Tag: family histories

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Kashmiri Pandit Family, Tral, 1930s

Shared by Shivani Pandita from her personal family collection.

She writes:

In the center holding the baby (my eldest masi, Chuni Pandit), is my maternal grandmother, Leelawati Pandit. She must have been 20-21 yrs old in this picture. The others are Leelawati’s siblings. This picture must have been shot at her parental home in Dadsara village in Tral sub-district of Kashmir . My Nani was 11 years old when she got married but she had her first daughter after 10/11 years of marriage. This picture is shot somewhere between 1934-36 and is one of the few that survived time and migration. My maternal family has been matriarchal as my grandfather died at a young age. Leelawati was not educated but very intelligent and hardworking, she even learnt reading and writing Hindi later from her grand daughter and even in advanced age was keen to learn.

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“The Intrepid Kashmiri in the Flying Machine” by Rekha Wazir

Guest post by Rekha Wazir. She recalls how her Grandfather, Tara Chand Wazir came to be the first Kashmiri to fly in an aeroplane in 1921.

The Intrepid Kashmiri in the Flying Machine
by Rekha Wazir
 
According to Wazir family folklore, my grandfather, Tara Chand Wazir (1893-1979) was the first Kashmiri to fly in an aeroplane. I don’t know if this is factually correct, but this is what I will happily believe till somebody tells me otherwise! Of course, I am only talking about the residents of the Valley –even Kashmiris who migrated to India generations ago were not included in this record-making event. This is the story we were told:

Continue reading ““The Intrepid Kashmiri in the Flying Machine” by Rekha Wazir”

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Portrait of Mahrattas, KP family, Brariangan, 1950s

Back in 2012, I had posted this photograph from a collection given in “The Hindu Householder Family and Kinship: A Study of the Pandits of Rural Kashmir”(1957-58), an anthropological study of Kashmiri Pandits living is “Utrassu-Umanagri”  (Votaros-Brariangan, as known to Pandits)) twin villages 12 miles east of Anantnag. Even then I wondered who exactly were the subjects of the study and what became of them. I was not married back then. After getting married a few years back, I have now new relations. The image meanwhile the image was often shared around online all these years, even making it to some random articles on Kashmiri Pandits.
used in Quint
This is the story of the photograph and the people in it.
A few days back, my brother-in-law from wife’s side Rajesh Pandita wrote in to say that the little girl in the front centre is his mother.

Continue reading “Portrait of Mahrattas, KP family, Brariangan, 1950s”

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Bambroos, Akura, 1960s
My mother’s maternal grand uncle in his village Akura (Okur), Anantnag. 1960s.  Govind Joo Bambroo (Gund-maam, for my mother) was youngest uncle (mama) of my Nani. Gundmaam was a lover of Kehwa, loved it loaded with dalcheeni and elachi. Okur, when it crops up in conversation with my mother, is always remembered as a village paradise. Apparently a stream snaked silently under the wooden old house which was my nani’s matamaal. Okur is the place from where my nani and her children, my mother, her sister and brother get their nose.
The family had a lot of cows, in 1990 when the family fled, the barn’s gate was kept open for the cows to walk out and find new homes. 
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Photograph from 1950s. Seated on chair: My Nani’s mother. Her name was Yamberzal. After marriage she was renamed Umrawati, wife of Tarachand Raina, of Chattabal near Batte Booyn (Pandit Chinar). Tarachand was store keeper for British Bungalow at Gulmarg. Later the family moved to Karfali Mohalla. 
Chattabal is where my father’s family comes from. The two families knew each other. Tarachand Raina’s brother’s first wife was sister of my great-grand mother. She died due to pregnancy complications. She had two children at the time, a boy named Radhakrishan Raina and a girl (mother remembers her as “kamjigri”). It is said she had Tchaman (Paneer) and died of colitis. This would be in 1930s. Radhakrishan Raina was stuck in Sialkot in 1947. He never returned. His wife, Radhikarani (my mother remembers her Chotey Bhabi) was pregnant with second child at the time. The family lived in Chattabal, my grandmother was friends with here. Radhikarani died in 2018, my grandmother was in Kerala with me at the time. When the news came on the phone, she cried and remembered Radhika Rani’s life. Radhikarani’s original name was something else, perhaps Shyama, she was renamed after the name of her husband.  She was great at making tablecloth out of used rugs. I heard how even as late as in 1965 war there was talk that Radhakrishan had survived, in prison, or converted. There was hope. Turned out to be rumor. 
When my Nani was pregnant with her first one, Radhakarani was also expecting. They were visited by a wandering saint, perhaps Prath Mout (Prath the Madman), a mercurial ascetic who would forecast future, say it out load, even if it was bleak. Mout told Radhakarani that she would deliver a boy, but he asked that the child better be given to him after birth. Radhakarani knew this meant something bad was about to go down. To my Nani also, he forecast a boy, but he said, you can keep him as you will need him.
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Zadoo, 1938. Post no. 24

Guest post by Atul Ravi. First photograph taken in his family.

