Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall any of us cease to be ~ Bhagavad-Gita 2.12
Kashmir! embroiled in the eternal Battle of Kurukshetra even as many Arjuna’s continue their quest for truth. Somewhere a Sanjaya is becoming the eyes of Dhritarashtra, as stories unfold amidst the tumultuous music of conch shells, trumpets, and horns. One such storyteller is the founder of the blog SearchKashmir - Vinayak Razdan
“My family comes from a place called Chattabal near Safakadal, Bagh-e-Sunderbala to be specific. That is my birthplace where I lived till the age of seven. Chattabal was known as a sort of ‘sarhad’ (border) of Srinagar. The road in front of our house led to Gulmarg.”
“In the 1948 war, the raiders from Pakistan, were about forty minutes from our house, before they were forced to retreat. My parents don’t know this, I discovered it while trying to piece together the history of the place where I came from. My parents only knew it as the place where stood the house they were going to raise their children in. The house was a typical rickety old wooden structure, probably more than hundred years old. True to a Kashmiri Pandit setup, there were two more families of cousins living at the same address. I remember it as a big house, however when I visited the place decades later I realized it wasn’t that big, just that I was too small, it took my feet more steps to cover the area.”
“A few decades before my birth, there were even more families of cousins; some moved outside Kashmir, some to other locations in Srinagar. There were other Razdan families also living in Chattabal area. My family likes to call themselves ‘Chattabalis’. I found in records of Punjab court of Ranjit Singh one more Razdan who took pride in calling himself ‘Chattabali’.”
The young Pandavas in exile have their peculiar assortment of memories and philosophies, flowing like poetry from Krishna’s lips. Those unspoken words, the unfinished sentences, the small instances, the kind gestures, the unanswered questions, the quaint observations — impressive array of memorabilia.
“ I have memories of my family sending me off to Kandur waan (bakers shop) to get the morning bread, I remember being scared of dogs on roadside(often docile, having eaten too much bicarbonate lifelong). The bakers would often offer an extra loaf that you could take home or give to the dog. In fact, every shopkeeper from zamdod/paneer (yoghurt/cottage cheese) seller to mutton seller would offer extras. I remember people being generally nice.”
“I have memories of my grandfather taking me to the local ghat (steps on riverbank) for getting the monthly ration. The place had a temple that was always locked; it has been locked since decades. Even then I could sense perhaps not everything was alright. I have many such memories. Blog SearchKashmir was an attempt to log those memories. Seeing so many from the community lose their memories with age, the blog is my back up. After 10 years of writing, I do sometimes visit some of my old posts to keep refreshing my memory.”
“In 1990, our family of eight, for months lived in a one room storeroom in Jammu. Everyone we knew, had the same kind of experience. Even at eight, I didn’t want to forget. I knew what I was witnessing was not normal. That perhaps someday it would have some meaning.”
Perhaps a modern-day Krishna does not exist, what does exist though is the tolerance and penance that Pandavas too displayed in exile; the desire for peace and justice, the need to preserve and value, salvage the last bit.
“Post 1990, I have been to Kashmir quite a few times. I first went back in 2008 for ‘Tulmula’ festival. It was a family trip. My grandfather was getting old, I think the family decided to take him back to see Kashmir, one last time. It took my grandfather some time to recognize the street where he had lived all his life. For my younger cousins, the trip was a vacation and perhaps a chance to get a sense of their origins. Older generation got nostalgic at times and cried.”
“For me it was a trigger to seriously get into writing about Kashmir. I realized there was a lot I did not know. I thought as I learn, I will share, maybe it would help others. My motive was not totally altruistic. I knew maybe in a few years; I would start forgetting as well; I too would need help remembering. That’s how SearchKashmir came to life. I went back in 2014, before and after the floods. Someone from Kashmir who had been reading my blog for years invited me over. It was around ‘Shivratri’. I told my parents I was going away for a conference and would be non-reachable for few days. I switched off my phone and went to Kashmir for a week. One may ask why in this manner? There is still a lot of fear among KPs and bad memories too. For them, the year 1990 never got over. The only way they can deal with it practically is by shutting out Kashmir. My family though, is used to my obsession with Kashmir. After I got married in 2016, it is the first place I visited with my wife. I usually go in winter — less crowded, lesser sun, less dream-like ‘Paradise Kashmir’ and more real. There is a constant chill in the air and roads are often muddy. It helps me remember that for my ancestors this all was a normal part of life. For them Kashmir was not just a ride in a ‘Shikara’ (boat)in summer.”
I hear Vinayak, loud and clear! Bhishma’s conch shell was deafening, Krishna’s was transcendental!
“A constant experience I have had in my travels to Kashmir is that people easily recognize you as an outsider. Once at Srinagar airport some touts approached me thinking I was Mexican! Even when you are identified as a KP, even when people are nice, it still creates an artificiality to the experience. Total strangers, can directly walk up to you and ask ‘Are you Kashmiri Pandit?’ and may start discussing the events of 1990 and ‘suggest’ their narrative even as they accept what happened was wrong. Our parents’ generation did not have to deal with this; their ‘Kashmiriness’ was not something that could be questioned, yet they are not in Kashmir. It still makes me uncomfortable. Even if it is all well intentioned, I think this questioning often comes off as rude. But, for Kashmiris, whether KP or KM, being boorish was never a great vice. Had that not been the case, some of the Kashmiri surnames would have never come into existence.”
