Catch Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus Of The Kashmiri Pandits Narrated By Rahul Pandita Presented As File

lost my home, not my humanity, "

When a book is a memoir of a horrific past that is a result of more horrors than one can imagine, it tends to scar you from within and leave deep gouges on the walls of your heart.
Rahul Pandita's memoir is one such, Being chased out of their homes by terrorists with violence and religious fanaticism for no reason at all is even worse, The gunshots, the rapes, the violence, the propaganda, the discrimination it gave me goosebumps and made me shed angry, heartbroken tears, And I wonder why is this exodus not spoken about

Basically I'm off to do more research and to educate myself more about Kashmir in general.
People need to stop being hypocrites is all I'll say for the time being,
' and an an earlier time when the flowers were not stained
with blood, the moon with blood clots!'

To understand the author's viewpoint sitelink newslaundry. com/nl Please watch this interview of Rahul Pandita,

Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita is the truth of the life that Kashmiri Pandits have lived, their exile, their ancestral history, discrimination that has been part of their life, since theth century.


Rahul Pandta has written an insightful, and easy to read history of Kashmir Pandits, and how with many Muslim rulers sinceth century, many Pandits had to convert to Islam.
How since then, Kashmiri Pandits were ridiculed, humiliated and till date are subject to the same treatment in Kashmir,

Just before this book I read, Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer, and though that book has a different approach towards the story of Kashmir.
Both these books, talk about Kashmir on common grounds, and both these books, help one understand, how not only Kashmiri Pandits have had a tragic life, but the Kashmir that once was, no longer is.
The brotherhood, the culture that was, no longer is,

I was born three years after my family migrated from their homeland, Sopore, Kashmir, In a way, I had lost everything, much before I was born, I had no cultural heritage, no ancestral history that I could be shown, no place or antiques of my family, I always saw one photograph of our home in Sopore that was a three storey bungalow, And then I saw another photograph of that same, grand home reduced to a single storey, burned down, Then, as a child, I could not understand the graveness of the matter, Though I had been told how we had been made to leave Kashmir by Muslims, but never the reasons, never the humiliation of it all.
The human tragedy was very less talked about, Apparently we have moved on, But, whenever Kashmir flashes in front of their eyes on tv, their eyes and heart are glued to it, When they talk about that Kashmir, the pain that you hear in their voice, of having lost their homeland it will make you helpless, as helpless as they were then.


I always asked my father one question, who was the one fighting for us I failed to understand, that in a country filled with freedom fighters, how come no one raised the issue of the oppression and discrimination Kashmiri Pandits had been subjected to.
Outside our community, was there anyone who raised their voice for us Nobody, And there still is no one, I love Rahul Panditas book more so, not only for the first hand accounts and brilliant narration, but for the fact that he has mentioned this fact that nobody fought for us ever.
There are no grants for research on the Kashmir issue, I agree with his point of comparing our sufferings with those of Jewish prisoners in Auschwitz camp, the campaign against us by Muslims in Kashmir and Pakistan was much like, Hitlers campaign in Germany, against Jews.


But, we only lost our homeland, never our humanity, And that is the sole reason of our existence, We may still be a minority, but we continue to live a prosperous life because we did not treat anybody else the way we were treated.
We did not kill Muslims, the way they killed us, Because in spite of everything, we remembered those Muslim friends who in spite of the insurgence wave, did not waver and supported us, maybe, discreetly, but did.
I was never told to stay away from Muslims, ever, One of my first best friends was a Muslim Kashmiri girl, and my parents loved her as much as they would a Kashmiri Pandit.


Brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits, the struggle of setting up a home in a place much, much different in culture, language, temperature, and temperament of people, with nothing and as refugees, thousands of Kashmiri Pandits shifted to Jammu, living in one room.
Six people living in one room, Thousands living in slums, who had nothing, These stories, rather these realities have been told with as much pain as we had suffered them,

The details of the raid by Kazakhs from Pakistan, in Kashmir, inhas been told as a firsthand account, This raid was the reason why Kashmir joined hands with India and again, Rahul Panditas expression and writing style will move you,

Overall, this book will not only acquaint you with the Kashmiri Muslim,

and Kashmiri Pandit brotherhood, but also the reasons of the struggle of the Pandits because of many other Kashmiri and Pakistani Muslims.
It will help you understand what happened in Kashmir and if you are a Kashmiri Pandit, it will help you understand your struggle and existence.


This is an excellent book about the Kashmir issue, a true book, written very well, with firsthand account of the author himself it makes the book much more credible and a very interesting read.


For those who want to understand what happened to Kashmir, not just the Kashmiri Pandits, Curfewed Night will help you understand how even the Indian military created problems for Kashmiri Muslims, who were innocent.
But, Our Moon has Blood Clots will make you understand why Indian army had to stay in Kashmir,
Curfewed Night, is a good basic book with firsthand accounts of a Muslim Kashmiri, who faces a world, where because of the Kashmir situation he is tagged as a militant if he is a Muslim and who lives a threatened life in Kashmir because of both the militants and the Indian military.


Kashmir has been an issue of debate since, Our Moon Has Blood Clots best part is that it talks about the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits not as a happening or a sad tale.
It talks about it as brutally as it was, as that life shattering experience that changed the entire life course of Kashmiri Pandits and as worse an experience as was of the Jews in Nazi Germany.

It was hard reading this book without a lump in my throat, Only a person who has thirsted for a permanent roof over his/ her head will be able to relate to the heart wrenching emotions Mr.
Pandita has evoked so wonderfully in his passages,

As I went from one page to another, I felt that Mr, Pandita's forefathers were blessing every word of his with a force that is incomprehensible, a sort of painful love and regret that clutches you by the neck and stares into your soul demanding you to listen.


That one recollection of the author where his mother clutches a knife and says she will first kill her daughter and then herself should the rowdy crowd barge in to their home hit me very hard emotionally.
So much so that for the first time in my life I felt tears swelling in my eyes due to a piece of writing.
All of it culminating in a passionate crescendo when the author talks about how his mother cried in the kitchen of the house that he had bought in Delhi.


I still have a lump in my throat as I write this review,

I just want to hug the author and tell him that I am now his brother, I don't know and I don't care if it matters anymore,

Passionately beautiful, forceful and thought provoking, Please buy this book first hand no borrowing or buying from second hand stalls, I read this after Munnu, and together they show two different stories of Kashmir, the exodus and the butchering of Kashmiri Pandits, and iron fists of the Indian Army.
It is fascinating, because both talk of oppression, both are based in the same place, yet both are narratives from seemingly opposite camps,

Rahul Pandita was fourteen years old inwhen he was forced to leave his home in Srinagar along with his family, who were Kashmiri Pandits: the Hindu minority within a Muslim majority Kashmir that was becoming increasingly agitated with the cries of Azadi from India.
The heartbreaking story of Kashmir has so far been told through the prism of the brutality of the Indian state, and the proindependence demands of separatists.
But there is another part of the story that has remained unrecorded and buried, Our Moon Has Blood Clots is the unspoken chapter in the story of Kashmir, in which it was purged of the Kashmiri Pandit community in a violent ethnic cleansing backed by Islamist militants.
Hundreds of people were tortured and killed, and about,,Kashmiri Pandits were forced to leave their homes and spend the rest of their lives in exile in their own country.
Rahul Pandita has written a deeply personal, powerful and unforgettable story of history, home and loss, .