PANDIT DINA NATH YAKSHA : THE LAST CUSTODIAN OF KASHMIR'S SHASTRIC TRADITION

                                       

                        ( Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha )

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha ( 1921–2004): The Last Custodian of Kashmir’s Shastric Tradition

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha was not a public intellectual in the modern sense. He was a custodian. For over 50 years he worked quietly in libraries, manuscript rooms, and Pathshalas, holding together a 1000-year-old Kashmiri tradition of integrated Sanskrit learning. With his passing, a line of scholarship that linked grammar, logic, ritual, astrology, poetics and Shaiva philosophy in one person came to an end. That is why he is remembered in Kashmiri academic circles as “Kashmir’s forgotten Sanskrit Doyen.”

It is estimated that he prepared clean copies and descriptive catalogues of more than  200 rare  manuscripts during his official tenure.

Early Life and Formation in the Pathshala System

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha occupies a singular place in the intellectual history of Kashmir. He was not a polemicist, nor a public-facing academic in the contemporary sense. Rather, he was a custodian ;  one of the final links in an unbroken chain of traditional Sanskrit learning that had flourished in the Kashmir Valley for over a millennium. 

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha was born on 12th June 1921 in Srinagar, into a family of Kashmiri Pandits known for learning and ritual. The surname “Yaksha” itself is associated with traditional Pandit and jyotishi families in the Valley. His education followed the old Gurukula-pathshala model, where a student did not specialise early but trained in multiple shastras under different Gurus. He learnt :

1 He learnt Karmakanda and Vyakarana under Pandit Ramjoo Kokiloo and Pandit Raghunath Kokiloo. Here he mastered ritual practice and Paninian grammar.

2. He learnt Jyotisha under Pandit Keshav Bhatt Jyotshi, the legendary astrologer of Kashmir. From him he learned Panchanga-making, horoscopy and Muhurta.

3. He learnt Advanced Grammar  from Pandit Parshuram Shastri and Pandit Kakaram Shastri of Jammu.

4. He did a Formal Shastri Course at Punjab University, Lahore, where he studied  Nyaya  and Kavya Shastra under Pandit Ananda Kak and Pandit Nathram Shastri.

This gave him competence in what the tradition called Sarvavidya : Vyakarana, Nyaya, Kavya, Karmakanda and Jyotisha. It was this breadth, not just depth in one field, that marked the Kashmiri Pandit of the pre-modern era.

 Institutional Career: 1945–1976 and Beyond

In  1945  he joined the J&K Research and Publication Department as a  Copyist. At the time this department was the main archive for Sharada and Devanagari Sanskrit manuscripts in Kashmir. Over 31 years he rose to Head-Pandit , retiring in 1976. His work was not clerical. Copyists and Head-Pandits were the readers and interpreters of the manuscripts. His responsibilities included:

1. Reading and correcting damaged Sharada manuscripts and preparing clean Devanagari copies.

2. Cataloguing and indexing sections of the library, especially Karmakanda, Jyotisha and Shaiva Agamas.

3. Teaching and consultation for visiting scholars who could not read Sharada script.

 Post-Retirement Research Work

Retirement did not end his work. He served as Research Associate at:

1. University of Kashmir, Centre for Central Asian Studies  cataloguing Sanskrit and Persian manuscripts related to Kashmir’s links with Central Asia, including Buddhist fragments and trade records.

2. Department of Archaeology, J&K  deciphering copper plates and stone inscriptions in Sharada script from sites like Martand and Avantipura.

3. Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan awarded the prestigious Sastrachudamani Fellowship, given only to scholars with mastery over multiple shastras. Under this he worked on collating Nyaya and Kavya texts and preparing critical notes comparing Kashmiri and Banaras recensions.

