Aftermath
शाम बन गई सहर....
वो उठी लहर के ढह गये किले बिखर बिखर
और हम डरे डरे, नीर नैन में भरे
ओढ़ कर कफ़न पड़े मज़ार देखते रहे, कारवाँ गुज़र...
Neeraj
Raja ( name changed for the sake of anonymity) , my friend , and his family decided to move . A night before , when they had to finally leave for Jammu, I and Raja had a tough job at hand. Their house was too deep in the locality, where a truck could not have reached because of very narrow lanes and Kuchas ( by lanes ) and their house was almost a mile away deep inside the locality from the main road. The tough job was to carry the cases containing their valuables from their home to the road and load them on to the truck parked on the main street road. This needed to be done in early morning hours ( 3 am ) in a very quiet, tiptoeing manner to ensure that nobody in the neighborhood notices it. Even the truck drivers had learnt the skill of parking their vehicle in the midst of localities pressing on a very low accelerator so that there was least noise which could have invited trouble for him and the fleeing family. Such was the fear created even when we were leaving our own birth places and homes that it had to be done in secretive manner to avoid last moment trouble from terrorists and their supporters . There have been incidents where some KP families were ambushed just before they had to leave.Such was the networking system of separatists and the paranoia it had created. The fleeing time was usually set at 4 am . The truck would arrive on the previous night at around 2 pm to 3 pm. The driver would wait for the family to load their things and start to leave for Jmu by 4 o'clock in the morning accompanied and boarded by either by one or two members or even the whole family for their last ‘leave home ‘ journey.
It was early morning,the day of our exit .The Sun had yet to show its bright face and had remained overclouded with dismal appearance since the day of annihilation.We reached the Clock tower chowk ( near Lal Chowk) for boarding a bus to Jammu .This used to be the spot from where the private buses would halt in the morning to leave for Jammu. The bus conductors yelling on top of their voice , Jammu ..Jammu. We took the seat in one of buses and anxiously waited for it to depart . Even then we had no idea of that this would prove to be our final adieu as we still were hoping to come back, a miscount we still regret. Moreover, Mom had already been away to Jammu and without her consent , we could not have decided to move with the belongings .We took with us nothing but few clothes as we had no great valuables at home .As I was contemplating and observing the tensity around,it was typical of men to usually get down after claiming their seats in the bus to have a cup of tea and a fag at some nearby tuck shop or a Raidii ( stall) near around the bus and wait until the Wosthe (Bus Driver ) was seen taking his seat and ready to crank the engine . There used be a police post in the main Lal chowk just adjacent to famous Palladium cinema .In our own stupor waiting for the bus to leave , a mixed feeling of fear and uncertainty on one side and the solace of getting a breather from endless woes for few days outside the valley, the police post nearby in a spur went into fumes after a thunderous sound of blast bringing our reflex back into action . We were just few furlongs away from it. The detonator though wasn't strong enough to send splinters scattered to injure or kill people who were around but it did help us to start off sooner . My after thoughts did make sense that this could have been meant to create an extra scare to push us further to pull us out of the city.
I recall we were among the very first to enter Geeta Bhavan, the hub created at Jammu was to start the process of registering the displaced Kashmiris at the Bhavan situated in the heart of Jammu city . I and few of my friends were given to maintain the queue for registration process and I vividly remember ,we used to carry a stick to ensure no one jumps the queue and surprisingly , no KP would do that but for few from other communities like Punjabi etc. We did not register ourselves for several days, thinking that that we might soon have to go back once the situation normalized. It was averse to our imagination to think so as the situation kept on deteriorating further to the extent that it had such far reaching consequences. The count down had already begun of our extermination from our roots .
Every day started with trucks stopping at Geeta Bhavan carrying KP families with or without of their belongings. The caravan started picking up momentum with every passing day. It had started with one truck a day to one every hour in that peak exodus period. The arriving families would step down from the truck with their smothering faces of anguish, fear and uncertainty and in thick of that a faint sigh of relief. Older people were the most sufferers especially coming from villages ,most of them coming out of the valley for the first time in their lives and having no clue of the world outside the valley and the extreme hardships and misery they were going to witness thereafter. As I said , this was most distressing part of the exodus sequel . It was filled with pain , suffering, uncertainty ,despondency and persecution from all corners.
The temperature in Jammu was swelling up so as was the rush of migrants at Geeta Bhavan. There was chaos everywhere. Some would go to their relatives, some to their friends who had residences at Jammu. Those who could afford went for rented accommodation and those who couldn't or didn't want ,camped at Geeta Bhawan or took refuge in tents . Majority came to Jammu ,next big camping build up was at national capital and then to various cities and towns so on and so forth , depending on one’s feasibly and contacts. The Kashyapa Rishi community , original inhabitants of Kashmir who were disintegrated , uprooted and ousted from there base , in no time got scattered and stirred away like granules of salt in water all over the globe.
