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Looking at the photographs, our friends felt nostalgic and narrated some painful experiences that they had, while leaving their own homes and heart behind to save their lives. They explained how during their recent visit to Kashmir, they realized that two decades of changed geography had paled their erstwhile palatial home. The old medieval edifice, that was passed down to them by generations, now stood as a testimony of a time devastated by sponsored terrorism of fundamentalists, violence, political neglect and perennially persistent state of emergency. Most agonizing experience for them was, when they stood numb, outside the place they once inhabited rightfully and happily with family members, consisting three generations!
For most of people living outside Kashmir, being a refugee in one's own motherland has been an invisible experience that we only read about and sometimes listen through some chanced upon encounters like mine! When my friends narrated their painful experiences of inhuman torture and harassment that forced them to flee the state, everybody in the room was in tears.
Two decades have already passed and still millions of Kashmiri Pandits are living in hellish conditions all over the country! Generations have lived in constant suffering and an entire generation is born out of conflict. Six decades have passed since we got the independence and the issue of Kashmir is still not resolved! The deadliest war sponsored by fundamentalists that caused most painful exodus of such a large scale and we still don't seem to have found the answer!
Hypnotic Kashmir - the paradise that we once knew is lost. Life has stopped and there are silent cries from the valley that resonate in the experiences of people who once lived there long ago. While the political, geographical and religious muddle thickens in Kashmir with each passing day all that is left of this paradise is the photo albums of good old days and lots of noise from the gunshots!
