Today is January 19 — the world around us seems normal, and nothing is different. But I am seething inside and I express my anguish in the way that most people around me understand — I turn my profile picture black and only the date runs across.
Someone in the lift nonchalantly asks me: “What happened? Are you in mourning, or what?”
The indifference in the words leaves me roiling within…
Has the world around us forgotten what happened in Kashmir today 28 years back? Or, worse, are they not aware at all? Newspapers don’t seem bothered, either. But we Kashmiris remember — January 19 is the Black Day. Twenty-eight years ago, on this day, we were forced into exile, driven out of our homes…
Twenty-eight long years, and we continue to feel alienated — and homeless.
Though I was only 6 years old at the time, my family made sure I never gave up on that memory — and I haven’t.
I was told how, on that long, wintry night, thousands of loudspeakers hoisted on mosques across the Valley began booming the ominous word, "Azadi". There were war cries everywhere — exhorting people to step out of their homes and march to the capital to capture power in the Valley. Our neighbours — people with whom we spoke and transacted daily — were being urged to cleanse the land of kafirs, to subdue the Pandit women and drive their men out of Kashmir!
There were newspaper ads asking us to leave and death threats pasted on our doors!
I remember…
As a parent of two young boys today, I, too, make sure that they know their roots, their traditions. I speak of our alienation too — for I must. They must know.
I still wait for justice to arrive — to not feel like a refugee in my own country. And I do what I can to keep the memories of my beautiful Valley alive in my high-rise apartment, here in Indirapuram. All my rooms have Kashmiri hand-worked curtains; I lovingly offer kehwa, our saffron-infused tea, to guests; cook as authentic as possible.
My husband and I still remember the one-room rented flat that we were crammed in post the exodus. I have tried to convey the pain of losing my ancestral house — and land — to my children. They have been told of how their parents suddenly lost their youth — and their mirth — and how their grandparents were thrown into the chaos of an alien life, miles away from the comforting familiarity of a long-lived-in home.
I grew up with pictures of my ancestral house and with stories of Kashmir. As a kid, I imagined sitting on a bench near Dal Lake, wearing the beautiful pheran (the traditional winterwear of Kashmir), going to Ganpatyar temple, and spending weekends in shikaras.
But I never asked about going back, for I knew my parents had no easy answers.
Now, my boys are growing up with the same stories, the same pictures and the same lullabies.
They often ask me why we don’t live there any more. Why our prime minster is not doing anything to take us back. I, too, have no easy answers. It’s more practical to say what my grandmother told me years ago: "There’s nothing left for us there. Our roots have been burnt…"
But I don’t want to tell them that. I want them to believe we can all go back one day.
May it be.
