Rahul PanditaOur Moon Has Blood Clots: A Memoir of a Lost Home in Kashmir

Rahul Pandita's 'Our Moon Has Blood Clots' is a mandatory reading for everyone who've scant idea or regards about the ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Pandit community from 19th January, 1990 onward. This book, where Rahul shares his deeply personal story of having fled his home with his family, the hardships he'd faced while displaced and having lost his dearest brother at the hands of militants, gives an idea how soul-shattering and horrific this exodus was and must've been for thousands of Pandits; A tragedy that has been repeatedly denied, somewhat justified and systematically removed from our memory for the past three decades by mainstream discourse.

This is first book in my life to order. Very nice book. Author has taken small small details into consideration while telling his story. The story of a Kashmiri who lost everything day by day, piece by piece. A thumbs up to the Author.

Awesome book. Must read

I view this book in 3 parts: Before the genocide, The Genocide, After the genocide. The first part might seem insignificant at first but after you read the second part, you will realise the importance of the first part. How important is a home and a family. I have nothing more to say because I don't know how it feels to stay away from home. I pray for the departed souls and may you be born again when Kashmir is once again the abode of Lord Shiva. Om Namah Shivaya.

Exiled. From land, from family, from friends, from the garden that used to separate the homes of relatives, from the tree that bore fruits, from the river that flowed, from the chill in the evening air telling of the arriving winters, from the morning sun that shone and rays fell through the curtains to wake them up, from the celebrations of Shivratri, from the steaming kahwa whose aroma itself gave warmth, from the love, laughter and from everything that was once HOME.When the Hindu Pandit exodus happened in Kashmir in 1990, none were to know that such a horrific incident could give back anything worth, but with this book, we have an exception. Our Moon Has Blood Clots by Rahul Pandita is a memoir of a lost home, of thousands of Kashmiri Pandits like Pandita himself, when they were forced out of the valley by insurgents funded by our neighboring country. But you may ask what good has it given? The biggest good it has given us is hope, hope that despite such barbaric crimes being committed openly against a part of the society, and after suffering at the hands of these barbarians, there remains enough humanity alive in them to not want the same thing for their tormentors.Pandita was a young boy of 14 when he fled from his 22-roomed home in Srinagar with his parents and sister to Jammu where they lived in a single room, shifting localities and landlords for several years before he was able to save enough to buy a house in Delhi NCR. The story flits between the past and the present and is narrated by Pandita, who now is a journalist and still lives away from what was once his home. I don’t think I need to mention the gory details of the exodus which makes me shiver each time I read about it. How the families threatened then would have dealt with it, I can’t even begin to comprehend. The fear, the torture, the murders of loved ones...and the final blow of being chased away from their homes, these people had real strength to survive it.While a lot of books talk about what happened in Kashmir, none that I’ve read talked about what happened after that, the reality of the refugees and the impact the exodus had on their lives. The promised government help, the rehabilitation and the retribution of the culprits, all just stay in papers or election speeches. Almost closing the third decade anniversary of the exodus, the Pandit community still remains in refugee settlements out of town, for the lack of better facilities or out of sheer habit and comfort, I don’t know. They have become hostile, both to those who want to help them and to those who want to dupe them and I can’t blame them.Whenever I go for a vacation to some other city or country, I start feeling a little homesick even before I begin my journey though I know that I’ll be coming back in a few days. Imagine not having this fall back at all, the feeling of being homesick with no home to go to. You, or me, or anyone who hasn’t been through what these people have been through can never, never know what it feels like to have a home, and not be able to go back to it, to unwillingly leave the place where our ancestors had lived, and fathers have lived and we had lived and to wander into uncertainty, to become refugees in our own country and have no sense of identity, to being duped, ridiculed, taken advantage of and looked down upon, and to one day go back to the place that once was our home and find someone else calling it their home, with authority and without our consent, heartbreaking.I hadn’t known about the 1990 Pandit exodus until I came across my first ever book on it late last year. I was ashamed, both at what had happened and myself, for not knowing about it earlier. But am wiser now and have started reading true accounts on the issue. Chancing upon this book was no coincidence, but well-done research and a thumbs up from fellow readers. I knew this book will prove to be a life-changing chapter in my life and it truly proved to be. The feeling of homelessness (no pun intended) crept up in me when I turned the last page, what next? The book left me drained emotionally, and I haven’t been able to pick up anything after it. It’s been more than two weeks if you must know.I read this book both fast and slow, not wanting it to finish yet wanting the author’s ordeal to end. The words tugged at my heartstrings in the beginning, gearing up for a full-fledged attack on my emotions after just a few pages into the book. Of all the questions that hadn’t been answered, and probably will never be, the biggest that remains is why? Why did it have to happen? Why did they do it? Why the Pandits? Was it necessary? What has been achieved? Are human lives so cheap? We would never know.The burden is not of the things left behind, but what we carry in our mind, the memories of the place that was once home.

