Kashmiri roots always found their significant presence in my lifestyle
J&K Monitor - The Project
Written by Smriti Vij
Tuesday, 05 April 2011 00:00
“I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with. At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home”.
MUMBAI: Growing up a ‘dependent’ in the Indian Army, patriotism and feeling of oneness with the nation – India - is inculcated from the very beginning, growing up as an ‘Indian’ without differentiation on the basis of culture, religion or any other identity is the designed way. But being born in a Kashmiri family, with a mother who grew up in the Valley, Kashmiri roots have always found their significant presence in lifestyle, décor, food of course.
However, studying journalism in Delhi University’s Lady Shriram College changed the way I perceived my Kashmiri identity – it challenged the ‘Indian’ identity generated by the Army upbringing by deconstructing it into the other identities that comprised my personality– religion, culture, region – a process opened up for this change to take place but it wasn’t something planned or designed, it happened out of pure chance.
My reason to study journalism was that I was determined to challenge my parents’ discipline and find a way into the arts and this was the only undergraduate media course available in Delhi in a very prestigious college. As it happened, studying journalism around the time when the television media was set to boom was an advantage too.
But such were the events taking place that being a part of the process in college became priority over any other interests in life – artistic or otherwise. LSR arranged an exchange programme with Kinnaird College in Lahore, it was only while I visited Lahore that I got to learn more about our father’s family, my grandfather having studied at Lahore. Additionally, I also got basic training in Conflict management through an organization affiliated to our college, called, Women in Security, conflict management and peace.
From there, it was a determined curiosity to discover more. I am the youngest member of my father’s family that was displaced from Muzzafarabad after the Pakistani army sponsored tribal raiders’ invasion of undivided Kashmir in 1947 but the details of this story were to reach me only much later. It was around this time, I discovered the losses that were suffered by innocent people during these events, my own grandfather amongst the people who were brutally massacred. Our family, those who survived entered India as displaced people and each of the siblings grew up, a survivor.
My father, the youngest, with much help from his eldest brother who was in the British army then, also entered the army and fought hard to earn survival. My mother’s family witnessed similar events in Poonch before they moved to Srinagar and that is where most of my mother’s family grew up until they left for Jammu.
I had begun studying about these connections in college and even wrote articles about Kashmir, but yet, with all the current news that was flowing in from Kashmir – terrorism, exodus of the Pandits, - it was too much a puzzle to make sense of, especially considering the story of the happy times in Kashmir that our mother had narrated to us while we – three sisters were growing up.
When our mother grew up in Srinagar, studying to be a doctor, life was peaceful and happy – it was about, snow, strawberries and film shoots. This ‘new Kashmir’ in the news was not a place she could easily relate too. College awarded me an exchange scholarship to a university in Melbourne, Australia where I spent a year studying the emerging new media as well as other trends in media communication. It was also a year where I started making an effort to learn to read, so that I could read about stories of Kashmir and it’s place in India.
I chose to return to India, but realized journalism had now become personal for me, not objective as is the requirement of the profession, I realized I needed a personal, internal journey to put into perspective all the new facets I had learnt about around this time, I got a chance to work for the Hindi film industry and hone my skills in storytelling.
It was also the beginning of an independent journey to learn about culture, to find out our Kashmiri roots and try and give expression to it. Once again, at the first batch of scriptwriting at the Film and T.V Institute of India, the film industry was going through a period of change where storytelling and a different kind of film making energy was going to make its presence felt.
Over the years, I continued to try and get closer to understand my place as an individual vis a vis Kashmir, to create a script and story and reach a stage where I was comfortable in traveling to at least Srinagar by myself. Events in Srinagar in 2010 where the forces mercilessly opened fire, seemed to be the final blow. I have been consistently associated with theatre groups since childhood and chose to collaborate with a theatre director in Delhi to create a theatre piece where I expressed what I felt about events in Kashmir.
Early this year, I traveled to Srinagar, alone. We had traveled as a family when our father was still serving in the army in 1987. This time, I traveled as I wished, without the burden of being associated with any newspaper or any media associate, I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with.
At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 21:52
J&K Monitor - The Project
Written by Smriti Vij
Tuesday, 05 April 2011 00:00
“I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with. At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home”.
