SEPERATED SIBLINGS
Abdul Mohd Dar, resident of Lolab turned 54 last month. He fondly remembers his school teacher Moti Lal Bhatt while pointing towards the dilapidated house of the latter. “He was a terror for the students but a gem at heart”, Abdul remembers. As per him, anyone in the area with a white beard has been Moti Lal’s student. His eyes gleam with a childlike innocence when he narrates how he would hide behind the trees when he saw Moti Lal after school hours. He also remembers his Pandit friends with whom he would spend happy time – fishing, plucking apples and slide on the snow with wooden boards. “Pandits and Muslims lived like brothers, celebrating Eid and Shivratri together. They would attend weddings in each others families and also the funerals. Religion was never an issue for anyone”, he says.
Abdul then talks about the time when the Pandits started to leave the Valley. “That fateful night when Moti Lal’s family started loading the taxi with their belongings, the wailing of womenfolk pierced through the darkness and people of neighboring villages came running to see what had gone wrong. “Moti Lal’s wife had handed over the keys of their house to my mother with moist eyes and said ‘Jaldi samkhov’ (see you soon). No one thought that they will not be back for decades to come. It was this juncture that happiness vanished from the Valley. Perhaps the Pandits took away the happiness of the Valley with them and a curse came down from heavens which led to the turmoil that followed”, he says. “Everyone thought that it was to be a temporary arrangement but as the time passed by, the vacant and weathering houses of Pandits became cruel reminders of a losing hope .” Abdul and many other Muslims like him are still in constant touch with their Pandit friends. A number of them are looking after the orchards and property belonging to Pandits. In Lolab, they even look after the Hindu shrines. “They are part of us…..we will be happy if they return and bring back with them, the lost happiness of the Valley”, Abdul says.
chaman meñ iḳhtilāt-e-rañg-o-bū se baat bantī hai
ham hī ham haiñ to kyā ham haiñ tum hī tum ho to kyā tum ho
(A garden should have flowers different colors and fragrances….
what am I just being me, what are you just being you)
