Kashmir Files – first of many steps towards closure/ Rashmi Talwar / March 26,2022

Kashmir Files – first of many steps towards closure

Rashmi Talwar

“I had a nightmare that remained dreadful for years. In it, children wearing ‘Phirans’ were playing cricket at Burzahom, a prehistoric archaeological site, 16 Kms northwest of Srinagar, Kashmir. And the cricket ball falls into one of the ancient “dwelling pits” or homes of pre-historic man, where human skeletons were found in a sitting position along with bones of animals. The skeleton was seen in Sri Partap Singh Museum, Srinagar …with a cricket ball in his mouth! ”        

 ‘Kashmir Files’ reopened that nightmarish dream, as it tracked the forced ouster of Kashmiri Pandits, from their homeland Kashmir, and near paralysis of powers to protect or stall the exodus.

Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri, writer, screenplay, director of the film “Kashmir Files”, brings forth simmering wounds of January 1990, of a wailing vale when its original unconverted populace left homes, hearths, and hearts, behind to save their future generations, never to resettle again, anywhere, or call any place their home, again.

Many died in tents at what was a picture of Purkhoo camp in the film, from excruciating heat of plains of Jammu, multiple stress, unhygienic conditions, poison bites of snakes -scorpions. Most tragic were deaths from heartbreak, heatstroke, homelessness, and pennilessness. Living in tents, open to weather vagaries, left to fend for themselves, by an equally callous and unresponsive government.

Kashmir Files parades terror of the times that saw neighbor turned against neighbor, with majority community against their own brethren – the Kashmiri Pandits (KP). The Pandit community found themselves, shivering in mortal fear, herded in trucks, turned refugees overnight, in their own motherland. The film gives a peek into months of selective killing of kith and kin, before the final exodus, forced upon them, giving shape to the terrifying slogan – ‘Raaliv, Gaaliv, Chaaliv’ (Convert, Flee or Die). 

The peaceful Pandit or Hindu community of Kashmir, merely 2% of the population, kept much of the truth from children, apparently, to save their progeny from a stunted physical, mental growth, and a revengeful mind. The film exactly depicts that protective shield, expressed as fright in Pandit households tangible till date, in any of their adopted homes the world over. Being a community of letters, Pandits dedicatedly collected proofs of incidents in newspaper bits, many also documented oral stories to writer Rahul Pandita and Siddhartha Gigoo- a writer cum film-maker.

Kashmir Files tracks the heartrending trajectory of bloodcurdling events of 32-years back and visually throws them in your face, with the serene Dal Lake in frozen turbulence in the January of 1990, as a backdrop.

It successfully quashes the oft-repeated refrain in the valley that Governor Jagmohan extended tactic support to the Pandit community to ‘willingly leave’ their homes in Kashmir. Incidentally, Jagmohan arrived after Pandits were completely terrorized by wave after wave of selective killings.  Nobody, repeat nobody, of the majority community, could admit that it was the vast chasm of the silence of moderates of the majority, during the hapless persecution of KPs that lead to their ouster.     

Terror intensified and emboldened politicians, who played dual games while local police, governments looked the other way. Selective and mass killings of minority members, were triggers, while it was ‘those’ who held their silence while the horrors played out, that the Pandits hold guilty. Guilty of connivance, through absence or their intervention; feeding fictional narratives to suppress the truth. 

 From a wider perspective, both communities lied to their children- The Pandits about ‘their persecution’, the Muslims, about ‘KP’s persecution’.

Driving a scooter, painted with a blue Shiva face, rescuing his children, Pushkar Nath Pandita alias Anupam Kher, dives deep into the role of Pushkar whose name too, he chose from the real name of his father. Stellar performance as a distraught and protective grandfather, that couldn’t have been done any other way.  The film has given an emblem to Pandit’s forced exodus with a standout visual of Anupam’s blue Shiva face, just like the picture of the face-down dead body of a three-year-old child on the beach brings to mind the tragic plight of Syrian refugees; people falling from a skyscraper brings forth memory of 9/11 of America.

