[Reader-list] A long way from home (on Women writers among Kashmiri Pandits)

[Aalok Aima]

" For Kashmiri Pandit families, exile is not a romantic concept but a real and painful reality. "
 
" Kashmiri Pandits have been forced by circumstances totally beyond their control to become refugees in their own country.  This has taken a heavy toll on the elders of the community. Younger people have more or less adjusted. "
 
"  Women writers of the Kashmiri Pandit community often reflect back to an earlier time when mutual respect and mutual understanding between the communities was the norm. But the work of writers such as Meera Kant, Chandrakanta, Sanjana Paul, Sunita Raina and Kshama Kaul are also steeped in a sense of loss, of bewilderment, and even of anger. "
 
“All these women have a different perspective on events from the Muslim women who continued to stay in the Valley. But there is one thing they all have in common: a sense of loss for peace, stability, for all those who have senselessly lost their lives in a valley that was once compared to Paradise.”
 
 
............... aalok aima
 
 
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/36/20101201201012012012129368924475b/A-long-way-from-home.html
 
A long way from home 
 
Women writers among Kashmiri Pandits reflect on a bygone era when mutual respect existed between communities
 
By Eunice De Souza 
Wednesday, December 01, 2010 
 
The word “exile” is often used by people/writers who have gone abroad voluntarily, are well-settled, but then make the mandatory noises about missing their fish curry, and the “trauma” of having to speak/write in English when that is exactly what they have done all their lives. For Kashmiri Pandit families, exile is not a romantic concept but a real and painful reality.
 
Ranjana Kaul is a member of such a family. She teaches in a Delhi college. I met her at the Sahitya Akademi fest in October and was interested in what she had to say about Kashmir, about re-visiting sometimes to find a warm welcome but a welcome without any suggestion that they should return. “Ironically,” she says, “at its best moments, Kashmiri identity, both Hindu and Muslim has been characterised by its Sufi tolerance and its acceptance of each other’s religion, beliefs and culture. Kashmiri Pandits have been forced by circumstances totally beyond their control to become refugees in their own country.  This has taken a heavy toll on the elders of the community. Younger people have more or less adjusted. 

“Women writers of the Kashmiri Pandit community often reflect back to an earlier time when mutual respect and mutual understanding between the communities was the norm. But the work of writers such as Meera Kant, Chandrakanta, Sanjana Paul, Sunita Raina and Kshama Kaul are also steeped in a sense of loss, of bewilderment, and even of anger. 

Chandrakanta’s magnum opus, Katha Satisar (The Story of Kashmir), follows the fortunes of the Kashmiri Pandit community in the valley from the beginning of the century to the moment of exodus from the valley. It is a record of those rituals, routines of daily life, human interactions which were an accepted and unchallenged part of their lives for centuries, only to be completely and irrevocably lost because of displacement.”

“Meera Kant’s story Offerings of Memories depicts the gradual shedding of cultural moorings as Kakni, the old grandmother decides to give up wearing the pheran, the dress of the older Hindu women, once the family moves to Jammu. The pathetic eagerness with which she calls out to an old acquaintance who is passing by, their childish glee at sharing past scandals, and their attempt to recapture the threads of their past lives reflect the loss of familiar rhythms of life. Kakni’s grand-daughter and her mother also try to maintain some traditions, so Shakti goes to the roof of the house to leave offerings of fish and rice to the “grehdevta,” the God of the house.”

“All these traditions,” Ranjana Kaul says poignantly, “will soon exist only in the memories of a gradually dispersing, gradually disappearing community which has no voice because it is too insignificant to matter in the political scheme of things.”
“Both Chandrakanta and Meena who write in Hindi, do not write only about Kashmir, and their work is critically acclaimed.  

Sudha Koul writes in English. Her The Tiger Ladies is a truly beautiful evocation of a way of life, of social interactions which cannot exist any more. There are people writing in Kashmiri as well (Vimala Raina writes Sufi poems), but the language of their choice reflects the growing divide between the communities. Hindus use the Devanagari script, Muslims use ‘nastalik,’ a Persian-Arabic script similar to Urdu.”

“All these women have a different perspective on events from the Muslim women who continued to stay in the Valley. But there is one thing they all have in common: a sense of loss for peace, stability, for all those who have senselessly lost their lives in a valley that was once compared to Paradise.”