Kashmiri Pandits, 1938
Raghu Nath Zadoo
seated on left wearing a cap
This pic was taken in some studio probably Mahatta but not sure . It was first day of my grandfather’s college. He had worn shoes for the first time in his life. The boys all dressed up and decided to get themselves clicked and barely managed to pool in money. It was the first pic in the family and was kept like that in our house. May be that’s how it survived .

My grandfathers name was Sh Raghu Nath Zadoo ( called as Rugh Nath in local lingo ). He was born in Gund Ahalmar Srinagar in 1920 to Smt Yemberzal and my Great Grandfather ( i don’t recall his name ). He was second in three siblings. He was first graduate in the family and completed BA , BT and BEd. He was politically active and was secretary of teachers association in Srinagar. He was also a recipient of Presidents Medal ( Bronze ) for his contribution to Census in Srinagar. He retired in 70s as Tehsil Education Officer. Post retirement he was an administrator in Hindu High School, Gankhan. He was also attached to Ganpatyar Mandir Committee . One particular incident I recall once we left Srinagar, he managed to get the salaries of few months of all teachers from the school and I could see the them thanking him in gratitude.

Post migration, he kept going to Srinagar and stayed in the house with all caution thrown to the wind. He only stopped when he became too old to travel. He lost his senses and was bedridden but in that state too he recalled Srinagar as his only refuge. He used to make gestures to my grandmother to pack and leave for Srinagar. When my uncle after few years went to our home, he saw that Grandfather had made arrangements like coals, wood, his walking stick, some clothes and dry vegetables for his next visit to Kashmir which never happened .

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Artist in Exile – Invoking the grief within, with shaky hands

Guest Post by Jheelaf Parimu, daughter of Painter Late Bansi Parimu. This piece was triggered by the film Shikara (2020).




As we complete 30 years in exile, I reflect on my recurring journey of disconnect. I go back to more than three decades to revisit the routes I navigated, that seemed disparate from my co-travellers. My life in Kashmir is like a dream playing repeatedly on a spool where I recall the image of my late father as someone secular to the core. That we co-existed peacefully with a Muslim majority is a fact, that there were instances of subtle undercurrent of distrust towards Pandits is a reality too. Precisely in that milieu my father like many others followed humanism and compassion, that became my ideology in my growing years by default and consequently by design. My DNA defies what most like to call ‘logic’.

My parents in Ganderbal, Kashmir, 1971.
Takhleeq (creation) our modest cottage, was an artistic marvel designed and built brick by brick by my father in 1968 – it was his sanctum sanctorum. Years later he purchased his sister’s house, adjacent to Takhleeq, and named it Tassavur (imagination). Both my parents were artists, wrote and spoke Urdu fluently, were multifaceted and self-made. They rubbed shoulders with many a talent, from Begum Akhtar to M.F. Hussain. Music and Art were their religion, money was scarce, dreams were simple, passion was abundant. Life was merciful.
There may have been a disconnect between my reality and the reality that most Kashmiris lived or projected. The disjoint being purely a consequence of being raised in an unconventional and liberal yet somewhat sheltered set up. My experiences were different, my mindset was different, my life was different – by no means perfect or superior. I was privileged.
My father and my younger sister, Takhleeq in backdrop and Tassavur seen partly, Srinagar 1987.
My reality changed the night of 19th January 1990 when I first heard the announcements from the mosques, the decibel moved higher with each elevated slogan, the footsteps grew louder on the streets. Like many of us, I too hoped it was transitory and would soon be under control. 
A Muslim woman, who was a stranger to us, kept calling on our landline that night, reassuring my mother that everything would be fine, she even knew my father was away. Her husband had been summoned to join the protest too, she confessed. Perhaps that was the faith and camaraderie we were habituated to; the unpreparedness for the events that would unfold was therefore inevitable.

My mother decided to pack us off for few days, opting to stay back till our father returned. Clearly, our family was left off the Governor’s fictional guest list, the unaffordable flight tickets served as curfew pass; the journey was uneventful. My sister was sent to Jammu, I landed in Delhi, both oblivious to what lay in store.

Ignorance was not going to be bliss this time round.
My mother [Jaya Parimu] in center, with her sister, brothers and the legendary Begum Akhtar.
Srinagar in early 70’s
Come July 1990, my father, who up until then was refusing to leave Kashmir, arrived in Jammu. Still in denial, still hoping things would settle down in few months. The whole family gathered there, trying to figure out what to do with our lives, with each passing day the reality started sinking in; we were not going back home. My Maasi (mother’s sister), who had migrated too, owned a house in Jammu and readily accommodated us. We struggled to adapt to the new environs.

