“Waliyu, waliyu (come, come).” Little Aadesh welcomes this writer at his house on the edges of the forlorn village Haal, about 30 km south of Srinagar.
It is a typical home with a wooden door in this village of 3,000 people and their burnt-out, collapsing brick-and-timber structures, once inhabited by 150 Kashmiri pandit families.
Adeesh’s family is the last.
The three-year-old is the grandson of Omkar Nath Bhat, 72, the only Kashmiri pandit to have decided to stay back in this once-vibrant village of friendly people and views of snow-clad mountains and forests.
The other pandits, Kashmiri Hindus, of Haal left in the winter of 1989, the year militancy exploded across the valley.
– A piece on ‘Remaining Pandits of Kashmir’ by Arun Joshi for Hindustan Times (September 14, 2009)
It’s not ‘Waliyu, waliyu’. It’s ‘Wal’yuur, Wal’yuur‘.
