topics: |  kashmir | lit

Collection of stories and memoirs from Kashmiri pandits. The literary quality of the stories is uneven, but many of the narratives retain considerable power because of their theme. Some of these stories deserve to be better known, like the memoirs by SN Dhar who tells how he was abducted by a terrorist group for 83 days. However, he continued to live and practice in Srinagar.

The opening short story by the senior Kashmiri writer Rattan Lal Shant is a melancholy tale of an elderly man, who still hopes to return to the valley. His family, living in the refugee camps of Jammu, are more pragmatic and see no possibility in his dreams.

The story "The Survivor" by K.L. Chowdhury, who is a doctor, is in the form of a case diary. A patient comes to him, who is suffering from occasional debilitating panic attacks. It turns out that he is a survivor of the Nadimarg massacres of 2003. His story of that night, when 24 pandits were shot dead by terrorists. The immediacy to the killings makes for a sad but powerful narrative.

The title reflects the tragedy of the migrant transition from what was ones
home, one's settled life, to a emotion-less "house".

Excerpts

Rattan Lal Shant : Air you breathe

					p.3  [tr. by author]

Omkar goes to a attend a fruitless seminar in Srinagar, about Pandits
returning to the valley.  Expects many muslims - erstwhile friends of the
pandits - to come, but there are very few.

Suddenly he sees his childhood friend, Asadullah, and before he knows it,
he shouts "Asadullah, oye!"

Asadullah elbows through the crowd, finds him, and holds him in a tight
embrace.

Asad invites him to his home, in their village.  Omkar had never
thought that he would be able to go to his cool, forsaken village...

Asad says "We did not know of this convention at all."  He has come at
bhAbhi's behest.

It turns out that Omkar's wife Usha had somehow gotten Asad's number and
called him to let him know about Omkar's visit.   Usha can turn into a
lioness in a security crisis.

Omkar is tempted to go to the village, but times are not good.  He pleads
his tight schedule and turns down Asad's invitation.

The next day Asad comes with another friend, Yaseen.  Yaseen is more
pragmatic.  At the village, they are worried about the convention.  There
is a "Civil Curfew."  Between the lines, we sense that their erstwhile
neighbours don't want the pandits coming back and reclaiming the land.

And then after the long bus journey, when he comes back to their cramped
tenement in jammu, the family - even his wife - ignores him.  They are
matter-of-fact.  No one has any questions about the convention.  They are
more bothered about ironing Chintu's shirt, and getting the electrician for
some repairs.   Suddenly Omkar finds himself mumbling something about
"civil curfew" - Chintu doesn't know what he is talking about, and he
goes out to play.

[the subtle pathos of the ending powerfully underlines the hopelessness of
the pandit situation. ]

K.L. Chowdhury : The Survivor

His patient Satish, narrates this story, memories of which often cause
him severe panic attacks:

	It must have been around 11.30 in the night.  I was trying to sleep,
	with my wife and younger son, when I heard loud banging on the window.
	I had hardly come out of bed when the window shattered and four
	masked men broke in.  They were in khaki, guns in hand, and
	desperate. 35

[The terrorists line up many pandit families under a chinar tree near the
temple.  They take Satish to find the constable Rajini's house.  While they
are beating up her father, Satish is unattended, and he manages to escape.

While the terrorists were busy herding my wife Suman, my older son Sonu
and me outside, my mother and little sister in the next room had escaped
through the back door carrying Rahul [his younger son].  They hid in the
haystacks ... Mother is a courageous woman.  She managed to go to the
police station and narrated the story.  The police were dismissive, "Don't
be frightened, old lady; there is nothing to worry about.  Go return to
your home.  We will follow shortly."

So she came back.  By dawn, the pandit voices outside had been silenced by
a deafening barrage of guns. 38

[This is the massacre at Nadimarg, near Pulwama, in 2003.  The
police station was at nearby Zainpora.  The police arrived only after
all the killings, at 4 AM.

see http://ikashmir.net/massacres/nadimarg.html for a detailed narrative
of the massacre.

