The last photograph of a Kashmiri Pandit family together.
The only and last photograph of a Kashmiri Pandit Family together. Vicharnag, Kashmir. Circa 1915
This is probably the first, and as it turned out, the last ever photograph taken of my entire Kashmiri Pandit extended family. The
Dhar Family. My grandmother, Tara Dhar, stands second from right in the
top row, and my grandfather Raghunath Dhar, fourth from right in the
same row. Between the men is my great grandmother, Sokhmal Dhar. The
family was photographed in Vicharnag, a small village situated on the outskirts of Srinagar, Kashmir.
Vicharnag when translated, means “the
spring of contemplation”. The village has a centuries-old temple complex
which housed several Pandit families including mine for hundreds of
years. The Dhar family belongs to the Kashmiri Pandit community – the
only Brahmin Hindu community native to Kashmir. These were also good
times, when ties between all communities, be it Hindu or Muslim, were
strong and warm.
This picture holds so many cultural
nuances. For instance, the headgear of the elder male members was
different from the younger male members. Moreover, the women were not in
purdah (veiled) displaying some liberal social and cultural aspects of
the community at the time.
After belonging to a land for centuries,
the families were forced to uproot themselves because of Indo-Pakistani
border War of 1947, and then again in 1990 because of the eruption of
radical militancy and ethnicity based massacres
by subversives, on the Pandits. It is said that approximately 250,000
of the total Kashmiri Pandit population left the Kashmir valley during
the 1990s. Soon every single member of the Dhar family too fled
Vicharnag for good.
Their derelict temple complex and
abandoned houses are now occupied by squatters and carry a hazy memory
of the community who lived there so long. Most of the family’s
descendants now live all over the globe, and today Vicharnag has no
Kashmiri Pandits.
No comments:
Post a Comment