By now my father was restless. Days were dark, nights were long with no sign of dawn.

My short stay in Jammu had exposed me to a myriad of challenges my community was facing due to our sudden exodus – the initial hostility and suspicion from locals, the minuteless meetings in Geeta Bhawan, multiple members of a family holed up in one room tenements, the serpentine relief queues, sunstrokes, scorpio and snake bites, termites vining up the walls, transit camps, waitlisted appointments with renowned Neurologist Dr. Sushil Razdan, premature deaths and obituaries in Daily Excelsior, encountering hordes of Pandits in mini buses with moist towels on their heads, trying to beat the heat.

And my beautiful grandmother transitioning from a graceful sari to a frowned upon paper thin cotton maxi, her exemplary ‘survivor spirit’ intact. The list can never be exhaustive, the pain can never be articulated – we certainly had not chosen this. Yet, I must admit, I was far more privileged.

My father, in those briefest 12 months of exile, did everything in his power to darn the shreds. He even secured my admission in the prestigious IP College in Delhi University under migrant quota, mother had preferred I study in Jammu. My parents had limited resources but had sensibly invested in a small house on the outskirts of Delhi in Ghaziabad, barring that we had nothing left. A non-Kashmiri friend suggested they name it Swarika – an abode of art and music- my parents were not destined to rebuild nests.

My mother, a Professor in the Camp College continued living in Jammu with my sister who was enrolled in Presentation Convent. I moved with my father to Ghaziabad, we had to share the house with our sympathetic tenant who did not wish to render us homeless all over again. Swarika remained a dream.

My father was even contributing to the formation of ‘Panun Kashmir’ in its very early days. I am not sure what he was thinking, perhaps he would have steered it in a different direction had he lived longer. He was possibly going through his own manthan(churning) at that point. In the same breath he was not losing sight of reality and would often sigh “the common Kashmiri is now trapped between the security forces and the militants, where will he go?”. He was thinking a lot, about innumerable issues, while thoughts and intents of the heart were getting usurped by failing survival instincts.

I was frivolously revelling in my newly found freedom in Delhi, my father was withering away in melancholy, the shedding leaves of autumn were renouncing the ensuing seasons. Back in Kashmir I had known him as a fighter who had triumphed bigger battles single-handedly, a rebel, extremely strong willed and self-respecting, a non-conformist who did not believe in God but certainly in good deeds. Fearing that people’s respect and adulation for him would instinctively raise expectations of me, I would at times want to go into hiding. His imprint was so overpowering.

And here I was living with him in exile now, helplessly watching him shrivel and grieve, buried in sorrow, slowly becoming a nonentity. What ailed him?

One sultry evening in Ghaziabad, in his sparsely furnished bedroom cum studio, I saw him seated on his swivel chair facing the easel, gazing at an unfinished painting, his back towards me. I stepped closer to read his pain and then I heard the sobs. That was the first and the last time I saw my father break down. Kashmir was his salvation; clearly, he was choosing it over his young wife and loving daughters.

My mother nonetheless was accommodating, she suggested he return to Kashmir given his constant pining and yearning. He dismissed the suggestion “bu tarre’huh, magar su maahol keti ruud” (I would return but that ambience does not exist anymore), he was anything but bitter. A year of separation appeared like a lifetime to him. On 29th July 1991 he was gone, his galloping gangrene paled before his bleeding heart that perpetually lamented for home.

For once I wanted to live in my father’s shadow, but the mighty Chinar had fallen. I knew, life would never be the same.

The void became deeper, he could have lived but not to witness what ‘his Kashmir’ was turning into. Varied shades of ‘betrayal’ killed him – betrayed by the Indian state, by the institutional silence, by all those he considered his own, those who swore by him, revered him, trusted him, those Coffee House cronies, those aspirants he helped achieve political success without seeking recognition, those he mentored, groomed and supported silently and unconditionally, those who hailed him for his secular credentials. He was heartbroken. A bullet could not have done worse.

My mother turned out to be more resilient and resolute, after my father’s demise she kept returning to Kashmir; even courageously witnessed Takhleeq and Tassavur being taken down, to lay foundation for new homes for the new owners with new hopes. She had made a pact with destiny, ‘maahol’ notwithstanding. She made no claims, she was not going to wait for an invitation nor seek permission. And to her credit I got a little closure by visiting Kashmir, after 20 long years. Not many were as fortunate and are waiting till date.

As social media started gaining popularity, once again I became privy to innumerable firsthand accounts of Kashmiri Pandits and many facets of our collective tragedy. Consumed by my own survival and misfortunes, I had done nothing for my community, especially the underprivileged, the disconnect became evident. The suffering can never be compared, the humiliation can never be measured, the tragedy can never be underplayed.