“I miss the feeling of actually belonging somewhere. I have now lived in Kerala for about a decade. The place has its own history, culture and tradition, all living, thriving. I have noticed the sense of belongingness that a Malayali feels; very similar to that of a Kashmiri. But then they do not perpetually feel the loss of identity. They can always come back to Kerala after working in different parts of the world. They have a home. It makes one feel that there is indeed something ‘irreplaceable’ that Kashmiri Pandits have lost. And it is not just an idea or a feeling. It is a physical thing. When a bunch of people live together does the culture thrive. It is simply not possible for KPs, we are all scattered. So, a person goes into a ‘could have been, would have been’ state of possibilities.”
No matter what the emotional journey, no matter what the grief, no desire is deeper than connecting back to roots and nourishing them, searching for identity in those bylanes of flashbacks. Watching the ebb and flow of antiquity, looking for the spark in cold ashes, worshipping the relics of yore, segregating motifs from artifacts, solving the mystical puzzles.
“I am mostly inspired by Kashmiris of the bygone era. From Kshmendra, Kalhana to Rasul Mir, a whole range of them. There are poets, writers, historians, musicians, all of them creating what we call Kashmiri culture. One can tell they were made of different material. Their priorities in life were different or it is easier for me to identify and be inspired by them. I realize they are the giants on whose shoulders we stand. Sadly, all of that is over. Conflict killed it. Every inspiring figure now has to carry the weight of conflict around. Everyone is an activist, dedicated to some cause, rather than craft. And it mostly drags them down, so much that one can see their bent backs.”
“Uprootedness is a constant feeling. Rootlessness comes in waves. Sometimes in casual conversations, a wave may touch you and sometimes without any reason a huge tide may crash upon you just by hearing your grandma use a word that you know would be eventually lost. I have felt it at various stages of life. The definition of it keeps changing with age. In teenage it simply meant, ‘I don’t know a thousand things about being a Kashmiri’, but over the years it has become, ‘even if I know, what can I do about it?’. Yet, I try to stay afloat. I remind myself identity is an ever-changing concept. Saving the whole may not be possible, still one must struggle to preserve what one can. One hopes maybe others are also doing the same. Going through the same struggles. Saving their bits. What if someday bits will be whole again or find a new shape. One tries to stay connected to the proverbial ‘Kashmir’. With that I realized early that just the idea of Kashmir was not satisfying enough for me. I have to feel it beneath my feet, my ears need to hear it, my eyes need to experience it and I should be able to savour the taste of it in my breath. For that I try to visit the place as often as I can. I make plans. I plan to build a house there someday. I ignore being called a fool for this. I do money calculations and logistics. I make twenty times more in a year than what my family got for ‘selling’ the priceless ancestral house. ‘It is possible’ I tell myself. Maybe a few more years, it will be better. We will know if it was all a pipedream.”
How much Kashmir could an 8-year-old carry in his little fist; like sand it would slip through his fingers if he held on too tight, but could he afford to loosen the grip! He chose to accept the gravel, the stones, the pebbles, the cuts and bruises, the rough skin, the deep lines, and forms on his palms that would unearth his destiny. He required them all for him to become his own soothsayer.
“I have archived a lot of Kashmir’s past. I now have additional memories that in the beginning didn’t even exist for me. As such the feeling of loss keeps getting bigger since I have a lot more to measure the loss against. For this reason, many parents keep their children away from memories of Kashmir. They consider nostalgia as pointless or even a painful exercise. People who were born in Kashmir must suffer it, but they don’t want to pass it on. The more you remember, the more you miss. An eight-year-old has no real reason to miss Kashmir. All he/she can miss is a certain image of Kashmir that he/she has crafted of the place, in the mind.”
“Meanwhile, I try to become more Kashmiri, mostly through language. Like many of my generation I can understand the language, most of it. But speaking is a struggle. I have started speaking Kashmiri relatively recently through music, books and with help of parents. I would listen to songs, then use books and parents to translate. I kept repeating the process, often making mistakes till I got better. The older generation has done a decent job of writing things down, leaving breadcrumbs for us, we just have to follow the trail.”
“My wife can sing Kashmiri songs. She can dream in Kashmiri. She grew up speaking only Kashmiri till the age of seven. If she sees her mother in her dream, they talk in Kashmiri. I can’t do that. I have heard Kashmiri in my dreams only once, it was triggered by hearing a recording of a ‘wanun’ (traditional Kashmiri chorus singing) from an opera on ‘Vitasta’ by Dina Nath Nadim over and over again. I dreamt dead old aunts singing it to me in a garden, in Jammu. Perhaps I was also under some stress at the time as we were expecting our first child. I woke up and could not stop crying.”