MUMBAI: Growing up a ‘dependent’ in the Indian Army, patriotism and feeling of oneness with the nation – India - is inculcated from the very beginning, growing up as an ‘Indian’ without differentiation on the basis of culture, religion or any other identity is the designed way. But being born in a Kashmiri family, with a mother who grew up in the Valley, Kashmiri roots have always found their significant presence in lifestyle, décor, food of course.
However, studying journalism in Delhi University’s Lady Shriram College changed the way I perceived my Kashmiri identity – it challenged the ‘Indian’ identity generated by the Army upbringing by deconstructing it into the other identities that comprised my personality– religion, culture, region – a process opened up for this change to take place but it wasn’t something planned or designed, it happened out of pure chance.
My reason to study journalism was that I was determined to challenge my parents’ discipline and find a way into the arts and this was the only undergraduate media course available in Delhi in a very prestigious college. As it happened, studying journalism around the time when the television media was set to boom was an advantage too.
But such were the events taking place that being a part of the process in college became priority over any other interests in life – artistic or otherwise. LSR arranged an exchange programme with Kinnaird College in Lahore, it was only while I visited Lahore that I got to learn more about our father’s family, my grandfather having studied at Lahore. Additionally, I also got basic training in Conflict management through an organization affiliated to our college, called, Women in Security, conflict management and peace.
From there, it was a determined curiosity to discover more. I am the youngest member of my father’s family that was displaced from Muzzafarabad after the Pakistani army sponsored tribal raiders’ invasion of undivided Kashmir in 1947 but the details of this story were to reach me only much later. It was around this time, I discovered the losses that were suffered by innocent people during these events, my own grandfather amongst the people who were brutally massacred. Our family, those who survived entered India as displaced people and each of the siblings grew up, a survivor.
My father, the youngest, with much help from his eldest brother who was in the British army then, also entered the army and fought hard to earn survival. My mother’s family witnessed similar events in Poonch before they moved to Srinagar and that is where most of my mother’s family grew up until they left for Jammu.
I had begun studying about these connections in college and even wrote articles about Kashmir, but yet, with all the current news that was flowing in from Kashmir – terrorism, exodus of the Pandits, - it was too much a puzzle to make sense of, especially considering the story of the happy times in Kashmir that our mother had narrated to us while we – three sisters were growing up.
When our mother grew up in Srinagar, studying to be a doctor, life was peaceful and happy – it was about, snow, strawberries and film shoots. This ‘new Kashmir’ in the news was not a place she could easily relate too. College awarded me an exchange scholarship to a university in Melbourne, Australia where I spent a year studying the emerging new media as well as other trends in media communication. It was also a year where I started making an effort to learn to read, so that I could read about stories of Kashmir and it’s place in India.
I chose to return to India, but realized journalism had now become personal for me, not objective as is the requirement of the profession, I realized I needed a personal, internal journey to put into perspective all the new facets I had learnt about around this time, I got a chance to work for the Hindi film industry and hone my skills in storytelling.
It was also the beginning of an independent journey to learn about culture, to find out our Kashmiri roots and try and give expression to it. Once again, at the first batch of scriptwriting at the Film and T.V Institute of India, the film industry was going through a period of change where storytelling and a different kind of film making energy was going to make its presence felt.
Over the years, I continued to try and get closer to understand my place as an individual vis a vis Kashmir, to create a script and story and reach a stage where I was comfortable in traveling to at least Srinagar by myself. Events in Srinagar in 2010 where the forces mercilessly opened fire, seemed to be the final blow. I have been consistently associated with theatre groups since childhood and chose to collaborate with a theatre director in Delhi to create a theatre piece where I expressed what I felt about events in Kashmir.
Early this year, I traveled to Srinagar, alone. We had traveled as a family when our father was still serving in the army in 1987. This time, I traveled as I wished, without the burden of being associated with any newspaper or any media associate, I traveled as an individual with my own identity and met up with mass media students at the Kashmir University, apart from people in the arts and journalism I wanted to have a conversation with.
At the University, when I was introduced as ‘a daughter of the soil’, I felt happiness I had not felt before, something felt complete, I felt I had reached home. I hope now, that my parents will travel with me and that they too would feel, at home.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 April 2011 21:52