Texts and Manuscript Work: A Bibliography of His Custodianship

Pandit Yaksha did not author many new books. His contribution was preservation. The texts he worked on directly reflect the five shastras he mastered:

(a) Vyakarana especially , Siddhanta Kaumudi, Laghu Siddhanta Kaumudi, Prakriya Kaumudi, and Ashtadhyayi with Kashmiri tikas.  He also did  Collation and correction of Sharada copies of these texts  for teaching.

(b) Karmakanda and Dharmashastra especially, 

Kashmiri Grihya Sutras, Shraddha Paddhati, Nitya Karma Paddhati, Vrata and Dana Kalpas.  He  copied and indexed ritual manuals specific to Kashmiri Pandit practice. He himself performed these rites.

(c) Jyotisha especially, Kashmiri Panchanga Granthas , Jataka Chandrika, Muhurta Chintamani, and 18th-19th century Sharada astronomical tables.  

 He verified calculations and prepared fair copies for departmental panchangas.

(d) Kashmir Shaivism and Stotra Literature especially,Shiva Sutras with Kshemaraja’s Vimarsini, Spanda Karika, excerpts from Tantraloka, and Stotra Sangraha of Shiva, Devi and Bhairava in Sharada.  He did exemplary work deciphering damaged folios and preparing transcripts.

(e) Nyaya and Kavya especially , Tarka Sangraha, Tarka Bhasha, Kavyaprakasha, and Sahityadarpana.  

  He did comparative studyof these texts  under the Sastrachudamani Fellowship.

(f) Epigraphy and History especially, Copper plate grants, Rajatarangini manuscript variants, and Central Asian Sanskrit fragments at CCAS.

In total, he is credited with preparing clean copies and indexes of over 200 manuscripts during his tenure at the Research Department.

 Scholarly Significance

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha represented three things that are now rare:

1. Manuscript Culture: He was among the last few who could read original Sharada script fluently and without transliteration.

2. Living Tradition: He did not separate scholarship from practice. He could teach grammar, perform rituals, and prepare a panchanga. 

3. Bridge: He translated the oral-commentarial pathshala method into the language of modern research institutions so that university scholars could access the material.

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha’s life was devoted to the quiet, exacting labour of preservation. He did not seek renown. His achievement was to ensure that the manuscripts of Kashmir :  in grammar, ritual, astrology, logic, poetics and Śaiva philosophy  were read, conserved, and rendered accessible to later generations of scholars at the University of Kashmir, the Archaeological Department, and the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan.In that sense he was a bridge between two Kashmirs: the Kashmir of the Sharada manuscript and the Kashmir of the modern university.  

In him we see the meeting of two Kashmirs: the Kashmir of the Sharada manuscript, and the Kashmir of the modern archive. His work reminds us that the continuity of a civilisation often depends less upon grand statements than upon the patient fidelity of individuals to their inherited learning.He reminds us that scholarship is not only about new ideas, but also about the patient work of keeping old knowledge alive 

Following the political upheavals of 1947 and the subsequent migration, the institutional ecosystem that produced such scholars collapsed. Thereafter, specialisation replaced synthesis. Pandit Yaksha therefore stands as the terminus of a long lineage.A memorial tribute noted: “With him ended a tradition of unyielding dedication to Sanskrit’s Shastric systems ;  a legacy that will take nothing less than a herculean effort to revive.”

Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha remains the unsung substratum upon which virtually every genuine work of research on Kashmir’s history, literature and culture  as preserved in Sanskrit and Śāradā manuscripts  , has been constructed. His contribution was not ornamental, but foundational: through decades of exacting labour in the J&K Research and Publication Department, he safeguarded the Valley’s civilisational relics, transcribed them with philological scruple, and thereby ensured the unbroken continuity of a tradition and ethos that might otherwise have perished. He was more than an archivist; he was an interpreter, a living concordance, to whom eminent scholars and students were routinely referred for the correct reading, the authentic recension, and the precise ritual or grammatical context. It is no exaggeration to assert that no serious engagement with Kashmir’s Sanskrit and Śāradā corpus can be undertaken without, sooner or later, encountering the quiet, indispensable imprint of Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha ,  a scholar whose erudition sustained an entire field of study, even as his own name remained, with characteristic humility, in the margins. Dr Ved Kumari Ghai has told me this :-

