CHIKAN’S MIGRATION to Jammu happened like this. He used to run a factory in dKashmir. He says he was friendly with many people, including a young Muslim electrician whom he particularly liked. One day, he notice that the young Muslim was following him. “I suspected something was wrong. I was scared. I started to remembe how one of my friends was killed. I got into a meat shop. I didn’t need meat that day, but I still bought it. I kept harassing the meat seller, asking him about various kinds of meat. I spent time in the meat shop. This youngster had got into a shop some distance away. I finally left the meat shop. He also left the shop he was in. “I turned by instinct when he came too close. I asked him, ‘do you want to say something?’ He said he needed to discuss a problem with me. I said, why didn’t he tell me. I asked him to come in the morning. I dropped the meat at home, and left in 30 minutes. I stayed at my in-laws for the night and moved to Jammu from there. I learnt later that the electrician was given the responsibility of killing me,” Chikan says. Life as a migrant has hardened Chikan’s views. He now puts the Kashmiri Pandit before all else. “I am worried that a mega exodus from Jammu is already on among the Pandits. Soon, there will be cross-marriages, which will threaten our existence. We have unique 5,000-year-old genes. We must keep our genes pure and save ourselves from bad exposure. We have to save our culture. At the current rate, no one will want to consult the senior Pandits in future. They will opt for computer match-making and destroy the race,” he says. Trust is rare among the Pandits. There was a time when they wondered why their country didn’t save them. Now they know better. There’ll be some back-slapping and small talk when the candidates come asking for votes. But there’ll be even more bile. The Pandits want to make their vote count. One way to do this is to ensure that they’re all in the same place. Which is why the insistence on new townships specifically for the Pandits.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 05:35:53 +0000
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