Fast forward 2020, in my delusional optimism I still seek answers to countless questions, my father long gone, I can neither match his tenacity nor his foresight. However, as much as majority might want to justify political/religious aspirations, facts glare back – a innocuous ethnic minority persecuted, a community with no resolve to kill or terrorise, a minority that should have been protected not displaced, we were neither consulted nor given a choice – the gun alienated, the silence killed.

Those who refused to perform in the ‘Danse Macabre’ orchestrated by the devils, were not spared either; the syncretic social fabric was ripped apart, the mutual respect slaughtered, a whole generation raised on fabrications denying them the opportunity to seek truth; baseless insinuations that the victimized symbolized persecutors. Unquestionably human rights violations in Kashmir must not be brushed under the carpet, nor should the chronicles of betrayal be denied. The denial continues to betray.

While I am mustering courage, having watched the trailer and ‘behind the scenes’ of ‘Shikara’ and reading the mixed reviews from India, I am contemplating if it is creating a further rift between the already estranged communities. Truth be told, we need the state actors to play their role in place of movie directors, more so in backdrop of polarisation in the country. Needless to admit it has been my fervent desire, a film be made on our exodus. As Rahul Pandita rightly pointed, too much has been kept pent up for 30 years.

Insurmountable walls have been erected in place of steady bridges over these decades. Abyss has quadrupled the monsters.

The international release date of ‘Shikara’ awaits announcement, I may not even get to see it on the big screen, though I am visualizing myself in a cinema hall, both nervous and eager. I start vacillating between reality, utopia, dreams, slumber, wakefulness, wondering if there would ever be any ‘truth and reconciliation’ in my lifetime; will justice be delivered to Pandits, in an ideal world the first step would be acknowledgement.

I find myself transposed to a migrant camp where I discover the two communities, facing each other across a long wooden table. The table is laid, not for the ‘Last Supper’ but ‘Truth or Dare’. An intense game begins, few take turns to perform a dare, others put forth questions, candid responses are bartered. At the far end of the table I spot Haji Saab, seated right opposite him, my father in his swivel chair.

The game concludes, there are no winners.

My father speaks up ‘hum aayenge watan apne, magar su maahol keti ruud’. Dad was cremated in Delhi, I have no recollection of locale, I did not register anything, Raakh (ashes) could only travel to Chandrabhaga. Jhelum had changed its course.

Each one of us has our own ‘Shikara’ immured deep inside. It merits a vent.
My father in Dubai, 1978.
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Keys to a house not There

Guest post by Pratush Koul, one of the younger reader who is sharing his bits and pieces. This one for “things that crossed over” series.



 Grandfather’s Matriculation certificate from Panjab University, Lahore.

At the time the results were announced, partition had taken place and the students in India were later given these certificate from Solan. The result had been announced in 1947 but due to the migration and teachers moving across the border… the issuance of certificates was delayed. 

Just prior to the violence of 1947, my Grandfather Dwarka Nath Koul had a job offer that would have taken him to Muzzafarabad. Somehow he didn’t take the offer, which later turned out to be a blessing. His mother’s brother, Mama Ji, Jiya Lal Pandita was a renowned priest in Sharda village and  died in the violence of that year.

This was not the only 1947 tragedy in the family. My father tells me:

In 1947, when the Kaabali raid was going on his Nanaji, Niranjan Nath Raina (called taetha) and family were living in Pattan near Baramulla and when the Kabaalis reached their village, the whole of the area was reduced to ashes. Nanaji’s father was hiding somewhere in drygrass and he was burnt alive. Nanaji then shifted to Srinagar. My dad’s Nanaji had a lot of land back then but due to the “land to tiller” law, they lost most of the land in 50s. 
As per my elementary urdu (taught by grandfather) – the name on cover is “aman Umeed ki rah”. 

My grandfather once found this inside his trunk in Jammu and told me that he got it from some Christian missionaries back in Srinagar, back when they used to give these away for free in Buses and Matadors. Around late 1970s-80s.
My father was born in Amira Kadal. We lived there till 70s. Then, brick by brick,  he built a small new house in Habba Kadal. He lived in that house for only seven years.
The violence of late 80s seems “normal” to them, Kashmir had lately seen lot of such violence. But, the killing of Tikka Lal Taploo brought the violence too close to home. Then there were other signs. My mother was working in Social welfare department at the time and was posted in Baramulla. It was in Baramulla, she was one day advised by a Muslim office clerk to leave early as there was going to be trouble in the town. She travelled from Baramulla to Srinagar in an “azaadi procession” bus. She hid her ears rings and took off her bindi. Identifiers of her religion and boarded the bus screaming, “Azaadi”. Soon after these event, mother and my grandparents shifted to Jammu. My father later joined them, leaving Kashmir on a Chetak scooter. 
The house he built was burnt down somewhere in 90s.

