Surrounded by snow-capped mountains and verdant pastures of Lashi Thach in Himachal, I woke up to a dream of the vadi. There are many vadis in India. But, for me, there is only one - the Kashmir Valley.
A week later, I was on the bus to Banihal. Do you know there is a train through the valley that takes you to Srinagar?
I had been to Srinagar and Kashmir before. But, this time it was different. This time, I was here to listen. To listen carefully to the echoes of the vadi.
On the brutally cold and conspicuously dark night 19th January 1990, Kashmiri Pandits faced a simple choice - Ralive, Tsaliv ya Galive. Convert, leave or die! It is believed that blood-thirsty Kashmiris wanted to purify the vadi in the image of Allah. They hunted the kafirs out of the valley.
In old Srinagar, a radiwalla (old newspaper collector) told me a different version of the same brutally cold and conspicuously dark January night.
He said, "That night was very carefully planned . . . ."
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