Anupam with his screen appearance of cataract-ed-eyes, shaded with thick spectacles, carrying the demented and battered soul of his community, raising the flag of the abolishment of article 370 from the Indian Constitution has put forward a performance hard to match even by his film ‘Saraansh’. Pushkar’s heart-wrenching painful muttering, ‘sheena pyato pyato’, is symbolic of his memory standing still in his beloved land of Kashmir, a lost soul’s longing for home. It may be mentioned that Kher is strongly hated in Kashmir valley for raising the issue of his hapless community, at every forum.

The film, based on testimonies of community members scarred and battered for generations, coins the term ‘genocide’ for their tragic uprooting, and accuses the aggressors of intentionally hiding the truth from the rest of the world. The intent of the film was to show – the smothering of KPs cries, for reasons of the minority’s lack of clout, and thus a minor vote bank, that apparently didn’t matter! 

How media became an equal villain, readily conniving with perpetrators and politicians, in the film implies the collective gameplan. Here, Krishna (Darshan Kumaar), the lead character, a Kashmiri Hindu, grandson of Pushkar, is seen roped in as a pawn, along with gullible university students of a premier university, modeled on Jawaharlal Nehru University. Krishna, the ill-informed Hindu, is seen selectively tutored by ‘liberal’ teacher Radhika Menon (Pallavi Joshi) turned against his own community, citing state injustices. Leading him to believe, the secessionist movement in Kashmir was akin to India’s Freedom Movement. Her modus operandi: usage of popular revolutionary poetry to churn a loud, crazy, frenzied response, draws the audience into widespread narrative of a call for freedom of Kashmir from India; is so convincing that for a second the less-informed audience gets completely drawn to believe the warped narrative. Poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz written in 1979, Hum Dekhenge is used to dramatic effect, including symbolism to the apparent sinister role of Pakistan in Kashmir’s insurgency.

A sterling portrayal with her graceful raw performance, Sharda Pandit characterized by Bhasha Sumbli, presents quiet suppressed strength, paired with desperation, desolence, and despair. “Her portrayal is raw, tangible, yet nimble and evocative”. Even non-Kashmiris in Amritsar, sobbed copious tears as she essayed the part of the victim’s mother, wife, and daughter-in-law.

Mithun Chakraborty as IAS Brahma Dutt, Dr. Mahesh Kumar (Prakash Belawadi) DGP Hari Narain (Puneet Issar), Journalist Vishnu Ram (Atul Srivastva) made a benevolent clique, banishing lies of Kashmiri Pandits being ‘willing migrants’ versus ‘forced migrants’. The revelation opens a Pandora’s Box for youngster Krishna who is driven to believe and also endorse the call for -Freedom of Kashmir, from India, propagated by the majority community in Kashmir.

Villain, Bitta (Chinmay Madlekar) shown as real-life Bitta Karate, appeared like a common Kashmiri; his flipping eyelid, the single giveaway of stealth, malice, and horror, played the part convincingly. The real Bitta’s interview on prime time was used to frame his character that seems to club the character of Yaseen Mallik of JKLF; feted and celebrated by powers, despite selective killings on their orders.

However scintillating performances could be attributed to Anupam Kher with his Kashmiri intonation and common Kashmiri gestures, reactions, mumblings, a Kashmiri’s pronunciation when speaking English or Hindi, and particularly his gaze. Director Agnihotri’s inclusion of a loving Kashmiri lullaby, ‘Goor e Goor Karyo, Son e kan ke Dooro’  – I rock your cradle which swings like my long earrings; I shall give my life for you, O my dear) adds the flavor of a happy Kashmir, before terror struck. The background score of “Tsolhama Roshe, Roshe”, the poetic songs of Habba Khatoon, unassisted by musical instruments, adds to the starkness of Kashmir. It is known that ‘no occasion’ in Kashmir remains complete, without the melancholic songs of Habba Khatoon, irrespective of any Kashmiri community- be it Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or Christian. Habba- the mountain Queen of Kashmir; her poetic heartrending songs, are sung at weddings even on deaths and dirges.  