I visited the house in Habba Kadal in 2014 with my father. I was 15 years old at the time and traveling to the place where my house once stood. The house was sold under distress.

I have among my possessions a very special thing which is responsible for keeping the “Kashmir” alive in me…it is the most valuable thing which is dearest to my heart and cannot be compared with any other thing.
I didn’t have the chance to see personally my Kashmir house as it was reduced to rubble like many other pandit houses… My dad found these keys inside an old box while we were painting our house in Jammu… I could see the attachment of Kashmir in his eyes when they held these keys… I asked my parents about it, they then sat me down and told me about each key and which door and lock they unlocked. They also became quite sad to realize that these keys couldn’t serve their function anymore. It was then given to me.
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[Update December 2018: This piece is now part of anthology “Once we had everything – Literature in Exile (2018). Ed. Arvind Gigoo, Siddhartha Gigoo, Adarsh Ajit. ]
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House of Kaws, Maharajgunj

In this guest post, Avinash Kachroo shares the story of a house in Srinagar

Pt. Swaroop Nath Kaw from Vicharnaag, was the eldest son of Pt. Sahajram Kaw. He was employed as a teacher in a village further away and had to travel a fair distance everyday. He would make a pit stop along the way – which must have been a popular one with people from all walks of life, wool sellers, weavers, embroidery craftsmen etc also crossing roads. Over some time he learnt that the popular shawl/carpet trade was not integrated and artisans only did specific tasks making money at each step. Contrary to his father’s wishes he invested some money in trading and made a neat sum, sufficient to convince his father to accept his decision of diving into the business fully and thus giving up his “cushy” teaching job.

Pt. Swaroopnath made a good fortune and decided to move to Maharajgunj in Srinagar – a hot bed of trade those days. He built a house which comprised of four buildings right on Jhelum, a few homes down from Khanqah. While the first building had his dewankhana where he met visitors, the second comprised family quarters and subsequent ones even had a carpet factory. There is neighborhood folklore of how some subsisted on the pashmina wool waste that was disposed off from the factory. Pt. Swaroopnath had his brother Pt. Madhusudan Kaw help him with managing the accounts while he sent off his youngest brother Mukund Lal Kaw to Lahore [Indore, according to his grand-daughter Sangeeta Kaul ] to gain a degree in medicine. Dr Mukund Kaw came into being one of the earliest medical practitioners of the valley and eventually stayed in the first building of the house. 
Here is a photo of the Kaw family with Pt. Sahajram in the lower row center, his left being Pt Swaroopnath, his right Pt Madhusudhan and top right Dr Mukundlal. The young boy seated in the lower row is Pt Harikishen Kaw, Pt. Swaroopnath’s son along with Pt Madhusudan’s daughter Batni.

My maternal grandfather Hari Krishen was born in 1920, he looks about 5-6 years old here. So this photograph should date around 1925.

[…]this is very much our house and my father Pt. Hari Krishen Kaw standing at the entrance door after he returned from California in 1988. He is holding a cane and right leg slighted due to his surgery here in San Jose after an accident. In 1990 I met a Cal Berkeley Professor Randolph Langenbach (Also my facebook friend now) in Late Kulbhushan Gupta,s house in Oakland on a Christmas Party. After introduction and pleasantries, he inquired where I originally hailed from. Upon hearing Srinagar, he informed me about his spending two years there as Consultant on environment to Jammu and Kashmir Government and that his speciality was earthquake proof housing. He thought Kasmirian and El-Salvadorian housing were the best earthquake proof housings in the world. He explained something to do with Daji-Deewari, Viram (The long staff) and ductility etc. Upon parting he asked for my address so he would send me his research paper on the subject, he published.Three days later, a tight vanilla envelope arrived by mail and upon pulling the journal slowly from the envelope, the first thing what appeared on the glossy cover of the journal was “American preservation technology journal”, further thrust pulling the magazine out revealed the whole glossy cover page with journal name and this particular picture on the front page. […]

And BTW the house in question has been demolished by people who bought from us and a brand new structure erected taller than 4 stories house we lived in, informs my nephew Avinash Kachroo.

