The Lost Home....

WHEN WILL I BE ABLE TO RETURN HOME?

The cold dark night of January, had stirred into life the worst nightmares where we were winding up household stuff to vacate homes.

I am talking about my house in KASHMIR which I had to leave unfortunately.

The threats had been coming for a long time. Even now I have a blur image of that dark night when we were forced into exodus.

A host of highly provocative and threatning slogans interspersed with martial songs incited the majority community to come out on the streets and break the chain of slavery.

I remember my grandfather had preserved the writing note pasted on our wall which said that either convert or die. By morning we were sure that we were in valley for few days else our days would be numbered.

My family was lucky enough to restablish themselves as they had the privilege of a stable job and good education,but the heart wrenching moment was to see lakhs of pandits who once lived with pride and dignity had to settle down in refugee camps of 8*8 in a dilapidated condition.After more than two decades,the kashmiri pandit community has still not been able to return to their ancestral land.They are dispersed all over from Jammu to different states in India.

India has seen several changes ever since that fateful night. New governments have come and gone,multiple developments have been made nationwide,but scores of Kashmiri Pandits who were chased out of their homes have STILL NOT BEEN ABLE TO FIND A WAY BACK.