Google maps: Nari Marg, 33.762578, 75.017075. ]

S N Dhar : Story of a Frozen River

					p.177

[a popular doctor working with largely muslim patients, Dhar was
abducted in March 1992, and held captive for 83 days.  He kept living
and practicising in the valley even after this, and died in 2008.]

	one evening, he gets hold of a book on the second (longest) Sura of
	the Quran and reads it carefully (he already is somewhat
	knowledgeable). 178

	Through my conversations, I could gauge their knowledge
	and their overall understanding of Islam.  To my surprise, it was
	shallow and some among them were completely ignorant.  179

	Those on my guard duty - Dina, Aijaz, Farooq, Salim - would wonder at
	my knowledge of Islam, which by my reckoning was very meagre.

	[Their ignorance made them talk to me with an arrogance.]  But not
	when it came to Islam. 180

	[At one point, he becomes ] genuinely interested in teaching them
	something of the spirit of Islam, through examples from the lives and
	deeds of the prophets and their disciples. ...  [But realizes] with
	time, that my preaching made them feel uneasy and awkward.

	Then one day, the Amir (who can recite the Quran) arrives.  "I have
	come to know that you know a lot about Islam and that you can quote
	from the Quran."

	[Dhar realizes that this can be very dangerous.  after some dialogue
	when Dhar agrees with the greatness of Islam, the Amir asks Dhar to
	convert.  At this Dhar says that in principle he can agree, but
	shouldn't he have a bit more time to observe their lifestyle? ]

 	Besides, my conversion in captivity may not be good for the
	tehrik [movement] at this stage.   [the Amir gives a faint smile.] 182

---

Reading this episode, I wanted to order the book.  I find it out of print.

There is too little buzz about this potentially interesting book.
Harper India needs to do a better job marketing it and getting it back in print!!


	sn dhar biography: http://www.shehjar.com/list/85/741/1.html
	review of Frozen River: http://www.searchkashmir.org/2008/07/eighty-three-days-story-of-frozen-river.html

Aparna Madan Sopori : My father's house

		this piece is about their twenty-four room wooden house, in
		Fatehkadal.  [fateh = victory; kadal=bridge; the third bridge
		on the jhelum, a crowded, old part of Srinagar.  quite a bit
		of this area still remains unoccupied.


The memories are of a house filled with things from those days - a record
player, a radio with a mesh antenna running across the room, a toshkhana
full of great-grandmother's clothes.  Her father tried to continue living
in Srinagar where he ran a college that grandfather and he had founded, but
he had to leave after the college was burnt down.  During his last days he
always talked about the house.  The things there, the people, the songs.

"One could see his house in his eyes a couple of minutes before they closed
for ever." p.201

But despite this strong premise and the fact that the author is an English
professor, the writing is very prosaic.

Contents

Short stories

* Rattan Lal Shant : Air you breathe  [tr. by author]
* Radhika Koul : Fall
	a hard to follow tale of an affair that has ended.  the man meets
	the woman at a party in the US; wants to meet her again. the name
	'Radhika Koul' is mentioned several times.
	 [author is student of linguistics at Yale]

* Rashneek Kher : Unfinished story
	An old muslim servant starts to tell the story of his association
	with the pandit family.  but night intervenes, and in the coming
	weeks the family has to leave kashmir.

	The author as child recalls how when a poor Muslim was visiting, he
	would be asked to get the utensils for Muslims.  But he remembers
	that when rich Muslims came, they ate from the same plates as
	everyone else.

* Maharaj Krishen Santoshi : The kidnapping
* K L Chowdhury : The survivor
* Parineeta Khar : A lost paradise -- home  (from A lost paradise)
* Autar Krishen Rahbar : Addition, subtraction and division
* Khema Kaul : from samay ke baad (meri diary)
* Tej N Dhar : Under the shadow of militancy
	[was prof. English, Kashmir U]
* Siddhartha Gigoo : from The garden of solitude
* Adarsh Ajit : Blood on forehead
* Juhi Kuchroo and Manik Kuchroo : from Refugee in my own country

non-fiction

* Sushil Pandit : Home tourists
* K N Pandita : from Pandits : A moment of introspection
* Ajay Raina : Writing exile in my imagination
	[documentary film maker]
* Veena Pandita Koul : Impact of exodus on elderly women
* R N Kaul : 19 January 1990
	[ex principal; Jammu]
* Indu Kilam : Upon revisiting Kashmir
	[retd English professor; Jammu]
* Rajesh Dhar : Kashmir through cameos
* M K Koul 'Naqaib'  : Life in the Camp [interviews]
* Shyam Kaul : from Humour in exile
* Sudha Koul : from The Tiger Ladies
	even in the late 70s, the period recounted here, the insurrection is
	brewing in small doses.  sudha's grandfather, a retired professor of
	English, is appointed as a professor in a college, but the students
	there agitate that they want no pandit teachers.
* S N Dhar : from Eighty-three days : Story of a Frozen River
* Shaleen Kumar Singh : Pandits and Dogras
* Deepak Tiku : Exile or rejuvenation
* Aparna Madan Sopori : My father's house
* M L Kak : Pandits and Narendra Modi
	[journalist ; government plans to build a secure hub-city for the
	pandits. ]