" It would not have been possible for me to translate Nilamata Purana had not Pandit Dina Nath Yaksha  come to my help . Whatever document  I sought, he was kind enough to provide it. During his life,  he was   the only  living encyclopedia on Sanskrit and Sharda manuscripts of Kashmir . " 

( Avtar Mota )

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ALBERT CAMUS , SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN AND NIRAD C. CHAUDHURI : THREE VOICES CONFRONTING THE CRISIS OF MODERN CIVILISATION

                                                                            

                                                                                  

Camus, Radhakrishnan and Nirad C. Chaudhuri: Three Voices Confronting the Crisis of Modern Civilisation

 The twentieth century produced a profound crisis of human confidence. Two world wars, the violence of totalitarian ideologies, the decline of religious authority in Europe and the rapid transformation of traditional societies created an atmosphere of uncertainty about the meaning of human existence. From three different intellectual landscapes emerged three remarkable voices: Albert Camus from the Mediterranean world of France and Algeria, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan from the philosophical heritage of India, and Nirad C. Chaudhuri from the historical and cultural encounter between India and the West. Though they belonged to different traditions and did not constitute a single intellectual dialogue, their writings reveal a striking convergence: all three were concerned with the loss of spiritual depth in modern civilisation and the urgent need to recover a more authentic understanding of humanity.

 Albert Camus diagnosed the modern condition through the language of the absurd. For him, the tragedy of human existence arose from the confrontation between the human longing for meaning and the silence of the universe. Yet Camus was not a philosopher of despair. His entire intellectual journey was an attempt to discover how human beings could preserve dignity, compassion and moral responsibility in a world where traditional certainties had collapsed. In The Myth of Sisyphus, he rejected both resignation and false consolation, arguing that human beings must live with full awareness of their limitations and mortality. In The Rebel, he developed the idea that authentic rebellion must always remain within moral limits. Human beings may resist injustice, but they must never claim absolute authority over life itself.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan approached the same crisis from the standpoint of Indian philosophical idealism. He regarded modern Western existential anxiety as a genuine expression of humanity's spiritual dislocation. He admired the existentialist emphasis on individual responsibility, freedom and authenticity, but believed that existentialism stopped short of the ultimate truth discovered by the Upanishadic sages. According to Radhakrishnan, the crisis of modern civilisation was fundamentally spiritual because humanity had become separated from the deeper reality of consciousness. The Upanishads, in his interpretation, provide not an escape from the world but a transformation of one's relationship with it. The realisation of the unity of Atman and Brahman restores harmony between the individual and the cosmos.

 In this context, Radhakrishnan offers an important bridge between Camus and Indian thought. He would have recognised in Camus a thinker of immense moral courage, one who refused intellectual dishonesty and confronted suffering without illusion. Yet he would also have argued that Camus remained at the threshold of the spiritual insight that Indian philosophy seeks to reveal. For Radhakrishnan, Camus correctly diagnosed human alienation but did not move beyond it towards the experience of unity and transcendence.

 Nirad C. Chaudhuri represents another dimension of this civilisational conversation. Unlike Radhakrishnan, who approached the modern crisis philosophically, Chaudhuri examined it historically and culturally. His writings reveal a deep concern with the decline of intellectual discipline, historical awareness and cultural confidence in modern societies. In The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian and later works, he reflected upon India's encounter with the West and argued that civilisations survive only when they maintain a living relationship with their past. His admiration for European classical culture was not merely imitation of the West but recognition of traditions that had cultivated intellectual discipline, artistic excellence and moral reflection. Here, Chaudhuri unexpectedly approaches Camus. Both were critics of modern excess. Both distrusted ideological simplifications. Both believed that civilisation required limits, memory and humility. Camus feared that revolutionary ideologies would sacrifice human beings for abstract futures; Chaudhuri feared that societies without historical consciousness would lose their cultural identity. Their languages differed, but their concern was similar: the preservation of human dignity against forces that reduce individuals to instruments of collective ambition.

