“It’s important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do”― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
It was not just about making choices, with it came determination and that’s what defines Namrata — her firmness of purpose.
A tree planted in the vale of Kashmir spread its branches wide and far, but the roots remained intertwined, that is how joint families were formed– large, undivided and different generations — all living under one roof. One such tree blossomed in Srinagar.
“I was born in Karan Nagar. Our family had moved there in 1960 after constructing a modern house in this upmarket locality. Originally, we came from Narparistan, Bana Mohallah in downtown Srinagar. We were a joint family of more than 20 members. My grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts and a bunch of cousins, all lived together. My dad’s old and widowed bua also lived with us, so did our old housekeeper who was with us since my grandfather’s childhood days. I would also like to mention our cook who had come all the way from Kishtwar to our place as a young boy and stayed on until his last. Nobody at home could come even close to his cooking!”
Living in a joint family came with its own perks “Ours was a life of a typical Pandit family. Our home was our world and it was self-sufficient. And then there was school where I spent a large part of the day. All the girls in the family went to the Presentation Convent High School whereas the boys went to Burn Hall. As kids, we lived a very sheltered life. That would not mean that we did not celebrate life. In fact, ours, that way, was a loud and boisterous family. We celebrated all functions with great zeal and in a highly traditional way. Birthdays were celebrated with a traditional pooja at home or festivals like ‘Herath’ and ‘Diwali’ were always a grand affair. Everybody in the family loved good food and very often we would have large gatherings of friends and extended family to celebrate all such occasions. On some big functions we would have a Kashmiri ‘Baché Nagmé’ playing late into the night.”
“On weekends, we would visit ‘Matamaal’, my mother’s maternal home to meet my grandparents and cousins. They had a small place at a very idyllic location next to the Doodh Ganga canal. Many times, we would stay over for days together.”
Namrata has fond memories of her childhood “Going out for a good time meant a picnic during summer in one of the Mughal Gardens where we would spend an entire day with all family members — cooking, eating and playing. We would wind up only very late in the evening and would be the last ones to leave with the guards prodding us too! Movies in the theatre were occasional and eating out in restaurants was very rare almost nonexistent.”
Coming from a conventional Pandit family also meant focusing on academics and investing in education of children “My school was one of the most sought-after schools in the Valley, run by Roman Catholic missionaries. A very large part of who and what I am as a person is because of the values the school instilled in us. Call it bias or blind love, my school is the most majestic one I have seen till date. The simple and sophisticated buildings, the huge grounds lined by mighty oaks, chinars and poplars with a small chapel for a very sobering experience. I had a mixed pool of friends at school — Kashmiri Pandits, Kashmiri Muslims and non-Kashmiri Hindus. Kashmir had a good number of Punjabis settled from the Partition days. The bonds created then were the strongest and continue to last thick even now.”
“My grandfather, Sh. Tara Chand Tickoo (Badshah) was very religious, and deep-rooted in the traditions of a Kashmiri Brahmin family. He believed in elaborate rituals and all the related fanfare. He was a devout Shaivite and an ardent disciple of Swami Laxman Joo of Ishbar, Nishat. Every year our family would make these religious visits to Ishbar, Khrew, TulMul, Parbath and so on.”
“As kids, we really looked forward to the three-month winter break, which was spent playing cards, marbles and carrom. After the first snowfall, the snowman would come up in the middle of the lawn without fail. On those dark and cold nights, there were these winter rituals that brought a lot of cheer and bonhomie into the family. As kids we knew the sequence — Gaadé Batté, Khyecze Maavas and Tyik Czoram (Tickoo special, in reverence to Tropra Deevi, our family deity). Other than good food, we would wait for that ‘One Rupee’ that each one of us would get from our grandfather on all these occasions respectively.
These were the joys of life then!”
Namrata left Srinagar after Grade 12 to pursue Engineering which was before the turmoil intensified in Kashmir, while growing up the divide was subtle.
