120 Whither Kashmir? (Part II) - Islamabad Policy Research Institute

44 IPRI Factfile
hospitality. Frugality, as a trait, in entertaining guests was unmistakably
absent in Kashmiri households.
Life vibrated, in parks, bunds, hotels and public places. Cinema
halls remained packed to capacity, particularly on days when old movies
like Mugle Azam and Shiri Farhaad were screened. Kashmir Ki Kali, any
day, filled the audience with pride over how their exotic locales could
enamour outsiders, who trooped in huge numbers to experience the reel
magic translate into real life. Kashmir's magic in its full form was
captured at night in the backdrop of Zabarwan hills from Pari Mahal or
Shankracharya when the poetic version of a paradise on earth literally,
came alive.
With memories, skillfully captured in frame by the Mahattas and
Darly photographers, visitors were lured to return the visit, which was
never the last. They were brought back many times over, to experience
varied shades of the valley, where autumn could script an account, as
fascinating as the spring, a single trip was never really sufficient.
Politics was not invasive, it interspersed with life smoothly, and people
pursued their normal lives and engaged in politics by choice. Hope
defined the mood of the period.
A trip to the valley two decades later was marked by night long
encounters and gunfire in different parts. Life moved with an underlying
fatigue. Lhasa the Chinese restaurant once a favourite haunt for its warm,
ambience now, resembled a down town cellar, lakes like the Dal and
Nageen looked equally desolate. Beauty of the valley was of no
consequence as appreciative revelers had vanished, so had the magic
Growth of a society is a complex interplay of forces, spanning over
centuries.
Like an arterial network, its constituent parts; and, soil, climate,
communities, languages and customs interconnect to infuse life and
vigour to it and make up for its ethos. Rupture of Kashmir's centuries
old, intricately woven society, once pulsating with life, is a painful
experience for all its inhabitants. Modern state structure apparently has
no available tools to measure levels of psycho social trauma and hence not
well equipped to heal the same. Though sad, this outcome is also, in some
measure, a failure of' its inhabitants to put up appropriate assertions to
resist disruptions in their life spaces. They have to strive and reclaim the
sphere which allows them their right to life and the basic freedoms which
flow from it. A significant difference can be made by setting boundaries