कश्मिरिअत की बू तोः एक ही है...................

I saw this movie last evening in the Walter Read Theater . They put it simply “Project Kashmir” . Its important to understand who is telling the story ,Narratives of Kasmiriat and being Hindu and Muslim is part of bigger construct which we all form in the different phases of life .

Setting the tone of this piece , lets go back to this movie ........

It was genuine and engaged effort from people who care about the issue. Interestingly some of the protagonist were real people present during the screening . For example A was there, she has lost her part of being but not her memory . Loosing of memory is like a death , and she is very much alive ,crying feeling the pain , her home is still in her mind and she says some day she will outgrow that pain and read about experiences.

Unfortunately I am incapable to understand this loss, since my being is shaped by different sort of circumstances which is a loss or accumulation of memory ,i am not sure, for example

for me my sense of home is shaped by many places, my small village, that town and all big cities where I am still growing up ...........

Any ways the bigger question is how much we care about the place, A reminds of M who is so passionate about his Majoli ,

I call this a sort of passion a politics where , where you glorify your pain and suffering in outside world and for this world value of your personal loss is nothing more than a trivial sense of voyeurism. People will clap you ,admire you and recognize you when given a choice ,donate you money too , do they really understand your pain and sense of loss......never....

You become addicted to gaining their applause, and at the same time lose your intensity to feel that immeasurable loss. Your act of crying became a object of their sympathy....... In some ways I hate this type of thing .

A is certainly a different sort of individual ,who excites me a lot ,speaking and spending time with A is an elevated experience.......

Lets go back to this movie again... Makers of this movie were quite clear with their agenda, Religion emerged as theme surrounded with personal stories, I would imagine Kashmir issue as part of bigger development problem India faces in terms of distributive development rights of people from far corners of its territory , even if my escape parochial nationalist mind for some time, its quite clear that Kashmir deserved effective development policies than just appeasing its elites with some special treatment. I find article 370 was one wrong move, and weakness of Pandit Nehru towards Kashmir another which created the whole problem,I wish Patel would have handled this issue with more authority and ruthlessness, after all making modern state making required some bismarkasque work from people who believed in the idea of modern state. There were other States for example Hyderabad and one in Gujarat, Unfortunately Pt. Nehru took this Kashmir issue in his own hand......

Its quite strange that sixty years ago the idea of making modern Nation was so strong and now its so fragile and loose ,Patel kind of people would have done better job for people for Kashmir, but future of Kashmir would not lie with India or Pakistan ,it could have been with Kashmiriat which could have flourished in mountains and would have become touristic hot spot of Asia, probably better than Switzerland ........ soft politics and appeasing policies have played vital part in this problem.

What if we give Kashmir to its natives, which has become so homogeneous in last twenty years ,

Lets go back to this movie again...

M (one of the protagonist )had lots of interesting thing to say in the the movie, he seem to have complex and beautiful mind . I can understand his refusal to speak further .........

The day which was so engaging from the morning to late night when I finished dinner with Aparna.... I became member of New York Public Library,got love sonnet by Neruda, I love him so much ,We used to read him loud in Mumbai . When Mitul would bring his book and we recreate our love with what spring does to flower .......

And yes I started reading Borges ......Veronia suggested me to read him.........Lets see, he seems complex and versatile .....