Avinash Kachroo:

The particular building of the group which formed the original household and works of Pt. Sahajram Kaw’s sons pictured here ceased to stand when I visited the very spot from where the picture was taken, in 2014 – effecting whatever little closure I needed on Kashmir (having born and raised out of Kashmir). The front building long dispossessed still stood, though extremely dilapidated.
The flight of stone steps had gone and kids stared with a mix of intrigue and curiosity at my intrusive presence

The original river facing building of the household still stood on the very banks which used to be once full of life

My family comes from the Raghunath Temple area of Fateh Kadal. Interestingly, I never visited the temple when we would visit Srinagar during summer each year until my extended joint family sold off that property and we moved out to a new house in Chhanapora. However in 2014 when I visited Srinagar after 25 years, I wanted to visit the temple after the customary visit to the ancestral neighbourhood. We took the kocha to the side door that was closer to our house and was the one my father would take as a kid. However we found that entry had been walled off. We asked some onlooker muslim women who were monitoring the unusual activity and they said the main door from the front was also shut. So we scaled the temple compound wall and found the iconic temple compound and temple building deserted and in absolute mess. The garbha gruha (sanctum sanctorum) doors were missing and so was any trace of the statues. What shocked me was that there was no news of what happened to the temple and why was it in this state. Disappointed, we left the neighbourhood with lots of questions. Any picture of the down town Srinagar is incomplete without Parbat, Khanqah and Raghunath temple – yet this was to befall the landmark.

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heirloom

January, 2016

I bought a Kani shawl for myself, in Pune. I show it around at home, as usually happens, I get asked the price, the shawl is inspected, a machine one, but okay type. The discussion revolves around if it is authentic. I hear about the intricacies of the real shawl world. To dispel my naiveness, finally, to prove a point, mother brings out something that I didn’t know even existed – a heirloom. My mother’s great grandmother Kud’maal had a pheran, a handwoven Kani pheran. Over the generations the pheran was cut into pieces, added as border to shawls. The Kani shawls so crafted were given over the generations as gift to daughters. I post the photograph without her approval. Kashmiris treat these things as too intimate a secret to be shared. A rich tapestry of history lost.

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mygrandfatherhadnomemory

October, 2014

There was a storm last night. One of the window panes broke. It had been accidentally left open overnight. Grandmother rang me up on phone to tell me all about it.

‘He would have given me an earful. He would have said, “Ye kus taavan sunuth!”
It’s been about a year now. I guess she still misses him.

They wanted me to write an obituary. I couldn’t. I couldn’t sum up a life in just a few words. In the end, he got an obit, the kind that has become the default for most Pandits of his generation who died outside of Kashmir in exile: ‘He was a Karamyogi…we remember…Papaji.’

I try to remember ‘Daddy’. The most lucid memory is that of him sitting down to eat. The rice in his plate doused generously in lassi. A man of fine eating manner, his plate, even if too watery, was always neat. It was almost like watching a ritual. At the end of the rite, he would wash his hands in the plate, take a sip of water, swish it in his mouth, hold out his right hand like a little wedge, sprout out the water onto it and into the plate, all without a sound. Then he would take out his dentures, clean them up a bit by pouring some water on them and then put them back into a little yellow plastic container. It was a ritual he followed most of his life. 
My grandfather had no teeth. I laugh a little when I hear stories about how peaceful Kashmir was in old days. Indeed, a toothless peaceful Kashmir. Somewhere in 1970s, much before I was born, grandfather lost his front molars in a neighbourhood fight. It wasn’t his fight. Two Muslim neighbours were fighting over the right to erect a fence. My grandfather, like a good neighbourhood ‘Pandit Ji’, was there to help settle the matter. The issue heated up. One of the guys swung a bamboo stick but missing the intended target, instead, hit my grandfather on the mouth. Two of his teeth popped out and onto the ground. Blood sprouted out of his mouth like a fountain of Shalimar in spring. My grandfather was afraid on the sight of blood for the rest of his life. He would pass out if he saw too much blood. Many decades later, he once witnessed a bus accident in Jammu, we had to collect him from hospital for he had fainted on the road on seeing the scene. One would think he ought to tell tales about how he lost his teeth in a fight from a Muslim blow, but he never did. It wasn’t anything worth telling. Maybe it wasn’t. In the evening of the incident, the bamboo swinger came home to apologize. It was an accident. He had tea and left. However, over the years, grandfather started loosing rest of his molars too.
I never understood. If my parents wanted me to hate Muslims, all they had to do was point me to my grandfather’s denture and tell me a story about what they did to him. I would have cooked my heart in oils of hatred every time I saw my grandfather eat. It’s not like they didn’t tell me other stories, but in this story, ‘Muslim’ was not the point. In this case, it was just an accident.

After grandfather died, all the relatives came, it was a big gathering. Here, I asked his children again, “Why didn’t you tell me a Muslim did it.” They still answer, ‘Why would we lie to you?’

My grandmother added in mock jest, “In any case, he had crooked protruding teeth. Good riddance!”

I rolled my tongue over my front teeth, felt the point where one of my front teeth bends in a little and seems mashes into another. Grandfather did pass some bad genes to me.

