Hope Floats

In the thick of militancy, thousands of Kashmiri Hindus (Pandits and Punjabis) had to leave their home state in the 1990s. Many resigned to the thought that it was their last spring in the Valley. But others nurtured the dream to go back—even though not many had anything left to go back to. The rage and resentment remains; and the memory of standing in queues for their Rs 500 migration allowance at Tees Hazari in Delhi is still fresh. Yet they have been able to turn life on its head by re-establishing themselves on new turfs.

Yuvraj Raina insists on collecting his allowance every month. ‘‘Rs 3,500 from the Mehrauli office. Just to keep my registration number alive,’’ he snaps, adding, ‘‘That doesn’t mean I will vote. I am boycotting the polls. Well, I haven’t got anything but anguish,’’ says the 42-year-old, who thinks Vidhu Vinod Chopra glorified terrorists in his film, Mission Kashmir. January 19, 1990. The day Raina left the Valley with his parents (his father was a college professor there) is etched in his mind. On the skids, Raina started a marriage bureau for Kashmiri Pandits. ‘‘The idea was unfamiliar to the community initially, but I was determined to work against inter-caste marriages. After all, we were a diminishing ethnic group,’’ says Raina of his small-time initiative that has now taken the shape of a posh office in the Lajpat Nagar area of Delhi. ‘‘Now I earn much more and have the infrastructure to cater to other communities,’’ he adds.

Happily married, and father to a teenage boy, Raina feels the past decade has consumed his identity. ‘‘I would rather be called a world citizen.’’ Wali, however, still calls himself a ‘‘refugee’’. ‘‘I had to flee. Whereas migrants were those who came on their own will. But the government never recognised this difference. No party involved is serious about solving the real issue,’’ is the refrain of this 32-year-old.

Twenty-six-year-old Zitin Bamzi (name changed on request) also feels that Kashmiris don’t form an important vote bank. This Delhi-based journalist moved out as a child in 1989 when the family’s name ‘‘appeared on the hit list’’. On the banks of Jhelum, Bamzi still remembers the palatial Radha Cottage they lived in. ‘‘By 1990, the entire family had moved out,’’ she says, adding, “Thankfully, Kashmiri Pandits had a 5,000-year-old history of being academically inclined, so not many found it difficult starting from scratch, including making it big abroad—especially in the US and Canada,’’ she says.

The ubiquitous antagonism takes a melancholic turn with Mumbai-based actor Sanjay Suri whose father was shot at point-blank range by three youth outside their house in Srinagar. August 1, 1990. Many calendars have been turned over but that one date. ‘‘On his chautha we had to cut out his photograph from those our relatives in Delhi had; even our photo albums were left behind in Srinagar, let alone the 10-bedroom bungalow,’’ says Suri, recalling how summers meant cycling with cousins and winters brought in huddling around the bukhari.

‘‘Everyone told my father that he faced no danger because he was more Kashmiri than the Kashmiris. It came without any warning,’’ says Suri, who was in Delhi then and couldn’t go back ever. The only remembrance he has of his home and his ancestral timber business is a small round table that his grandfather had carved himself. It shares pride of place with a carpet that the family had bought when his elder brother was born. ‘‘Later the house was occupied by the BSF. We tried getting some of the furniture and linen, but most things were blood-stained,’’ recalls 33-year-old Suri, who had to relentlessly work towards carving a niche—after trying his hands at exports, he gave modelling a shot, finally coming to Mumbai in 1997 for a career in films. Suri’s film Shaadi Ka Laddoo will hit the theatres soon.

‘‘We were kings there. Suddenly thrown off balance, the next moment we were standing in queues at Tees Hazari for a Rs 500 migration allowance, and running from pillar to post for a gas and phone connection,’’ recalls Suri, adding how he found it ‘‘humiliating’’.

The melee hit everyone differently. While Kaul and Suri, both classmates, completed their final year exams in a makeshift camp in Jammu, Wali couldn’t finish his graduation at all. He had to pull himself together to do a course from NIIT in Delhi. Others like 32-year-old dentist Anil Kaul, who left behind an established practice, also felt uprooted. Then employed by the Jammu & Kashmir government, Kaul still remembers the general message being sent out to the Hindu community in 1990. ‘‘Men had to leave or get killed. The women could stay behind,’’ says the man who along with his extended family left within a fortnight.

Now settled in the US—he is the director of Women’s Health Research at University of Oklahoma—Kaul says he was in limbo for two years. He decided to use the time to study further. ‘‘It was disappointing not finding the situation improving after the 1991 polls. So I left the country with my family,’’ he justifies, adding he would like to go back whenever peace is restored. ‘‘Every day I think about home. But the Internet is a blessing.’’

They may be scattered all over but they are also trying their best to keep the ties that bind. The Kashmiri Overseas Association that Kaul and many like him are part of is one such endeavour. Their website (www.usakoa.org) includes a matchmaking link.

‘‘My 14-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter are more Kashmiri than I am,” says Kaul proudly, informing that not only do they speak the language at home, they also celebrate Maha Shivratri, Diwali and Navreh (New Year), when they cook yellow rice and red nadru curry.

Bamzi, however, needs no excuse to cook indigenous dishes like haak, monj haak (it’s what sarson da saag is to Punjabis) and gogji. For the spices, she doesn’t mind going to the INA market from her Vasant Kunj residence. ‘‘In fact, Kashmiris settled elsewhere often make trips to INA,’’ informs Bamzi, quickly adding, ‘‘I don’t have a solution to the political impasse in the Valley but there are things we can do as youngsters, but feel ashamed for not taking time out.’’ Bamzi wishes she could get Kashmiris in their 20s together for a monthly rendezvous, where they would sing folk songs, exchange recipes and even discuss films. ‘‘I know of Kashmiri documentary film-makers who instead of focusing on the dwindling community, are making films on mundane topics,’’ she says.

No wonder she’s awaiting the release of Sheen, a film on Kashmiris made by a Kashmiri. Directed by Mumbai-based film-maker Ashok Pandit, its songs have been sung by his wife Neerja Pandit. The film, asserts the film-maker, hasn’t been shot in Kashmir because that would send out a message that the situation is trouble-free. Neerja, 35, shares the passion for her homeland with her husband. After all, even her family was displaced in the 1990s. While her connection with the Valley is alive through folk songs—she recently went to Jammu to record her latest album—Wali has lost his link forever.

‘‘My school was on the banks of the river Jhelum. From its windows we watched tourists, often waving at them,’’ recalls Wali. ‘‘I went back to Srinagar during the Kargil war and was shocked to see that my school no longer existed. In its place stands a bare building where the BSF has set their tanks,’’ he says, recalling how the city had become unsafe back in 1989.

‘‘There were evening curfews and frequent bomb blasts, and girls no longer felt safe. Schools remained closed; the city had come to a standstill.’’ Suri remembers slogans like ‘‘Muslim Sikh bhai bhai, Hindu kaum kidhar se aai’’. ‘‘It was scary,’’ says Kaul, adding how ‘‘fellow Indians’’ called them cowards. ‘‘Helicopters flying 100 ft above the ground level and blaring anti-Hindu slogans from mosques would drive anyone away,’’ he says. Fourteen years is a long wait. Kaul must make the pilgrimage to Srinagar.

(With inputs from Astha Gupta / Delhi)