed
here once. A Muslim was selling puja samagri
because all the Hindu shopkeepers had left.
The CRPF pujari performed the puja. Over a cup
of tea, served free by the jawans, I listened
to talk of protecting Kashmir and safeguarding
the nation. On the way back, people stared at
me--an unusual sight--red tilak on my forehead,
in kurta and pajami.
There was another house
in my mind's album-my grandfather's house in
Habbakdal, once a Pandit area with busy, narrow
lanes. The lanes looked deserted now, crisscrossing
around the once-popular Ganesh temple, looking
like a fortress controlled by the army. My ancestral
house was a pile of debris. The army had done
it, people said. Shops of Kashmiri Pandits were
shut.
Day
4-Bitter truths
I went to
the Jama Masjid; it was Friday. The shops were
slowly opening, defying a bandh called by a
militant group. I was told these days shops
closed only if the Hurriyat called a bandh.
We got talking to two
kids in school uniform. One of them smilingly
wished demonstrators would start pelting the
army with stones--"what fun!" For
kids born in the last ten years, the game of
Cops and Robbers has been replaced by a gorier
one- 'Encounter'. I don't need to describe it.
It was time to leave.
My friends said they abhorred the existing situation,
but they were not to blame. They were fed up;
they, too, wanted a solution.
"Will I find work
here if I come back? Will I be safe?" I
asked. They had no answers, except that things
would change. They wished I would return, and
they sent me away loaded with gifts. Like a
bride.
I was alone. I wanted
to be. "Will I ever be able to return"?"
This time I asked myself. This is the answer
I got: When you pour liquid in a cup, it adjusts
its shape to fit the cup perfectly. What might
have been the contents last night or last week
is not relevant today. When my community lived
in the Valley, we were part of the liquid in
the cup. Now, we have lost our relevance. Others
have taken our place. Today, there's no trace
of us there.
(The story has been reproduced
from Sunday HT magazine, 2003) |
