[Reader-list] Lost River (a journo piece on martyrs day)

[Pawan Durani]

Lost River (a journo piece on martyrs day)

By NEERAJ SANTOSHI KHAR

As this poet and frontline leader of Kashmiri Pandits was offering prayers
on the banks of Chandrabhaga (Chenab) at Akhnoor here, in a sudden rush of
emotions, he began to ponder on intangibles that Pandits have lost in exile.


``The intangibles that are generally not recognised- the mulberry tree in
the compound of my house at Sathu Barbarshah, the window through which I
used to see this Mulberry tree in the backdrop of beautiful Vitasta river,
the view of the magnificent Shankaracharya hill, which is now called
Koh-e-Sulaiman, the evenings spent on the shores of Vitasta contemplating
and discussing philosophy and literature with friends,  the sweet hum of the
nearby temple bell,  the sudden sound of snow falling from the tin-roof
tops... '', said
Agnishekhar, author of poetry collection Muj Se Csheen Lee Gayi Meri Nadi
(My River Was Taken Away From Me) and president of Panun Kashmir, the
frontline Kashmiri Pandit organisation.

``They (government )can give me a house, land and replace everything I have
lost, but can they give me back,  my Mulberry tree,  my window, the view of
Vitasta and Shankaracharya hill, which  played a key role in shaping my
sensibilities'', said Agnishekhar, with a distant look in his moist eyes.


Agnishekhar shared his feelings after the function organised by PK on the
banks of Chenab, about 30 kms from Jammu, on the occasion of Martyrs Day to
offer prayers for the peace to those who fell to the militant bullets in
early 1990s and to those who later succumbed to wrath of sun and various
diseases in the hot plains.

``Why I come to the shores of Chandrabhaga is because somewhere in the back
of mind I feel  that this river, which joins Vitasta (Jehlum) in Pakistan,
will also share my agony, pain, concerns and apprehensions with my own
river, Vitasta, that continues to flow in my veins, in my roots, in my very
marrow'', said Agnishekhar, who immersed the first copy of his poetry
collection Muj Se Csheen Lee Gayi Meri Nadi (My River Was Taken Away From
Me, 1997) into the emerald waters of Vitasta at Habba Kadal in Srinagar.

Fifty two year old writer, who is author of four books, stressed that it is
because of these reasons that he decided to launch a movement for creation
of a separate homeland, where nobody can ``take away anything from us that
we have been nurturing for last 5000 years''.

``As I was offering prayers amidst the chanting of hymns from Geeta, I was
thinking that the greatest tragedy with Pandits is that even though their
home is just 300 kms away, but the memories of that land now seem memories
of some past life. Efforts are being made even to efface our history by
deliberate distortions and change in the nomenclature of our places of
belonging. It is painful to see one's own community fast moving towards
`manufactured extinction'. It is very painful to realize that even the
memory of our motherland is being made to fade away  slowly in many subtle
ways'', said Agnishekhar  whose world of poetry revolves around the trauma
of exile, persecution, nostalgia, struggle and out-right rejection of forces
inimical to the survival of his exiled community.

Agnishekhar summed up his feelings by quoting few lines from Duane Locke's
poem `Lost River',  ``She combed the sand/  Of the twisted dry riverbed/
Wrinkles from the water now gone remained/ On the flesh-pink bottom,
undressed sand./ She stroked with the comb of her mind the sedimented
expanse…..''.