It was August 2010 and I was
setting out on my first visit to Kashmir, my homeland after a long gap of 20
years. To say I was apprehensive would not do justice to what I was feeling at
that time. I was really not sure what I would find in a valley which had been
my playground and which we had been forced to leave (for many of us in the
middle of the night) in the cold winter month of January 1990. Even though my
sister had gone back on a short trip a couple of years earlier, I was really
feeling jittery about setting foot in a place whose memories had hunted me for
the past two decades.
Finally the day came when I along
with my husband and my son commenced our journey to the valley. As the distance
to the valley became shorter my anxiety deepened even further. It was almost
dark when we finally reached the heart of Srinagar city and I was simply amazed
at how churned my every emotion was. I was feeling elated, angry, nostalgic and
even somewhat withdrawn at the same time. For the first half hour I felt
detached from my own body watching the crowds on the streets, passing by my old
school building, looking at the paths that were traversed quite frequently by
my little feet so long ago.
Finally we checked into the hotel
and for the first time I felt the stings of pain after realizing the fact that I
no longer owned a place in this valley. I felt like someone had punched me
right in my face as I understood that I was now just another visitor among the
crows of tourists who came to feel relaxed and refreshed in the beautiful
valley. After going into the room, I simple sat down and reflected on this
situation. Whatever my thoughts had been at the beginning of this journey, this
sense of having lost my identity was definitely not one of them. Never in the
past 20 years had the realization of losing home and hearth struck me as deeply
as it had in the span of past ten minutes.
Yes, I had felt angry at the helplessness
of our entire family having to live in a 10X10 unconstructed room of a close
relative for more than ten years after the exodus. But even in that period
there was some hope that the child in me had not allowed to die. There was also
a feeling of pain and loss when i learnt that we would have to sell off our
home in the valley (incidentally the loan for which we were still paying after
years of exile. But on that day, sitting in that cramped hotel room, I realized
for the first time the pain that my parents and countless other people from the
community had gone through when they left the valley. Maybe I was too small to
grasp the complete affect of the tragedy or maybe I had been living in denial
all these years, hoping against hope that somehow things would be back to what
they used to be.
In the next few days that I spent
in the valley, I realized why the things could never be the same again. I
visited my home, which we had sold off many years ago. I felt a chill go down
my entire body as I entered the ground which had been my safe haven as child.
It did not resemble the home of my memories in any manner as it was so unkempt and
desolate looking. I turned away with tears rolling down my face even as the
local laborers, whose abode it had become now, tried to hide their smirks and
the expression of amusements, as they saw my pained look.
Everywhere we went in the valley,
we were mostly welcomed with fake smiles and insincere attempts to show love.
But some people were confident enough to let us know that we were always
welcome as visitors, to spend the money and enjoy our days like other tourists.
But these people also told us bluntly that we should forgo of any ideas of
returning to the valley on a permanent basis as they would see to it that this
never happened. Many of them even had the audacity of telling us that they had
suffered more in the past 20 years than the KPs who just had to bear the pain of
leaving their homes.
By the time our duration of stay in Kashmir
ended, my dreams of returning to the valley as a daughter of the land had been mercilessly
crushed. I had come back as a disillusioned child and was now leaving as a
broken adult whose hopes of a homeland had been snatched brutally. I don’t know
if the promise of a separate homeland for the displaced Pandit community in the
valley would ever be fulfilled. But I do know this, even if we get that Promised
Land, living in the valley will never be the same as it used to be because while
we can rebuild homes, it will take generations to fill the gaps of hearts!
