What Does It Mean to Be a Kashmiri Pandit Today

 

What does it mean to be a Kashmiri Pandit today? It means carrying the weight of a homeland many of us know more through stories than streets. It means explaining your identity in every new city, yet never fully fitting into any one of them. It's like being fluent in a language your tongue remembers but your world rarely hears. And for someone like me flying aircrafts across continents while still tethered to the memory of a lost address-it means learning to navigate not just airspace, but identity, displacement, and the quiet pride of belonging to a community that refuses to be erased. My roots go back to a family that literally helped keep the region moving-we founded the first-ever transport business in Jammu and Kashmir. Our transport wasn’t just a means of travel; they were symbols of connection, trust, and routine in a land rich in culture and contradiction. But that journey came to a crashing halt-not due to roadblocks, but due to fear that tore through the fabric of our everyday life. Like of many others, our enterprise was lost overnight, and what vanished wasn't just a livelihood, but our place in the wider story of Kashmir. I was born in the aftermath of that rupture, into a silence that followed the storm. I didn't inherit the Kashmir my parents once knew. I inherited their longing. I grew up in rented spaces, surrounded by half-spoken stories and lullabies laced with ache. Being a Kashmiri Pandit from my generation means inheriting more than exile-it means shouldering the responsibility to remember, to preserve, and to ask uncomfortable but necessary questions. Many of us are trying to hold on to a culture that we were too young to fully understand, yet too connected to let go of. We perform rituals we've learned more through observation than explanation, speak in fragments of a language we cherish even if we fumble through it. Our surnames are like fragile heirlooms-carried with pride, yet often misread or misunderstood. We come from a tradition that is too sacred to casually edit, but too distant to live exactly as before. In spite of this, we continue to adapt and reimagining our identities, not to dilute them, but to ensure they endure for us to pass it on to the next generation. We are fusing art with activism, turning grief into creativity, and channeling ancestral pain and displacement into modern platforms-through enterprise, art, politics, and many varied forms and disciplines. We aren't just sharing nostalgia; we are shaping narratives that have been long ignored. We all have heard or lived the impact that migration had on people who were going through those harrowing times, but we seem to selectively ignore or Not realise the impact it has on a generation which was born after the displacement. The generation that heard tales of big families in habakadal, of excitement of chillaikallan, of the entire community celebrating Shivratri, of times when communal harmony existed,or endless humorous banter. And then of the times which shook everyone to their very core. The love with which tales of past were shared, the feeling that those stories emitted was enough to make us understand the meaning of the word nostalgia. The lingering question that remains with many of Kashmiri Pandits of today is, where is 'home' for us? For our elders, it's a place filled with tangible memories and familiar landscapes. For us, it's something abstract, a blend of inherited emotion and imagined return. Some have never walked those streets but carry their weight daily. Others who do return, often feel like strangers in places that once called their ancestors by name. To be a young Kashmiri Pandit today is to constantly reconcile our roots with our reality. We are Indians, yes-but we're also a unique thread in the national tapestry, shaped by loss, resilience, culture, and courage. We're weary and tired of being summoned on remembrance days because we are not just history's survivors, but a community which made itself stand back up, a community that can contribute significantly towards the country we call our own. The wounds haven't entirely healed. They're visible in the political apathy we face, in the symbolic rather than substantial representation we are offered, and in the glaring omission of our story from mainstream narratives. We should be known for so much more than Roganjosh,saffron, or pashmina shawls. What gives me hope is the handful of Kashmiri Pandits who are no longer waiting for their turn to be heard. They are creating questioning, innovating, and initiating. They aren't just reclaiming what was lost-they are building what never existed. Despite all that we've endured, the one thing that remains unshaken is our will to persist, to grow, and to be seen. As a pilot, I often reflect on how the view from above changes everything. Borders seem less rigid, distances appear shorter, and it becomes clear that land matters less than what we carry within. While we may not yet be able to return to the physical land we once called home, we are, in our own ways, rebuilding it in our minds, our work, and our relationships. Being a Kashmiri Pandit today is no longer just about remembrance. It is about resilience. About rising.

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Courtesy:  TANVI RAINA  and Koshur Samachar-2025, May