from Review: Aryan Ramesh

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/2015/Apr/2/literature-in-exile-6.asp

The three writers Arvind Gigoo, Adarsh Ajit and Shaleen Kumar Singh have
compiled and edited a book named From Home to House (Writings of Kashmiri
Pandits in exile) that has been published by the famous HarperCollins
Publishers, India which has publishing divisions in UK, Canada, Australia and
USA. This book is the first of its kind because it contains some short
stories, excerpts culled from various books and essays on different aspects
of the migration of Pandits from Kashmir. The division of the book into two
sections Fiction and Non-Fiction sets the tone and tells the readers what
constitutes the book. The short stories touch the motifs that are connected
with the uprooted life of Kashmiri Pandits. The short story writers whose
stories have been selected are Rattan Lal Shant, Radhika Koul, Rashneek Kher,
Maharaj Krishen Santoshi, K L Chowdhury, Parineeta Khar and Autar Krishen
Rahbar. All the stories portray the condition of Kashmiri Pandits away from
their place of birth, Kashmir. They mirror the grief and pathos of
Pandits. In the extracts Khema Kaul, Tej N Dhar, Siddhartha Gigoo Adarsh Ajit
and Juhi Kuchroo and Manik Kuchroo describe the happenings which are
extremely torturous, agonizing and humiliating. They are from the famous
novels written in migration by the victims of injustice and exploitation.

Sushil Pandit vividly paints a picture of the aborigines of Kashmir as
tourists to the place. K N Pandita shouts rebellion and desires that Pandits
change and learn other languages. Ajay Raina’s essay is nostalgia and
protest. Veena Pandita talks about Pandit women and_ their wounded psyche. R
N Kaul’s essay describes the night of 19 January 1990 and how Pandits were
forced to migrate. Indu Kilam’s memoir is regarding her visit to
Kashmir. Rajesh Dhar is terribly critical of militants and militancy. His
weapon is sarcasm and satire. The interviews in Life in the Camp by M K Kaul
Naqaib reveal the attitude of the migrants of different ages to exile and
migration. Shyam Kaul narrates events to show that humour among Pandits has
not died. Sudha Koul recalls her past and the life lived in Kashmir. S N
Dhar’s conversations with his abductors are full of suspense and
fright. Shaleen Kumar’s understanding of the Dogras and Pandits is keen,
educative and informative. Deepak Tiku’s is the new voice of the youths who
are rebels devoid of spirituality and higher values of life. Aparna Madan
Sopori paints a painting of her house and of her father who never forgot his
house. M L Kak pins all hopes on Narendra Modi and dreams a bright future for
the Pandits.

Prof. Dr. Rattan Lal Shant : interview

				Kashmir Sentinel November 2011

(Prof. (Dr) Rattan Lal Shant is a Kashmiri Short Story Writer, Dramatist,
Hindi Poet, Translator, Editor, Researcher and Critic. Besides receiving many
awards, he got the Sahitya Academy Award in the year 2007 for his book of
Kashmiri Short Stories “ TSHEN” (RUPTURE).

Rajendra Razdan, a freelance journalist is in conversation with him…….

RR: Kashmiri Pandit writers write in Devnagri Script. When will you expect
the problem of two scripts – Nastalique and Devnagri be resolved?
... You have also signed a Resolution that the Devnagri Script should be
recognized and that the Pandit Writers should write in Devnagri Script.

Yet you write stories and other things in the Persian script. Why?

RLS:
I write for my readers like every writer does. As of now, most of my
readers do happen to know the Nastalique script.

RR: Who do you rate a Master Writer among Kashmiri Pandits?

RLS: I can not but name two, who are excellent in the genres in which they
wrote and who, I think, have not been surpassed. They are Dina Nath Nadim
and Hari Krishna Koul.