Arshid Malik

Destructed-Pandit-House-in-WandhamaI  would like to introduce you to a very special person today. But instead of writing about him I think it is better that he speak for himself for my words would only be contrived by my personal obsessions and beliefs. I leave the rest to him. He will introduce himself to you and perhaps tell you a story or two. So here it goes…

I am a Kashmiri Pandit. I am seventy two years old and almost homeless. Not that I do not have a roof to provide shelter, but I do not have a place which I could call “my home”. Phrases like “my home”, “my beautiful home”, “home sweet home” bear no practically contextual relationship to me. I live within four walls made of concrete, brick, sand and wood but no soul; yes, absolutely no soul. Maybe I am being too loud with the soul thing but the truth is that homes have souls and these souls call out for you when you are out for some time. These souls I talk of are not ghoulish but peculiarly homely. With no spirits to call me back, I am at the liberty to go anywhere and stay out as long as I can. No one calls me back. The dead walls of the structure I live in today are solidified formalities which I have to fulfill lest I should lay bare to the preying eyes of watchful hyenas. And these hyenas are always there, kept away by the four walls I live in yet they prey upon me in my dreams. They certainly are ghoulish.

“Why don’t you buy yourself a home or build one in case you can afford it” you might ask. Well, homes are like dreams. You can lull yourself to sleep and try to dream but you can’t unless a dream decides to visit you while you are asleep. Like homes, dreams are created of their own free will. And yes, I did have a home back in Kashmir, but I was compelled to leave and adjust myself and my family to a foreign land which was not at all welcoming my arrival. My home kept on calling me back and it still does but I cannot because of certain pressures and compulsions which exact a situation which could prove life-threatening to me and my family. So, what do I do? Well, I go on tirelessly with what I have at hand. There is nothing in this world which can offer me the solace of my home and so I lay bare all the time to the shudders of the concrete walls of my present dwelling and magically I dare to smile. Yes, I am a Kashmiri Pandit.

Back home, I used to get up early, freshen myself and go to my Muslim brother who lived next door. I would knock at the door and ask him to hurry up as the time for morning prayers would close in. we would walk down the street, chatting a little and then enter our places of worship. I would wait for him afterwards till he had finished his prayers and he would do likewise in case he finished early. We would walk back to my or his place for a hot cup of Kashmiri tea. And now, every day I wake up to a feeling of urgency instilled inside my soul. Till my eyes are wide open I am only thinking of knocking at my neighbor’s door and talking a walk down the street with him dotted by small talk to our respective places of worship. When I am wide awake I realize the potential fallacy of human thought and desire. Eerily I get out of bed, freshen a little and visit the nearby temple.

I have realized over the decades that I have to live life the way it unfolds yet the dream of returning home scaffolds my very presence. I am not the only one bothered. I have friends and relatives who feel alike but we cannot help it. Well, I do not wish to wander away into reasoning and be judgmental because some things that are too close to the heart get polluted once they get a whiff of the sulfurous air that surrounds us.

I am quite old and I believe that I will not live long. I will die soon and perhaps my dream of returning home will die alongside. My days are over, I must say. It is the children in my house that I am deeply concerned about. A few weeks ago my granddaughter who is eight ran up to me and asked me a strange question. “Daadu, who am I. Do I belong to the place I was born in”? I managed a response and told her she obviously belonged to the place where she was born and brought up but she did not agree to that. “All the people I see on the bus, the market place, the school speak a different tongue. They do not speak Urdu or Kashmiri like we do. And I do not really believe that I belong to this place even though I was born here. It feels strange, Daadu,” she said. I had to tell her for I did not want to cause discomfort to her. “We all hail from the same place, Kashmir that is”, I told her. “Then why do we live here,” she retorted. I choked. “Well it is God’s will,” I told her and handed her some candy which I had been carrying around in my waistcoat pocket for a few days, meant to serve just such junctures. The thought that my granddaughter will grow up and then she won’t settle for the “God clause” and a handful of candy. What will I do then? How will I spin my reply? Would I be able to manufacture a suitable lie? I really don’t know and draw comfort from the fact that I won’t live long enough to reason with her for I never found a reason to satisfy myself.

This is me, a Kashmiri Pandit – a prisoner to alien concretized ephemeral landscapes, waiting on a quite death for I do believe that I will be reborn, perhaps as a plant in some distant paddy field in Kashmir and there I shall find solace.

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