Krishna’s invocation of Kashmiri legends, in the climactic speech including mystic Lalleshwari, the journey of Shankaracharya to Kashmir, Kashmir as the knowledge hub, familiarizes non-Kashmiri masses about Kashmir. 

Scenes of bloodshed, torture, and otherisation of Pandits is broadcast with brutal intensity. The voice of moderate Muslims is conspicuous by its absence.  But then as Vishal Bhardwaj Director of ‘Haider’, another Kashmir based film- a modern adaptation of Sir William Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Hamlet’; answered to a Kashmiri Pandit Mr. Ravinder Kaul, from the stage of Jaipur literature Festival-2015, who inquired, “Haider projects one tragedy, while in Kashmir the tragedy was twofold- ‘One of the Kashmiri Muslims and another of the Kashmiri Pandits, but you have highlighted only one and ignored the other”.  To which Vishal responded- “Cinema gives a time, and it is my choice to make the film in the particular time, where it didn’t allow me to focus on that tragedy of Kashmiri Pandits more, or at all. I have told just a token line about it. That tragedy was not less”, could be the cinematic answer of Vivek too, to his detractors about the opposite side.

Within cinema halls, the film’s camerawork captures dim, gloomy, and delicate hues and transports one to the valley, as compelling performances capture the temper and mood of the film in all its starkness. The ratt-a-tatt of foreign guns, combined with the melancholic scenery evokes shivers. 

All in all, a watershed film, that doesn’t chicken away or gloss over the monumental tragedy or tries to bring any false reconciliation or closure to unhealed cavernous wounds. Vivek Agnihotri is hailed for his boldness and individuality and personal risk, to tell the tale in its rawest avatar, without shying from pointing at the native majority community of Kashmir, for the Pandits ouster.

 Also, for not using the oft love story crutch to add popular glitter, relegating events to the backdrop. He portrays the film in all its greys, gory, and gloriously shameful detail without mincing. Violence is not unnecessarily prolonged in screen-time to impart an echo effect; rather, horror is tangible due to the strike and pass, build-up.  

Use of the Kashmiri language, creates the mood; the soulful rendering of Kashmiri songs in the background without musical notes consumes the audience. Dialogues are hard-hitting and sensitive. “Sarkar unki hai; toh kia hua; system toh hamara haii” — the professor tells the confused Pandit leader.

Curtains-call speech by Krishna Pandit encapsulates the entire history of Kashmir in few minutes. What stands out is the screenplay doesn’t just caricature the professor; it faithfully places arguments, for an audience to judge the wrong or rights of how the water passed under the bridge of those times and narratives ‘built’ to hide the shame.

Although most of the majority community are in denial or try to evade the topic of KP’s forced migration, a few times, KP atrocities are evoked at the unlikeliest of moments, especially by the lower strata of Kashmiris. One happened, when a tall, strong-looking auto-rickshaw walla, standing in Rajbagh locality, Srinagar, during rescue operations from flooded areas of six-feet water. Seeing local boatmen negotiating money with victims for their evacuation; shouted – “Ye Kehr Hai, Panditon ke saath humney jo salook kia hai, Uska Kehr” he repeated again louder and louder. In Kashmiri, then Hindi, for non-Kashmiris collected there, including me. Watching rescue operations, standing at water flood-line for victims being brought ashore, I, and other non-Kashmiris, had arrived from varied parts of mainland, with relief material, for our brethren- the majority community, who suffered as victims of floods of September 2014 in Kashmir. The locals ignored him, we couldn’t.

Seemingly, the film served a purpose, with the nightmarish skeleton left in the museum as a specimen, as a reminder; while it (the Film) plucked the ball from the mouth of the skeleton, to help restart the process of healing and play once again, on the stage of life.

Writer Rashmi Talwar, an Independent Journalist, can be reached at email: rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com

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Jammu & Kashmir, KASHMIR, Kashmir Files, Kashmiri Pandits

Hilarious kick-start to the first Football in Kashmir….. By Rashmi Talwar/ Rising Kashmir

While buying roadside knick-knacks, if an old man is seen looking closely at a tall gate of Tyndale Biscoe and Mallinson School in Sheikh Bagh locality of Srinagar, surely, that night’s bedtime story would be an inspiring and hilarious tale of the first football of Kashmir.