Can buy

A gripping account of J&K during its most turbulent times. The book captures the tragedy of the system and its individuals - death, violence and fear - without becoming maudlin, a testimony to the writer as much as the subject. Strongly recommended.

"...and an earlier time when the flowers were not stained with blood, the moon with blood clots!" - Pablo Neruda, 'Oh, My Lost City'Our Moon Has Blood Clots is very insightful and gives a firsthand account of experience of the author himself, who was among the exodus of Kashmir during 1990, at an age of 14. During 1990, there was mass movement of Kashmiri Pandits from Kashmir to Delhi, Lucknow, Lahore and Allahabad, living their ancestral home, their history and culture behind. The plight of Kashmiri Pandits is now an forgotten story. Our generation will never understand or will try to find out, what made approx. 3.5 lacs Kashmiri Pandits to pack their bags and leave the valley, never to return back and stay in their own country as refugees.After reading this book, I read Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer. Both these books are set during the same period and tells the story of Kashmir with different approach. Both this book help us to understand that not only Kashmiri Pandits had a tragic life, but also the Muslims had to suffer the brutality of both the militants and Indian Army. The brutal killings, fleeing away from home, setting up a home in a place much different in culture, language in refugee camps in Jammu, these realities are narrated with much pain."Our home in Kashmir had twenty-two rooms", my mother used to say this thing to every person she met.This narrates the experience of a mother, who was in exile, who lost her home and her pride, staying in refugee camps, in tents, sharing the tent with one other family.The memories through a 14 year old teenager paints a vivid images. Women cramped in lorries travelling towards Jammu, a man raising his fist and telling them that, "you will die", overhearing a conversation of a group of boys, discussing distribution of Pandit's houses which will be empty soon."At least go inside and piss; like a dog, you need to mark your territory," one of the boys tells his mate. "It's over," Pandit's father, a government worker, says, "we cannot live here anymore."Rahul Pandita mentions in the book that he kept a record of each and every Pandit killed in the Valley during the exodus, because he wanted people to know the story of each and every Pandit killed. The government and the media completely neglected the plight of Kashmiri Pandits. In 2008, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced a Rs. 1,618 crore package to facilitate the return of the Kashmiri Pandits in the Valley. Six thousand jobs were also announced for the Pandit youth in the Valley. Most of the jobs were never filled, due to the fear of being targeted by militants. The settlements provided to Kashmiri Pandits are cheap single-bedroom structures, with no drinking water facility. The real problem is harassment at work from their Muslim colleagues. Many Pandit employees don't receive their salaries on time.This is an excellent book, full of true tragic stories, acquainting with Hindu-Muslim brotherhood, struggles of Kashmiri Pandits that forced them to flee to Jammu.For those, who wants to know what happened in Kashmir during 1990s, and not just Kashmiri Pandits, I will suggest to read Curfewed Night by Basharat Peer. It gives an insight on the suffering of the Kashmiri Muslims during this period, how the Indian Army as well as the militants created problems for innocent Muslims. Kashmiri Muslims lives a threatened life in Kashmir because of both the Militants and the Indian Army and are tagged as militant where ever they go for being Kashmiri Muslim. It also gives an insight about how the Kashmiri youth are misguided by the Militants to cross the border and to go to Pakistan to get trained as an militant.