‘MATCHI HO’ND GU’R’ My daughter Anu (Anupama Handoo) is very unhappy with me. She and her friends in Kashmiri Pandits Cultural Society are trying to observe the 25th anniversary of the darkest day in the history of Kashmiri Pandit community on and around 19th January, 2015. Therefore, they are gathering material for compilation, based on the happenings around the horrible and nightmarish events of the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir Valley. She was too young to remember everything that happened to us individually and on community scale. A major event of horrendous nature took place on 19th January, 1990, when some three hundred thousand men, women and children; young and old; fled the valley amidst the rain of bullets and grenades hurled at them. The scenes of trying to grab whatever means of transport one could get, running parallel to looting and molesting by the members of majority community, of whatever and whoever they could lay hands at, are still fresh in our memories. Her first and natural choice was to search the web, for getting as much information as possible. To the shock of a lifetime, she did not find any reference of the fateful event on the internet. Instead, a minute by minute account of the firing incident at Gawkadal locality on 20th January 1990 is available in highly coloured manner. What is this? She protested. Could not a single pen of the highly educated and loftily intellectual community of Kashmiri Pandits write an account of the atrocities meted out by them on that fateful day when they had to flee? Was that really just a fancied flight triggered by Jagmohan’s call, as the majority community would often sarcastically say? Did actually nothing happen to three hundred thousand people, who were in shabby tents of Nagrota and footpaths of Udhampur and Jammu, the very next day? Where are those stories, which everyone’s bosoms are full of? They are not on the internet. They are not written somewhere. They have not been compiled or even preserved by any of the intellectuals of the community. The other side of the story is known to the whole world. Nobody knows our plight. That’s why nobody in the world even cares for us, leave alone our point of view. Who on earth are we and what on earth do we stand for? Does anybody know? How come, we expect sympathy and appreciation from all other communities of the world. We do not care for ourselves. Why should anybody care for us? Next thing she did that she posted a request to all the members of Kashmiri Pandit community living anywhere in the world to send any authentic material available with them to their organization at [email protected] in respect of events of 19th January 1990 or events leading to that or anything relating to events after that. Everybody reading the said post is just hitting the ‘like’ button and not responding to the call. Someone even criticizedas to where she (and not himself) was all these years. I do not know whether to call this tragic or comic. She quarreled with me a lot. Not because I was responsible and answerable for the lapse on the part of whole community; but because I did not shoulder my part of the responsibility. So did nobody else. She is justified. Every one of her age-group and younger to her as well as those who are unborn yet, are justified in questioning our inertia and callousness. What did we leave for posterity to read and know about? Is there anything on record somewhere? Is there our version of the ‘kashmir tale’ somewhere? If there is, why is it not available to the generation next to us? Some serious questions to ponder about. They are all talking of observing the 25 years of our exodus. Every group of Kashmiri Pandits, in every part of the world has suddenly woken up to that event. There shall be protests, meetings, seminars, debates, public appraisals, march pasts and what not. We will tell the whole world, but what? There is nothing to fall back upon. There are no eyewitness accounts available. There is no material, whether written or recorded to show to the world. We have been sleeping for 25 long years. And now we have suddenly woken up ! All of a sudden, a smile shone across my face. I happened to recall the story of a family that had this daughter-in-law, who despite being a bit naïve (me’tch) was of extra-ordinary caliber. On her spinning wheel, she could, reportedly, spin the ‘pashmina’ yarn as fine as a single strand of hair. The whole family was waiting anxiously to see it happen. When it did not happen for many days, they insisted her to show her skill. All she said that she should get a motivation from her inner self; a whim. On several occasions, they tried to get her into spinning of her wheel, but she would not get that impulse. By and by, the family forgot about it and did not mention it anymore. One fine day, they went to have a picnic on the Dal lake and the gardens around it. They went out in a large boat called ‘doonga’ and were having good fun together. All of a sudden, when their doonga was in the middle of the lake, she shouted: “Aniv se myon yende’r; mya se ovu’ gu’r” (Get me my spinning wheel; I have got the whim). I wonder whether we too, have all of a sudden felt this “matchi hond gu’r” or is it really something to care about.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 11:31:29 +0000
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