When my grandmother married my grandfather, he worked the accounts in Shali Store, the government grain store. Grandfather was in his early twenties while she was still fifteen. 
“My mother never checked his teeth. She did secretly go to check on him at his work place, the Shali store, but only managed to get a glimpse of the back of his neck. Mother came back and said the boy is fine. He can walk upright. That was about it. I was married to him”. As my grandmother recalled this, his elder brother wiped a tear and in a choking voice added, “She was too young, she was just too young. She didn’t understand what was going on, she even ran back into the arms of her mother at the time of final send off.”
I try to imagine my grandfather with crooked teeth, with teeth, but I can’t.

Instead, I see him sitting down to shave, his little shaving kit spread out. Working up lather using a badger shaving brush. Taking extra time to shape his toothbrush moustache. Once done, his face covered in little newspaper bits to stop bleeding from little cuts.

“Kya chukh wuchaan? Aaz ti aav rath. What are you looking at? I again bled today.”
In his last days, his sons would give him those shaves. The moustache was long gone. He must have first grown that pencil moustache just when the subcontinent was about to get divided, just when new nations were sprouting. I remember the dates of the wars but I don’t remember the birthdate of my grandfather. Our life stories are just footnotes to a greater story of great wars shaping up an adolescent world.
In the violence that followed, as the war arrived in Kashmir, the story goes, my grandfather, like many others, decided to leave Kashmir. He did get onto one of those Dakota planes ferrying refugees to Delhi. But, the plane refused to take off. It was overloaded. My grandfather was among the people who got off-loaded. The impulse was gone, he turned back home and he was to leave Kashmir only decades later in 1990. They say Pamposh colony of Delhi was started by the men that got on those escape planes. This simple gaffe ensured my grandfather was not going to be a Dilliwalla Kashmiri but stay a Kashmirwalla Kashmiri.
This was also the war that ensured that my grandmother will be pulled out of school and married off at a young age. The joke in the family: “She could have at least been a collector!” Yes, she did teach me the spelling of ‘Thank You’ in Hindi.  Dhanyawad.
They got married in somewhere in early 1950s. Soon children were born. They had four. Two sons and two daughters, my father being the eldest. Grandfather joined state Secretariat as a lowly government employee. He had studied till B.Sc., wanted to study more, but running a family meant finding a secure job. He was born in a big family where joint family system was still the norm. His father had died just after his birth. Grandfather never could recall his face. Youngest among three brothers, he was raised by his mother and brothers. And there was the family of step-brothers – his father had married twice. We once had land, lots of land. It was slowly gone, all sold off. In the joint family system of Kashmir back then, everyone pitched in to run the kitchen and expenses. His children would ask for new school shoes.

His youngest daughter remembers, “Papaji had a wicked sense of humor, he would never say, ‘no’. He would say, ‘I shall buy you ten’. We soon got to understand it meant you were not getting any.”

In 1990, my grandfather didn’t want to leave Kashmir. He joined his children in Jammu only after trying to wait out the madness for two more months. In 1989, his youngest daughter was about to get married. He had retired from the government job, but to raise money, he was still working. I was eight at the time. I recall winter evenings he spent counting crisp notes. I was to think my grandfather a rich man. At the time he was working as a cashier for a Punjabi Medical wholesaler in Srinagar. I think their bestseller was ‘Boroline’.  I can smell Boroline when I think of those years.

Then I remember Jammu, and an afternoon he was hit by tail of big bull “Billo Bhel”, Grandfather smells of Zandu balm. In those early days of Jammu, I remember him writing and receiving letters. Yellow postcards and blue envelope inlays. From and to relatives that were now spread all over the country. Often the letter would end, ‘Rest you know what has happened.’

In Jammu, he often took me on walks. His long excruciating walks, familiarising me to the new place. His habit of getting up early in the morning. His habit of walking steps ahead of his wife who would walk too slow. His habit of making weird funny sound to make his grandchildren laugh. His habit of working the garden of his new house in Jammu.

We finally started to built a new house in Jammu in 1996. It completed only in 2015. A vague cement copy of our house in Srinagar. We moved in even before the house had windows. The first monsoon, water just flooded in from the wall. An empty cup was afloat. We laughed and laughed. It took just two more years to get the windows done. The money was raised by selling-off the house in Kashmir. The land for this house in Jammu was bought in late 1960s, a direct consequence of sectarian polarisation of Hindus and Muslims of valley during ‘Parmeshwari Handoo Case’ of 1967 when a young Pandit woman married an older Muslim man. The violence that followed scared Pandits and some of them started looking for an escape strategy. It was his brothers who suggested buying a piece of a land in Jammu. This was well before politics of ‘Love Jihad’ was employed in Indian mainlands to polarise community. It is as if Kashmir was a little laboratory where future of India was getting shaped by some mad social scientists.