“I would not say that I experienced any outright discrimination as a child probably because I would have been too young to realise even if there was any. However, we were always aware of the pro-Pak sentiment of many amongst the Kashmiri Muslims, who constituted the majority. One sensed their leanings. We grew up seeing it, hearing it and experiencing it. Right from our childhood we realised that there were two sides that existed in Kashmir — people who lived in Kashmir and considered themselves Indian and those who lived right next door but identified with Pakistan.”
“There was no concept of ‘Azaadi.’ There was this thin line between friends at school too which we all knew was not to be crossed. We always had an Imran Khan being cheered for, alongside a Sunil Gavaskar! How can I forget how the windowpanes of our house would be shattered with stones every time Pakistan lost a cricket match to India. We would always say in jest, “Let Pak win, at least our house would stay safe”! On the contrary, whenever Pak won, we would hear deafening sounds of crackers being burst. Since I moved out after Grade 12, I am not privy to what happened once you sought admission in the State-run institutions. Later, I did hear from my friends who applied to the government medical and engineering colleges that they experienced discrimination while getting ‘seats’ in these colleges.”
Like majority of Kashmiri Pandit students of that era, Namrata’s future had been decided by her parents.
“They had made up their mind that I should become an Engineer. So, I chose science stream and studied towards becoming one. I do faintly remember though, while writing an essay in school on ‘My aim in life’, I had written I would want to be an air-hostess”
“I was always a good student who excelled in academics. A diligent and introverted kid who preferred to stick around only with close friends. My parents had inculcated the habit of reading in me and in my free time, if I would not be playing with my cousins, I would be reading a classic! Or writing my diary for the day. I had read the book ‘Diary of Anne Frank’ in Class 10 on recommendation of my Class Teacher. That book left a lasting impression and till date continues to move me deeply. So, the idea of diary-keeping had come from there! Who knew a few years later our community would go through an almost similar ordeal — the crime being that we belonged to a different faith. The broad daylight killings, the mass migration, the ghettos, the stench-filled camps…….” sighs Namrata.
The hiraeth to return home may be unrealistic; her spirit continues to live there.
“I miss Kashmir in its entirety, difficult to put a finger on one thing. I miss living there. As I grow older, what pulls me to the place is the nostalgia of my growing-up years. The urge to seek my past and my roots. The scenes from my younger days spent there unfold in front of me and I dream of a life there. I hesitatingly bare my heart when I say that I dream of having a small home with a green sloping roof and a wooden ceiling with a garden full of flowers and fruit trees surrounded by a white picket fence. Though it looks tough at this point in time, however, I would like to keep the hope alive.”
Growing up in Kashmir meant listening to Koshur music as well “I grew up listening to Shameema Dev and Kailash Mehra, although I get to listen to a lot of good new singers too now. My favourite remains ‘Harmokh bar tal praaray madano’…..both versions” she chuckles.
Namrata has simple desires that keep her going “A good book, travel and photography. I have a bucket list of the places I want to see, ticking them off is what excites me.”
As the branches of the tree expanded, little were they aware the soil around the roots was steadily being dug up.
“Journey has been long and at places bumpy. But I have no complaints. Things could have been worse when I look back and see the brunt that my generation of Kashmiris have borne. I personally feel I have come a long way from being a shy and a small-town girl to now having made it to the senior leadership team at my current workplace.”
“I started college in Pune University in 1988 just when the insurgency in Kashmir began. It was not easy as I was on my own and my family trying to get through the days and nights of terror back in Srinagar. Phone calls from home were intermittent and newspapers carried bad news every day.”
“After my graduation, when all my friends returned to their hometowns to spend some productive time deciding next steps of their career, I was busy looking for a roof over my head in a faraway city. I couldn’t have gone home — there was neither a job opportunity awaiting me there nor any counsel as everybody at home was busy managing life on a day to day basis. I stayed back in Pune to complete my post-graduation and took up my first job in Mumbai. The year was 1995.”