The first football- a mini humpty-dumpty- traveled with a newly-wedded English couple of Rev Cecil Tyndale Biscoe, his new bride Blanche Violet Burges in 1891 from London, England. It sailed the seven-seas and reached Karachi, bumped on to Rawalpindi and bounced over to a horse–carriage to Baramulla to finally set sail in a ‘doonga’ – an indigenous Kashmiri boat- and reached Srinagar in 1891.

FIRST FOOTBALL IN KASHMIR

Tyndale Biscoe and the first football in Kashmir

Tyndale Biscoe (TB) recalled with glee his tryst when he brought the first football to Kashmir in the autumn of 1891 – “When I brought my bride to Kashmir in November 1891, I brought, also a leather football. When I held it up before the assembled school they asked, what is that?
TB- It is a football.
Boys- What is the use of it?
TB- For playing a game.
Boys- Shall we receive any money if we play that game?
TB- No!
Boys- Then we will not play that game. What is it made of?
TB- Leather.
Boys-Take it away! Take it away!
TB-Why should I take it away?
Boys- Because it is jutha (unholy) we may not touch it, it is leather.
TB- I do not wish you to handle it. I want you to kick it and to-day you are going to learn how to kick it, boys.
Boys- We will not play that jutha game.

So instead of the usual English lesson with the senior class, where many boys had whiskers and beards and some were married and had children, Biscoe described the game and, drew a map of a football ground on a blackboard, showing the position of the players, etc.
Anticipating trouble, he called the teachers, who were all Brahmins, and ordered them to picket certain streets to prevent the boys from running away. When all was ready he gave the orders to proceed to the ground and-“shooed them on like sheep or cattle to the market” when the boys entered the gate. It was a great sight never to be forgotten- All boys shuffling along the street wearing wooden clogs-kharav, carrying their firepots-kangris under flowing phirans or cloaks, on their way to play football. Some were wearing huge gold earrings, some had nose rings and all of them wore their caste marks.

Soon goal posts were put up and teams lined up. A crowd of townsfolk grew every minute, all eager to see the new mischief this foolish young sahib (Tyndale Biscoe) was up to now. When everyone was set, Biscoe put the football in the centre and ordered to kick.

The black-bearded Brahmin looked at him, then at the crowd of fellow co-religionists around, and hung his head. Biscoe again ordered, “Kick!” – Nothing happened. He boomed: “I will give you five-minutes to think, and then something will happen, which you will not like.” What was going to happen, he had not the slightest idea, but fortunately he had armed his teachers with single sticks, in order to drive the boys to the common ground. He lined up the teachers at the goals and told them that when they heard him shout “kick”, should the order not be obeyed immediately, they were at once to rush from the goals at the teams waving their single sticks, and shouting blue murder.

The countdown began: “10 seconds left, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Kick !!!” and down came the teachers shouting and waving their single sticks. Off went that ball and in five seconds all was confusion, for the boys forgot their places on the field, or that they were holy Brahmins, and a rough and tumble began. As they tried to kick the ball, generally missed it, their clogs flew into the air and their pugaris (turbans) were knocked off while their gowns or cloaks (phirans) flapped in one another’s faces; a real grand mix-up of clothes and humanity, it was.

Then all of a sudden there were sounds of agony and horror. A boy was brought sobbing, this Brahmin boy had the unholy leather kicked bang into his face. A terrible predicament, what could the gods be thinking about it? Biscoe told them to take him to the canal and wash him. Away went the crowd with the defiled boy. Back came the washed boy and the rest of the players, all of whom to his surprise at once resumed the game and continued until Biscoe called time. Sightseers were wildly excited and went off to give accounts of this “first game of football played by Brahmins in Kashmir”.

