Coming back to the story, the cool morning breeze, the fragrance of the incense and flowers, the gonging sound of the temple bell and that eerie scene in the midst of the water pool made my mother's young mind awe-struck. When she narrated the story to us afterwards, that same unearthly feeling overwhelmed me and my heart was filled with a strange sensation of pride, reverence and awe, every time she did so.

But thirty years later, when I visited that very temple of the Mother Goddess, the holy spring lay flowerless; and not one devotee could be seen. The chinars though, remained, as majestic as ever, but perhaps a touch wearied and burdened by the happenings, only they, in the entire world seemed to have witnessed.

Imagine growing up, and living, in that idyllic, almost timeless valley. A valley once called the 'paradise on earth'. Now, imagine one fine morning getting death threats - seeing your friends, your relatives, being cruelly murdered, their houses burning, knowing that any moment it will be your own home meeting the same ill-fate - just because of the God you prayed to. Imagine next, doing everything in your capacity to leave your homeland, now an inferno of terror, blood and arson. Imagine living, no, subsisting as a refugee in your own country. Imagine an ancient culture lost, a paradise burnt and its people reduced to ash.

I'm talking about a small community called Kashmiri Pandits – almost unseen by yours, and the world's often too busy eyes; and a land called Kashmir, now synonymous with terrorism, but in its pristine state, nothing short of the heavens above – physically as well as spiritually. "Kashmiriyat" or the philosophy of Kashmir talks of complete syncretism, despite Kashmir being invaded, converted and massacred so many times. Ask that to the Hindus who would almost religiously send the walnuts, worshipped as God on Shivratri (the most exalted of Kashmiri Pandit festivals) to their Muslim neighbours. Ask that to the Muslims who would as dutifully send raw meat, and uncooked rice, to the Pandits on Bakr-Id, respecting the Hindus' traditional sentiments of not eating anything cooked by a Muslim. In that age, two Pandit families would feel secure surrounded by two-dozen Muslim ones.

Had Kashmir remained confined to itself – I still think that the paradise would have remained just so. But Kashmir was always caught between worlds, geopolitically at least - with Pakistan on one side and India on the other. And soon Kashmir became the battlefield – where things like geography didn't work; it was communal politics all the way.

But in the ensuing melee, neither India nor Pakistan , considered Kashmir to be an integral part of theirs. The political verbal volleys can be traced just to the lips - and nowhere further. Neither India , nor Pakistan, gave anything to Kashmir – they just broke it up and then broke it down. It was like two brothers fighting over a toy and ultimately it was just the toy that got broken – without a single tear being shed by either brother.

But the final trigger was pulled in 1989-90. In those two defining years and thereafter, a terrorist had the licence to kill, burn, and rape people – as long as they were Hindus. The same loudspeakers which would call the Muslim faithful for namaz, then screamed – "Pandits, leave the valley; with the men, but without your women." A grand uncle of mine, in the Intelligence Bureau and thus naturally on the hit list recalls the night they were at his doorstep, bellowing for blood. When they were thumping on the doors, he remembers calmly explaining to his two little daughters, (still twittering about their favourite TV serial), that he would be no more in a few moments time, and that life and death, quoting the Bhagwad Gita, were both part of a continuous cycle. All this to two small girls who simply wanted to watch television.

One way or the other, three hundred and twenty eight thousand Kashmiri Pandits and more had to say good-bye to the valley, for what they considered to be just a few weeks or months at the most, of turmoil – but what actually turned out to be an exile of a lifetime. But after all this, our National Human Rights Commission still maintains that nothing happened, and there are chances that you too might not have known too much about our migration. Don't ask me the question "Why?" because I'm myself searching for the answers.

Every human being lives between worlds. One, which he can touch and feel - involving the chores of daily life, and the other, which lies tucked away in the nether reaches of the human mind. Most of us recognise only the physical as our complete world, often ignoring the inner one, which very silently but deftly controls the strings of the puppets we are.

It is in the inner world that the greatest pretender stops acting, and the most taciturn of men start talking. It is this world which stands by you when you have no one to lean on, and it is here that memory builds a winding, little pathway called remembrance on which you meet only those folks you love and like, where you waltz through the cherished moments of your life at ease.

My homeland, Kashmir, lies torn and suffocated between the worlds it is caught and trapped. Like my homeland, in fact like all human beings, but at the same time unlike most – I too live between worlds. The outer world continues to face the bouncers of daily life in metropolitan Delhi, makes me have so much fun with friends in school, and also gives me those boring, humdrum exams.

In the inner world though, I struggle to find my identity as a Kashmiri Pandit, struggle to learn my mother tongue, Kashmiri, vow not to marry a non-Kashmiri Pandit if that is the least I can do to stop the steadily accelerating cortege of the community, and struggle to learn more and more about that "paradise on earth" - a place I call my homeland but which is also a place I have 'visited' twice – both times as an outsider, a tourist.

As the great Himalayas greeted me when I peeped through the windows of the aircraft nearing Srinagar, I remember what I told my weeping self, all of 11 years at that time – "It doesn't matter even if you die here, Radhika, even if the terrorists bomb you." I remember the bliss that overcame me as I ran among the flowers of the valley. I remember the tongue-tied baker of papa's neighbourhood who turned crimson on recognising him, and cleared away every vehicle in the narrow lane just to let our car pass. I remember the two minutes my family spent weeping in our ancestral house in Srinagar. I remember the first moments of my life experiencing the eternal Kashmiri snow. But I also recall my mother taking off her sindoor and her atth (symbols showing that she was a married Kashmiri Pandit woman) before we stepped on board the flight to Srinagar. I remember walking lane after lane flanked by columns of old, forgotten and burnt Pandit homes. And I remember hearing gunshots disturbing the sweet song of the wind every hour of the day.

Those sunny morns, in the world of Kashmir I was, yet in that Kashmir , I was not. Today, in this world of Delhi I am, yet, I am not.

I live between worlds, yet sometimes, I wish the barriers between these two worlds would thaw. Sometimes the proud Kashmiri Pandit in me wishes to cross the boundaries of the inner world and show its face to the outer world as well. But it's acknowledgement, not pity that a true Kashmiri Pandit wants; its empathy, not sympathy that I want. Each time a person asks me about my origins I don't want to painstakingly recall the wounds inflicted on us just to get an "Oh, really? I'm so sorry" for a reply. I'd rather want you to stand up and put a finger on my lips and say, "I know". That's all I want.

The writer is a Kashmiri Hindu refugee living in-exile in Delhi, India.

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