Exile and Beyond
Another day passes by. Days observing people, looking for something unusual. But my friend says “Life yawns during the day and sleeps through the night here”. There isn’t much to do in Jammu, added to the fact that mobile internet is down since Aug 5, 2019 and the newspaper becomes stale before dusk. So many a times one can be found either sleeping, eating, waiting for upcoming weddings/festivals or finding open wifi signals on streets.
While I was in Jammu, days went the same for me. So to kill boredom, I started reading the many-books that were bought long ago but were left untouched since then. I tried to read everything that I could get my hands on. From Girish Karnad to Orwell, From kshmendra to Kafka and so on. During this reading spree, I gradually stumbled upon some books that I had read, mostly novels and stories of the Kashmiri Pandit migration.
I read some of them again to find out some vital emotions that were skipped initially as I had felt them so many times that those emotions were assumed to be a part of life. The things that these stories have in common is the pain of leaving home, social struggles in the new alien world, rebuilding lives and a gradual hope of return. All these stories embrace the heart and are inspiring in their own way, reminding about the culture that once flourished and remnants of which are still being celebrated. But a question arises in my mind, “Are these accounts and stories, narrated by a particular generation that faced the blunt of atrocities, enough to define their community in present era?” Since most of these stories are first hand experiences of exile, I believe there should be an attempt to narrate the story from the next generation as well, how being born and growing up in the “Alien world” shaped the progenies. Although this might sound like a great topic for a sociology paper but the importance of such experiences give vent for understanding the human response to an abrupt change of society and its implications.
Calm in reality and Burning in national media, Jammu became the home for thousands of Kashmiri refugees that were thrown to exile in the early 1990s. The Early years were no less than hell as diseases that were never heard of and creatures that seem mythical started to surround these helpless people. Deaths from sunstroke and snakebite were common in tents and those who managed to survive, died regularly under the scorching Jammu heat that accompanied them where ever they went. In a couple of years, tarpaulin tents were replaced with ORTs(One Room Tenements) and gradually TRTs(Two Room Tenements) in various parts of Jammu such as Buta Nagar, Mishriwala, Purkhoo and the most recent, Jagti. Mishriwala camps were set up near close proximity to the brick kilns that pumped out hazardous smoke filled with particulates that caused various lung ailments to its residents(Presently, the camp lies deserted as the refugees were shifted to other establishments).
In the coming years, Many of these refugees managed to acquire land in Jammu and started building houses, but the feeling of society was still missing. In the meantime, they started to work in Jammu, both in government and private workspaces. Those who were state employees before 1990, were re-initiated as ‘migrant employees’. Years passed by and soon came the new generation, a generation that would have an altogether different childhood than their parents in terms of society and cultural upbringing.
For many children, their first teachers are parents who teach them the language of heart. Then of course is the school, where the child learns the language of world.
A child experiences a bilingual crossroad when he sometimes mixes the two territories, home and school, which causes confusion. Such confusion took places several times with early refugees as they found it difficult to utter certain words that were a part of the essential vernacular vocabulary and the localities had similar experiences vice versa. Such conflicts of languages would become topics for humour later on but with the course of time, the child learns to balance between the two languages. Same intermixing happened with other things like festivals, traditions, cultures, Accent and Mannerisms. Certain things caused huge problems in the early years of exile and became the inventor for various ditties but with the course of time and mutual understanding, a considerable reduction in such immoral behaviour has been witnessed.
In spite of all these things, a child observes the world, takes what it likes, discards what he opposes and grows and after certain decades, we see him as a part of the society. Somewhat in midst of this growth, he also took the traits from his society, traits that weren’t familiar to his previous generation but now is an integral part of his character, traits that now define him. He lost his identity as he created a new one.
He is a part of the new society, an amalgam of different cultures, probably the best of both world and he continues to live in it.
Meanwhile, the older generation watches this game of nature with a Kangri inside their pheran. They sometimes point out nooks in the new methods as it deviates from the conventional, which may had been a result of corruption of a much original method. Days got reduced to hours but weddings and herath (Shivratri) pooja get solemnized “ritualistically”. Perhaps this addiction for simplification that gave us so many inventions has not left culture and traditions untouched.
While this game of simplification goes on, another process works simultaneously, elimination. When a person’s ideology and way of perceiving society succumbs in front of the new society, the person succumbs himself. In the last three decades we have lost a lot of refugees but the number of people we lost doesn’t haunt me. What disturbs me is the mere thought of countless number of stories and experiences they took with themselves. With them we lost the wisdom of several lifetimes, which could have been passed down to the next generation, inspiring them, making them laugh, making them cry, “Making them”. This is perhaps the biggest loss that exile caused, the loss of wisdom.
For many of us, Kashmir might mean the small houseboat behind the glass display, the scenes on a J&K Bank calendar or a plate full of “haakbatt with damaloo and roganjosh”, a piece of Kashmir thrives in us always. Even subconsciously the eyes would shot to the row where the word “Kashmir” is on a newspaper or magazine. I believe it is hereditary, the pride of being a Kashmiri that never lets the love for home get suppressed.
It is however depressing to find that many new generation Kashmiri aren’t able to converse in Kashmiri. This reality really shook me when I went to college and found students from other states well versed in their mother tongue. It is a community loss that should be examined and thought upon. Unable to speak in one’s own mother tongue brings the fears of exile even closer.
In visits to the above mentioned camps, it is a common sight of children playing in narrow alleys, old folks squatting in circles with playing cards, women bargaining with the vegetable vendors. A daily affair from dusk to dawn. It might seem a normal locality at first, the illusion of which helps the occupants get going with their lives shadowing the fact for some time that these concrete boxes aren’t home. Home is something that is left behind, not just physically, but in time as well. Many people complain of their lives here, say that it is slow degeneration. The youth wanders for job, for livelihood. The “newly settled” ones try to find ways to escape the concrete jungle, the children are busy remembering the quarter numbers of their friends.
While we enter the 30th year of exile, we must remember the hardships faced by our elders who died while living for all of us, for the unsung heroes that took us out from turbulent times and are still doing so and a salute to all who continue to tell the tales of paradise, in a hope to attain one.
Life goes on. World goes on. The only desire that stays... is the longing for home that now lies 30 years away from us.