When the so ‘defiled’ black-bearded boy reached his home, his wickedness had reached before his arrival. He was not allowed to enter his home for three months and stayed with a kind relative. Brahmin priests were sure that it was a naughty game. For twelve months, no football could be played unless Biscoe was present to play or referee. Many pricked and deflated the ball but were caught.

After ten years, football was taught to students of ‘State School’ as a game of higher caste gentlemen, later other schools followed. The Hindu or Mohammedan schools too bought footballs and before long inter-school matches were played.

At first, during matches witchcraft was used. Opponents would bring a Brahmin priest to exorcise the goal to prevent the ball to goal. After years, Kashmir succeeded in exorcising the demon from football and despite the valley’s unabated turmoil football’s fascination, is visible in phiran-clad youth holding kangris with one hand, being playful with a football in grounds all over villages of Kashmir, although, few may have had a chance to hear a bedtime story of the furore this little brat caused when it first stepped into Kashmir.

The author can be mailed at rashmitalwarno1@gmail.com
http://www.risingkashmir.com/hilarious-kick-start-to-the-first-football-in-kashmir/

Shades of KASHMIR’S Red — By Rashmi Talwar Rising Kashmir RK

Our Moon has blood clots :- Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits By Rahul Pandita

Book Review:

“Our Moon has blood clots”- Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits written by Rahul Pandita
Shades of KASHMIR’S Red
— By Rashmi Talwar Rising Kashmir RK

Color red surely must have emerged from Kashmir–no one has ever returned from there without being fascinated by its red apples, reddest of cherries, tulips, red flower bells or strawberries on a reddish ride. When its dusk spreads that rare crimson, soothsayers in Kashmir are known to predict of bloodshed somewhere. Is it then a natural corollary that Kashmir’s waters be ruddied with blood through generations, just as the red appled cheeks of its light skinned people?

If that be the case, how could Kashmir’s legendry tales of a robust composite culture, deny the blemish and clots of red blood, on the fair face of its moon, and call it a flaw-less beauty. The stains come in the form of its belief and make-belief, its truth and half-truths, its faith and its faithless, which comes across boldly through Rahul Pandita’s book ‘Our Moon has Blood Clots–The Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits’.
The book reminds me of a famous couplet of Allama Iqbal:

‘Jis Khaak Ke Zameer Main Ho Aatish-E-Chinar,

Mumkin Nahin Ke Sard Ho Wo Khaak-E-Arjumand’

(The Earth that enshrines in its bosom, the autumn red fire of a Chinar tree,
It is impossible for that celestial Earth to cool down).

Iqbal too has recognized the red in Kashmir. Perhaps the Almighty in painting the beautiful picture of this Glorious vale, sought the brightest contrast of red and white, like the frothy white streams, waterfalls of its rivers and the snow blankets that make it so picturesque.

Rahul Pandita releasing his book “Our moon has Blood Clots” – Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits

If Basharat Peer’s ‘Curfewed Night’ could blaze and awaken the collective consciousness of all with its painful episodes, Rahul’s book sears and tears through the shroud that had till now ‘burqaad’ the plight of the Kashmiri Pandits and becomes a must read to get to the bottom of the Kashmir’s maze of problems and puzzles.

‘Our Moon….’ races through two decades of mayhem and also touches the landmark of Indo-Pak partition of 1947-the partition that tore apart Kashmir and Punjab, yanking and wrecking families, dividing hearts and territories, then ripping apart the fabric of composite culture and bracketing them into Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

Bringing to the fore the history of the evolution of this land of Rishis, Rahul has unfolded the bands of blood, in episode after episode, relating to the helplessness of Pandits who faced the recent fiery militancy in Kashmir, as also the blazing tribal attacks of 1947 engineered by Pakistan to grab Kashmir. How Pandit families had fled then, during partition from marauders who spared none, not Sikhs and not even Muslims, and in recent militancy when even friends turned foes, is heart wrenchingly narrated in the book.

But militancy of 1989 was different, it targeted a soft community and Rahul’s extensive research has bared the lies, opened the cans of truth, the same way as majority community’s story was told by Basharat in his book.