 The relationship between Camus and Chaudhuri is therefore not one of direct influence but of philosophical parallel. Camus's Mediterranean humanism and Chaudhuri's Indian cosmopolitanism both valued the classical inheritance of civilisation. Both believed that greatness emerges from discipline, proportion and awareness of human limitations. Camus found these values in Greek thought and Mediterranean culture; Chaudhuri discovered them in both Indian and European traditions.

The most fascinating meeting point among these three thinkers appears in their understanding of freedom. For Camus, freedom is the courage to live without metaphysical guarantees while remaining faithful to human solidarity. For Radhakrishnan, freedom is liberation from ignorance through the realisation of the true Self. For Chaudhuri, freedom requires intellectual independence, historical awareness and resistance to cultural shallowness. Though their definitions differ, all three reject a merely external concept of freedom. Freedom is not simply a political choice; it is an inner achievement.

 Their views on suffering also reveal a profound comparative significance. Camus sees suffering as an unavoidable dimension of existence, requiring revolt and compassion. Radhakrishnan interprets suffering through the framework of ignorance and spiritual evolution, where wisdom transforms the experience of pain. Chaudhuri approaches suffering historically, seeing the decline of civilisation itself as a consequence of moral and intellectual failure. Each thinker, therefore, rejects superficial optimism while seeking a deeper response.

 The connection between Camus and the Upanishadic tradition becomes especially meaningful through Radhakrishnan's interpretation. The Upanishads and Camus begin from a shared demand: the refusal of illusion. The Katha Upanishad's Nachiketa rejects worldly pleasures in search of truth; Camus's Sisyphus rejects false hope in favour of conscious acceptance. Nachiketa seeks the mystery beyond death; Sisyphus accepts life in the presence of death. One arrives at the Self beyond mortality; the other affirms dignity within mortality. Yet both represent courage before the ultimate question.

 Thus, Camus, Radhakrishnan and Nirad C. Chaudhuri may be understood as three distinct responses to the same twentieth-century challenge: how can humanity preserve meaning in an age of uncertainty? Camus answers through revolt, solidarity and lucid acceptance. Radhakrishnan answers through spiritual awakening and the recovery of the eternal Self. Chaudhuri answers through historical consciousness and civilisational memory.

 Their voices do not merge into a single philosophy, nor should they. Their strength lies precisely in their differences. Yet together they reveal that the crisis of modern civilisation cannot be addressed merely through politics, economics or technology. It is ultimately a crisis of consciousness. Whether through Camus's revolt, Radhakrishnan's realisation or Chaudhuri's cultural remembrance, the search remains the same: the recovery of a deeper humanity capable of confronting suffering without losing dignity, freedom without losing responsibility, and modernity without losing the wisdom of the past.

( Avtar Mota )

