How does it feel to be among the very few Kashmiri Pandits still left in the valley of Kashmir? Divided from one’s community not only in physical space but also in the spaces of the mind: ideology, perspective, hopes and fears? One has to live the experience in order to explain how it feels.

There is no dearth in the wilderness today, of memories. Feeding on them, despite the pain they cause, enables one to survive. For people of my generation it is difficult to believe that the harmonious relationship between the two communities living in Kashmir – apparently unruffled by horror stories of communal violence from other parts of India – could have been so tenuous that it took only one season of discontent and terror to break it down completely.