This was a new kind of challenge for the community which was much more harsher and distressing . The community had to refurbish a new kind of wherewithal to get adjusted to a new climatic, linguistic and demographic setup. There were huge number of casualties reported of deaths due to snake bites, epidemics , heat strokes due to sweltering heat of summers and lack of basic facilities in the camps,to which many elderly succumbed. The elderly ,particularly the migrated villagers who were totally dependent on their farm land and were hardly carrying any liquid assets with them suffered the most.
As the migrants were pouring in at Jammu , the locals in Jammu initially tried to help and joined in for agitation with KPs to get attention form the Govt. and show their acrimony towards Muslim community at Jammu ,who were mainly state Govt. employees on Darbar move. But it didn't last long for a simple reason that our community itself had no genesis of taking violence as a fight back approach and secondly local Dogra community who were supposed to be an aggressive community , went on back foot as they found a new avenue of economy . The market boomed up in Jammu with demand shooting up for everything and from every corner as KP migrants significantly added to the local population and revenue generation. In no time , local Dogras became wealthier by leaps and bounds at the behest of our woes and their superficial militia trait too died down with the money drain. That was still fine , but the sad part was that we also witnessed harassment of a different kind. This time from local community from Jammu. A mix of community which was supposedly low on literacy and high on insanity. We saw KPs particularly women and elderly being teased, made fun of and harassed on streets by local louts.
Is it usually said about KPs that the exodus came as a blessing in disguise. As most of us are seen well off and well settled now. But this all came at a very high price. The trauma ,sufferings inflicted on the community at every stage may have no tangible expression but it did take a heavy toll for no fault of ours, besides the psychological and social suffering which cannot be measured on any scale and too deep than what meets the eye. Elderly lost their roots and further added significantly to their woes of the toughest age period of their lives. Young lost their prime man years of their youth in slogging and rebuilding their nests and children their ancestral and cultural lead . Some even went haywire because of the disarray in the families. We as community , readily mixed well with other communities went on to earn their love and trust wherever we settled. But at the same time ,we also ensured that we do not loose on our own cultural base .
We virtually had no valuables in home .My father was a pampered son My grand pa was a landlord and gem of a person. He was a ebullient well known person and much loved in his mohalla and among his friends. We had servants in our house during my Grandpa’s time. But things changed after his death. My father served as clerk in a state govt department.He was an honest person and soon lost interest in life due to early illness He felt sick at young age. He suffered from type 1 insulin dependent diabetes and subsequently caught TB which was a dreadful disease in those days and ultimately we lost him in ‘84 .We lost track of our land revenues. My Mom took the charge though but couldn’t do much about it .Moreover the farming land reforms imposed by Sheikh Abdullah to help farmers proved adverse for land owners. I recall as a kid of visiting our village ,which was around 100 miles away Srinagar in Anantnag district with Mom and sometimes with my father’s distant cousins and stay for days together .I have some fond memories of horse riding, swimming and climbing walnut trees during our stay in our village. I do still miss few things besides our house a 4 storied house which was built of only wood made of timber and walnut beams holding it with hardly any concrete .As mentioned earlier , we didn't have much valuable to carry at the time of exodus as our condition was not good .We had few original paintings of God and Goddesses mounted on walls As a kid I used to keep staring at them and get into imaginative thoughts. These were left behind and I also miss two of our Almirahs made of fine wood with beautiful carvings embedded in the wall of our rooms. I do also miss our foyer door ( Wuzz ) which was probably made of pine wood .If anybody would touch it would give a feel of touching an iron sheet in the first place. I used to do solo practice and refine my batting skills using a Table tennis ball and a wicket stick in my hand as bat for hours throwing the ball against the door with spin twisting arm to let it come back to me to play like we have now a bowling machine provided to professional cricketers during net practice .
My sister had already hired a one room set in Jammu. My Mom was already staying with her. I and my another sister had no option but to join them the day we reached Jammu. My brother in Law’s parents had expired long back ,otherwise it wouldn't have been possible for us to live together at their place . As the momentum of migration gained, my Jijaji’s (sister -in-law ) close relatives from her also dropped in at her rented room. But there was no conflict as it was the need of the hour to stand shoulder to shoulder . So on an average 5 to 6 people were living in that one room set during that critical period till one could find a better alternative to move. This was the affair across board with all those families who had left. The landlords were also KPs but had been already living and settled in Jammu much before the migration. Initially they were quite accommodating, but in no time their patience let loose their cool. They started to bitch and sulk arrogantly as the tenant traffic was impinging on them . Meanwhile, the Company I was working for had already closed their operation in the valley in view of the situation in Srinagar. I was adjusted and transferred to Chandigarh , my colleague who was senior to me got advantage of being reallocated back in Jammu. So I had to move to Chandigarh. This rather made me happy and I thought of taking my Mom and sister along to Chandigarh to begin a new life .
Part-4 — The last part of my story shall cover agonizing Re-Nesting period of a displaced KP.
‘Laut aana tha aapney mein kab se rahan takk raha hun
Sadiyon se khak ban gaya hun ..
mein wohi aapka ujada hua ghar hun’ -SK
लौट आने वाले थे
लोग वो कहाँ रह गए।
To know more about KP migration https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/living-as-a-refugee-in-one-s-own-country/story-y0qXanNR4kx6RPxuczCcQP.html
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