Veena Pandita Koul
12Major General Pran Koul (Retd) in his book ‘Turning Pages– Genesis of Kashmiri Hindu Exodus’ has cried his heart out giving glimpses of conversation between a mother and her daughter with the objective that young Kashmiri future generations know the history and reality of life as it has been in Kashmir in its correct perspective. He has chosen to emphasize the complexities of historical facts which have defined our lives in Kashmir at different points of time.
The author in this small book of around 90 pages, has tried to introduce Kashmir culturally, politically and geographically, starting by defining Kashmiriyat through famous saints, sufis and writers like Kalhana, Abhinavgupt, Lalded, Habba Khatoon, Reshi Peer, NundReshi and many more. Thereafter the author has briefly narrated seven mass exoduses of Kashmiri Hindus spread over many centuries. Major Gen Koul intends to give a birds eye view of the complex backdrop which would otherwise take volumes to cover.
I don’t remember reading of any such stories with historical perspective or being read to me by our elders which ought to have been, perhaps unfortunately the documentation of such child friendly historical facts has not caught attention of any writers previously.
Pran Koul narrates that Kashmir abounds with thousands of untold stories of faith, courage and brotherhood that endured amidest hate and he has also minced no words in saying that the minority community suffered a lot from time to time when they were subjected to atrocities like murders and rapes resulting in exodus leaving behind their homes and hearths, not only once but seven times, the latest being the hardest of all. He writes that a violent storm of engineered-hatred broke out sparing none particularly Hindus. Blood flowed freely and homes razed to ground rather to ashes.
But then Pran Koul is optimistic when he says that KP community still hopes that the people from city, towns and villages of Kashmir will call them back one day or the Government which has failed them so far will definitely come up with a plan to resettle them in their homeland.
To narrate the genesis Pran Koul has taken help of conversation between mother and daughter, mother who has seen and gone through horrors of genocide and daughter who has been so far deliberately kept away from the bruises of trauma, makes it interesting narration particularly for younger generations. Mother narrates her internal struggle and believes her own version of the struggle of herself and to have a strength to break away from her past seeking a secure future for the posterity.
Pran koul is a thought provoking page-turner, taking a seeker not only on a journey about how Kashmir has been like in the past that encourages curiosity and introspection but also holding reader’s hand and walking step by step through real life examples. The author is willing to be candid and vulnerable. He wants his future generations to fully understand the milieu and conditions (in which our ancestors to our present generation lived) sharing his understanding and experiences of the ground situations, so much so that he writes,”We don’t have to pretend to forget the brutalities that our community has been subjected to and how it has separated us from our sweet Mother-Kashmir, the land of our ancestors, the heaven on earth”.
Don’t let this book go away. It is worth to make it a part of our small home library for our next generation particularly if you want to share with them the history of exodus in nutshell and in a condensed form.
Read the book! Keep the book!
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