From Home to House: Writings of Kashmiri Pandits in Exile

by Arvind Gigoo, Ajit Adarsh, Shaleen Kumar Singh

A moving portrait of a community reduced to being tourists in their own homeland.It has been twenty-five years since around 3.5 lakh Kashmiri Pandits were uprooted from their homes in the Kashmir valley due to militancy and changed circumstances. Many of them had to face the ignominy of living in tents, then in one-room tenements or flats, as refugees in their own country. They felt let down by both the state and central governments and by Indian society as a whole as well as by the Muslims of the valley. There was to be no going back for them.From Home to House is an anthology of short stories, essays and writings by Kashmiri Pandits in exile, vividly bringing out their nostalgia for Kashmir, their sense of betrayal, their attempts to pick up the pieces and carve a new life for themselves. These are the reflections of a lost and scattered people in what for them is an alien land. The writings show both their vulnerability their helplessness as they see their culture and way of life getting eroded and their resilience as the younger generation of Pandits spreads its wings and builds a whole new life for itself. This anthology holds a mirror to the troubled valley of Kashmir, a mirror from which the reflection of a section of its population is now missing.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 14, 2015

Reviews

[Bharath · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does not make for very happy reading with it's account of people uprooted from their homes and trying to get along with life. The real accounts do leave their lasting impression with emotions of fear, helplessness, sadness being common. And yet there is also hope..

[Pranietha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book about loss; loss of lives, loss of homeland, loss of identity, loss of culture, loss of language, loss of memory, loss of dignity, loss of riches, loss of ideas, loss of the past, loss of values, loss of humanity... The non-fictional excerpts were more gripping and moving than the fictional excerpts. Now I have to go find the books from which these excerpts were sourced. I just had one tiny qualm; the book is overwhelmingly depressing, and rightly so because it deals with the exile and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits written by Kashmiri Pandits. Since every excerpt dealt with the theme of loss, I wished that there were a few stories that focused on the new generation, and their experiences that don't deal with loss. The few stories that dealt with the new generation were either dry, or tinged with the heartbreak of how the new generation will never know the paradise that their parents or grandparents experienced. While the murder and exodus of Kashmiri Pandits is one of the most lamentable episodes in India's history, a continuos cry for lost culture and identity makes me iffy. Maybe the involuntary assimilation of culture makes the loss more profound and harder to bear, and therefore, what is lost is always rare.

[Ramesh. Kumar.Sadhoo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good to read the experience of the authors during the period of turmoil as it greatly relates to me having experienced the beginning of frenzy.

To all my friends as it relates to all of us. The collection of various authors gives the insight of the society and its sufferings during the period