Grandfather’s elder son-in-law remembered him as a true ‘Sanghi Batta‘, a term often used for a Kashmiri Pandit member of the ‘Sangh’ of which RSS is the spurious fountainhead. In 1990, among others, Sanghi Battas, or anyone suspected of being a Sanghi Batta were the prime targets of the Islamic flavoured Kashmiri terrorist. Muslims were convinced ‘Shiv Sainiks’ were coming. I couldn’t think of my grandfather as a Sanghi Batta. I know in 1970s, he had taken part in agitation over closure of a local ancient temple in Chattabal. Like most Pandits, during the era of Nehru, he would have followed Nehru and during the time of Indira, he would have sworn by Indira. Just like most Pandits now swear by Modi. I think he did admire Vajpayee, and followed the Agra summit with much hope.

I never heard my grandfather talk about the Sangh. Like most Kashmiris he was addicted to News, he knew the politics of the land by heart. A passion for news meant piles of newspaper and every couple of months, he would ask me to carry all the junk paper to the local raddiwalla. And for this job, I could charge and he would pay me ten rupees. This way, every year I would at least make a hundred rupees. And often using them, I would buy comics or a book. My grandfather taught me to love books, he would take me to the library and I was free to read anything I liked. We would often mock fight over the right to read a book first. We read Manto and Sartre.

He once fell from a ladder while trying to change a light bulb. I laughed.

Then I moved out of Jammu to pursue higher studies. I got busy. When the studies finished, I moved to Delhi looking for a job. I remember, he told me Delhi had lot of book stores and book fairs, he gave me a small handwritten note with a list books he wanted me to buy for him:

1. In the woods of God realization by Shri Rama Tiratha
2. Yoga by Patanjali
3. Vairagya Satakam by Raja Bharthari (Bharthari)
4. Sunder Lahari by Sri Sankaracharya (Advita Ashram)

He was much older now and discovering God all over again, I was young and leaving the fold of religion. I promised him the books but never got around to buying them. I got busy. I still have the note in my pocket. I want to drown it in the lake at Harmokh.

His blood started clotting. We took him to Kashmir. He met his old neighbours. He couldn’t recognize the crossing to his house. We came back, he got a clot in his brain. He got operations.

His memory started fading. He wanted me to get married. He confused things. His speech slurred. He thought I was married. He named my imaginary wife – Chandani. He had to be prompted lines while talking to me on phone.

He started fading. He faded into a world of his own. We tried to get him back as often as we could. We played games with him. We would ask him questions from his past. We would ask him his name. We would ask him our names. Of all the answers, some would be more lucid than the other. He would often not answer at all. But, he would rattle out names of his brothers and dead relatives like they were still alive. Often, all this questioning would irritate him. His brows would raise and nose would twitch. He wouldn’t talk, but one could see it all on his face as he grit his gums. One day, when one granddaughter asked him the routine questions, he just snapped and said, “Why should I tell you the name of my brothers? Who are you?” That’s probably the last time he got angry. I remember, in Jammu, he broke the T.V. set once. He did have an angry streak.

He stopped talking. We placed a radio next to his bed. It played Kashmiri songs all day. He became a child. He would run for cover if someone raised his voice. His wife would feed him and clean him. His bed sometimes smelt of urine. Much to my grandmother’s annoyance, I would sometime lie in it while he was being given a bath. The songs were from home.

He was locked inside the house and not allowed out. He would ask to be let out. Newspapers in Jammu are full of lost old Kashmiri men. All the local shopkeepers were told to keep a watch on him. Inform, if he steps out. One day he sneaked out, father followed him, keeping a distance. He took the route to raddiwalla and managed to reach back home safely. He stopped walking.

He was now often ill. Doctors and hospitals. 

When I received the call. I knew it was serious this time. I wanted to be there when it happened. I was ready to let him go, but I wanted to see him off. I kept flying back to him. In the hospital, I thumb wrestled him. Seeing us fight, a woman from the nearby hospital bed claimed, “Pandit Ji hasn’t lost memory. He is obviously here.” I know, I was just tricking his instincts. Or, may be he was tricking me. I wasn’t there when it happened. I cried in a long time. The last time I had cried, he was fighting my mother over something that now seems inconsequential.

A few months back, a Muslim man from Srinagar called to offer condolences. An old colleague who read the “First Death Anniversary” message in the local newspaper.

I remember the last time my grandfather laughed. In his lost days, just before he stopped talking, he would laugh on a joke my father cooked up. My father would press the long Kashmiri nose of his father and utter an old Kashmiri saying:

“Bragya nas chaey hej”
Stork, your nose is crooked!

Grandfather would reply with a toothless smile:
“Nat kya chu syod“
What is straight in this world?

-0-

The [edited] piece got published at thewire.in, 18/06/2016

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