“I got married the same year in Jammu. Parents moved from Srinagar to Jammu for a month, in a rented house, to get the wedding ceremony solemnized as per the rituals. Under no circumstances would it have been possible to have the wedding back home. My husband and I moved to Delhi where I took up a job and set up our new home.”
Namrata wore many hats but did not lose sight of the one that fitted best. “Over the years, I worked with quite a few reputed organizations in telecom in the domain of HR — Reliance Infocomm, Bharti Airtel and Aircel being some. I currently take care of CSR & Sustainability for a clothing brand.”
“Both my kids are in college now. It has not been easy to manage home and work in a nuclear family (as rest of my husband’s family lives in Jammu) in a big city like Delhi. My parents and rest of the family in Srinagar eventually moved out of Srinagar in 2001 after selling off the family business and our house. They all settled down in Delhi while shuttling regularly between India and overseas, where most of my cousins live now.”
“It’s been 23 years in Delhi, yet I don’t feel like a ‘Dilliwallah’, I am still as Kashmiri as I was when I lived there.”
Namrata and I went to the same school, same batch, some years in the same section. As she rightly admitted, she was shy and quiet — so was I. Srinagar was a small city, Namrata’s ‘Matamaal’ was in our neighbourhood, her maternal grandfather Sh. Prithvi Nath Raina (Boni)was well respected and a very affectionate human. I would often see him going for strolls; he would remind me of Jawahar Lal Nehru — the cap, the achkan and the churidar. Our maternal grandmothers would get very chirpy during their brief encounters. I was familiar with her paternal extended family, all her cousins studied in Convent, the large ‘Badshah’ family. Social media reunited us many years back via Orkut, I was very pleased to see the heights ‘Namrata Tickoo Badshah’ had scaled, I was impressed. We kept in constant touch till we caught up in Delhi. Both of us had come a long way from our withdrawn demeanor. We also discovered a common passion for travel, a few years back we went on a trip together to Amsterdam and dragged a couple of Convent classmates along. Our first visit had to be to ‘Anne Franks’ home, it was an extremely enriching yet emotional experience!
Namrata’s journey is very inspiring; her simplicity and humility add to her success; she has no pretensions. More than 40 years ago, I saw her as this ‘quintessential good girl’ in school and she continues to be the same till date. Siddharth Gigoo has included Namrata’s account in his book A Long Dream of Home: The persecution, exile and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the chapter called ‘The Pomegranate Tree’.
Namrata Wakhloo has had a prolific career and currently is the Senior Vice President, Corporate Social Responsibility at Benetton India. Sheer hard work and sincere efforts have truly made Namrata, the master of her own destiny.
Check out her Travel blog https://tipsfrommytrips.blogspot.com/?fbclid=IwAR03qiagOI7mD1ZuzAIsjR6OvfrpIZUvuxrJ5XKCLM1_uIlc84pgcdIH-_M
“Believe you know all the answers, and you know all the answers. Believe you’re a master, and you are.” ― Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah –
Learn more about Namrata here:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/namrata-wakhloo-130bb51/
- https://www.mohanfoundation.org/activities/Awareness-Session-on-organ-donation-at-Benetton-India-Pvt-Ltd-Gurgaon-4504.htm
- http://www.thecherrytree.in/namrata-wakhloo/
- https://books.google.ca/books?id=InAwDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT15&lpg=PT15&dq=namrata+wakhloo+pomegranate+tree&source=bl&ots=7qxRDeT9CP&sig=ACfU3U3j3cYGHx8955NGU-Aw2hjKEece6g&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwialMeZidTjAhUQV80KHXXqBV8Q6AEwAHoECAQQAQ#v=onepage&q=namrata%20wakhloo%20pomegranate%20tree&f=false
Originally published on November 21, 2019 at https://www.facebook.com/notes/766690347241130/.
© Jheelaf Parimu Razdan