Rahul’s book could have easily got colored by lenses of ‘my side, my coin’, but many episodes mentioned in the book have already appeared in newspapers. Some merely as four liner news reports and relegated to the corners in what appeared to be a covert immunity to the plight of a minority community when roaring guns and raging gun-battles had caught the headlines.

In the entire narration there is only one instance in the entire book when I laughed unabashedly and that is Kashmiri-Hindi ‘gobar-guss’ goof-up . But then the writer too has called it laughable, despite the creepy circumstances. The writer’s brother Ravi’s killing and their ‘tippi-tippi-tap’-bosom pal brothers remind me of another set of Kashmiri brothers, when one day the elder one suddenly died in a freak accident, I know how excruciating is it to see the shouting pain in the flooded eyes over that irreparable loss, as if the forlorn eyes were speaking thus:

Badley mein koi bhi imtihaan ley le
Kahe toh meri Jaan ley le
Bas ek dafa mujhe bataa de,
Kahan tu hai, kahan hai tu.

(In exchange put me through any test.
Or even take my life
But tell me just once
Where you are, where are you?)

The author, a 37-year-old Associate Editor with Open Magazine, says –“I wanted to write this book since I entered college”. The book’s beauty is also in the inclusion of several rituals and traditions followed by Shaivites, which many of us had heard in passing as per our acquaintances, friends and relations. Specks of poetry by Agha Shahid Ali and the famous poetess Lal Ded have aptly enveloped and developed the striking situations.

Some of the most chilling and moving lines and incidents in this book are about an old Kashmiri who lies dead clutching a pack of chilled milk against his cheek- his last ice pack, to ward away the heat of the plains, unbearable for Kashmiris, who have never seen a fan in any room of their homes; the author as a 14-year old, holding a half tomato in the relief camp food distribution and recalling the times when unripe tomatoes of their vegetable garden became balls to play cricket with; the obsession with the tale of 22 room house by Rahul’s mother who is unable to come to terms with the exile.

Rahul lays bare the stark truth about vicious ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandits from their hearth and homes wherein not only militants from across the border but also some from the majority community in Kashmir played a cruel role out of personal grudge or by getting swayed by the hate-wave of the time. But the author has been careful in his writings not to add his own feelings to the inquiry and injury. His book is informative and thankfully devoid of chest-beating narratives.

Having met the new generation of Kashmiri Muslims, born after the exodus of Pandits, I have noticed that they have very little idea about their co-existence with Pandits or living with other communities, except in some pockets where Sikhs in a good number reside in and around the surrounding villages. This is not the only reason to have enlarged the gap between the two communities, Muslims and Pandits, but the fact that even Kashmiri Muslims hardly talk about how the Pandit exodus took place in its right perspective to their younger generation.

“In every home, someone has died; maybe he was a militant or died in an encounter, bomb blast, picked up by security forces, gone, disappeared,” says Rahul -“I remember all the names of people killed, where they were killed – it keeps playing in my head. I sleep with it at night. It’s a part of who I am now. Like the old newspaper which carries the headline of my brother Ravi’s murder.”

This book comes as a strong equalizer to the alternate tales woven around vicious militancy nurtured from across the border and atrocities attributed to security operations, the guile of some in the majority community had been carefully hidden and the real stories of exodus of Kashmiri Pandits had remained shrouded in mysteries and ever changing testimonies that bore little resemblance to reality.

Standing in the snow in Srinagar, lost in thought about those who must have played with snowballs and created snowmen, plucked the icicles hanging from their roofs through the windows, thrown them into a glass and poured sherbet on it or maybe just jutted out their tongue to lick the icicles as they remained suspended, I am about to fall. I grab to hold a nearby Deodar tree to hug it and help me break my fall in Kashmir’s snow. Rahul Pandita’s book is like an icicle that instead of giving you pleasure, pierces through your heart and leaves you bleeding forever and there are no Deodars in the story to hold on to for support.
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FIRST PUBLISHED IN RISING KASHMIR BY RK : http://www.risingkashmir.in/news/shades-of-kashmiracutes-red-43822.aspx