“Music and books are my two shots of paracetamol and omeprazole for ‘rootlessness’. They are also the engine on which I run. Growing up I always had books for company. My grandfather would take me to the local library in Jammu and we would fight over who gets to read a book first, be it Indian history or French cinema. He would often let me win. Music was always there in the background. There were few cassettes, often playing on loop. Tibetbakal singing ‘bel tai madal’. Ghulam Hassan Sofi singing ‘afsoos duniya’. Many Ravimech Studio productions like ‘tchay rus sonas gachi sartaly’, ‘Kon hai malin dapne aaye’… for a very long time I thought it was about a woman in a bad marriage! Shivratri was all about religious music. Love songs would flow at weddings. If you were lucky you could hear Vijay Malla or Kailash Mehra. In 1990s, the ‘mainzraat’ (henna ceremony) function was brought alive by women who could still remember and sing old songs. My oldest memory of Kashmiri music is from a ‘mainzraat’ function I attended when I was six. Gul Akhtar, a short chubby lively woman, her cheeks painted rose pink, eyes painted green as she sang and danced on the fourth floor of a wooden house till the beams shook.”
A passionate, young man who has created a magical repository in www.searchkashmir.org for which the progeny will be thankful. He is diligently erecting a montage of our lives, lest we are forgotten by history as the lost tribe of Kashmir, keeping intact the inseparability of the past, present, and future. A sensitive, inquisitive soul who is not bitter but longing for home! Whilst this is the identity, I am more familiar with, Vinayak’s professional journey is equally inspiring. One wonders how different his story would have been had he not been exiled.
The handsome, humble Chattabali considers himself the quintessential ‘Maharashtra Engineer’. He was rendered jobless for the longest time due to the 2007/8 global financial crisis and to that he owes his first trip to Kashmir as he had nothing better to do at that point!
“That there was nothing wrong with me, of that I was sure. I concluded something must be wrong with the system. I didn’t give up. I simply continued writing. I was running a blog on Indian popular culture, a lot of kitsch stuff like old Hindi movies and vintage ads. It was pretty popular. In a few years of blogging, already I found my name in newspapers [There is actually an article about me and my relationship with a Praveen Babi Poster!]. Yet, I wasn’t going anywhere professionally. I kept reading, and writing, contributing articles to journals.”
Destiny had other plans for Vinayak, after a spate of low paid software jobs he ended up working for a game studio start-up meant for social media platforms. It was a fun as he could use his creativity combined with technical skills. He was working with IITians and IIMians, even though he was hired as a coder, quickly he was able to deliver more purely due to his creative abilities.
“I am talking pre-Facebook days, back then Orkut was ‘the thing’. Although there was no dearth of technically brilliant people in the space, I was able to create room for myself because I could understand and explain why a feature was being made and how it could be made better, basically defining ‘social’. After working there for a few years, the company wound up as it could not foresee the coming of Facebook and Mobile games. Around that time a former colleague, a brilliant techie (a non IITian) from Kerala asked me to join him in creating our own games and design the mechanics. I was going to be a game designer! He had also roped in an artist from Uttar Pradesh. I highlight the degrees because like most ‘desis’ common KPs place immense emphasis on these degrees as a stepping stone to success, that may not necessarily be true. We locked ourselves in an apartment for six months and in that period created a game that could run on mobiles. This was a start-up of our own. In the first month it made about $20. We celebrated. It told us we made something that people would play. In a year, the product was doing great in the US and we had our own company that was cash positive from day one which meant we didn’t have to go around asking for funding. We could now fund our own experiment. In eight years, we have products that are doing great in western markets, even as we sit in Kerala and have a team of 20+ people working with us.”
Perform your prescribed duty, for action is better than inaction. A man cannot even maintain his physical body without work~ Bhagavad-Gita 3.8
Life lessons from Vinayak echo the same.
“If you think you are good at something, give it a try. Success is not guaranteed but without having tried you would never know. I won’t even say hard work matters, it does, but there is just too much of an element of ‘roll of dice’ to things. I could easily have been a ‘failure’ if I was not at the right place at the right time (if the 2008 financial breakdown didn't happen, I would have been a normal coder in some MNC). Point being don’t judge yourself based on your present state. Keep trying. I say this as I know right now due to Covid-19 innumerable young people are probably looking at an uncertain future professionally. Yes, it will be bad. But there are going to be opportunities, you just need to identify them and grab them when they present themselves. As they say in Kashmiri ‘harkat manz che barkat’. Keep moving.”
Learn more about Vinayak:
https://thewire.in/uncategorised/obits-in-exile-remembering-a-neighbourhood-panditji
https://www.epw.in/journal/2016/21/web-exclusives/pandit-questions.html
https://www.epw.in/journal/2016/19/web-exclusives/kashmiri-dust-storm-blowing-rajasthan.html
https://www.epw.in/journal/2016/17/web-exclusives/remembering-kashmiri-night.html
https://www.facebook.com/SearchKashmir
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinayak-razdan-44580819/?originalSubdomain=in
~References:
*Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is — A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1986). Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.
~ Pictures Credit: Vinayak Razdan
© Jheelaf Parimu