PS

The observations of Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan provide one of the most illuminating intellectual bridges between the philosophy of Albert Camus and the spiritual vision of the Upanishads. Radhakrishnan regarded existentialism not as an error but as an honest and necessary response to the moral and spiritual dislocation of the modern age. He admired its insistence upon freedom, personal responsibility, authenticity and the courage to confront suffering without evasion. Yet he maintained that existentialism, particularly in its atheistic forms, halted at the threshold of truth. It diagnosed the human condition with remarkable acuity but did not proceed to the deeper realisation that the Upanishads describe. In Recovery of Faith, Radhakrishnan observed that "the crisis of our age is essentially spiritual", suggesting that modern humanity has mistaken estrangement from its spiritual centre for the final nature of reality. This insight is especially relevant to Camus. Like the Upanishadic sages, Camus rejected illusion, dogma and second-hand certainties, insisting instead upon lucidity and fidelity to lived experience. However, where the Upanishads interpret the silence encountered in profound contemplation as the ineffable presence of Brahman, Camus interprets the same silence as the indifferent condition of the universe. Radhakrishnan would therefore have recognised in Camus a philosopher of extraordinary moral integrity who courageously exposed the wounds of modern existence, yet who deliberately refrained from taking the final metaphysical step towards transcendence. In this sense, Camus and the Upanishads are not adversaries but fellow travellers for much of the philosophical journey. They begin with the same fearless demand for truth, the same rejection of comforting illusions and the same insistence that authentic life must arise from direct experience. They part company only at the final frontier: the Upanishads discern an eternal spiritual reality beyond existential anguish, whereas Camus chooses to remain within the limits of human experience, affirming dignity, compassion and revolt without recourse to metaphysical certainty. It is precisely this convergence, followed by this decisive divergence, that makes the dialogue between Camus and the Upanishadic tradition one of the most fruitful encounters in comparative philosophy.

 

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ALBERT CAMUS : FROM GRENIER TO DOSTOEVSKY TO BHAGAVAD GITA

                                        

FROM GRENIER TO DOSTOEVSKY TO BHAGAVAD GITA

Albert Camus came to Dostoevsky through Jean Grenier, his teacher and mentor in Algiers. It was Grenier who first pressed the Russian master into Camus’s hands, not as literature, but as a mirror. In doing so he set a young philosopher on a road that led straight into the centre of moral crisis. Dostoevsky did not write about ideas. He wrote about men being devoured by them. Raskolnikov murders with a theory. Ivan Karamazov argues God out of existence and then collapses under the weight of it. The Underground Man thinks himself into paralysis. Grenier saw that Camus was fighting the same war, and he gave him the fiercest witness to it.Jean Grenier taught philosophy at the University  of Algiers from 1933–1936. However he had met Jean Grenier at the Grand  Lycee d' Alger  when he was  17-year-old boy. 

Yet Dostoevsky was not inventing this crisis. He was translating it, in Russian and in blood, from a text written two and a half thousand years earlier. On the field of Kurukshetra, Sri Krishna speaks to Arjuna at the exact moment when thought has made action impossible. “You have a right to action, not to the fruits of action.” It is a command to move, even when the mind is torn, even when the outcome is unknown. Dostoevsky gives the same command in a different tongue through Father Zosima: “Love all of God’s creation, the whole and every grain of sand in it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light.”Both reject the seduction of endless analysis. Both demand that we step out of the head and into the world.

The agreement between them is deeper than morality. It is metaphysical. The Gita declares, “The soul is neither born, nor does it die… it is eternal.”Dostoevsky insists, “I am convinced that there are no accidental meetings of people. We are brought together only to do what we have to do.” Both treat suffering not as punishment but as purification. Both distinguish between jnana ; knowledge that puffs up  and vijnana, wisdom that is lived. Intellect alone, they warn, leads to Ivan’s “everything is permitted.” Only duty, bound to love, leads back to life.

Camus inherited that line and carried it into the 20th century. He found no God in the heavens and no meaning handed down. He found instead the absurd: a world that does not answer us. And yet he did not surrender to it. In The Myth of Sisyphus, he writes, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” It is Karma without metaphysics. It is the Gita’s teaching stripped to its bone: the hill is pointless, the stone will fall, but you rise and push it anyway. Not for reward. Not for applause. But because to refuse is to die inside.

From Grenier to Dostoevsky to the Bhagavad Gita, the thread does not break. A teacher gives a book. A novelist exposes the wound. An ancient scripture gives the cure. Reason alone destroys. Doubt alone suffocates. Only action, rooted in duty and love, sets you free. The question has not changed in 2,500 years. Only the names have. 

Algiers itself was Camus’s other teacher. At the University of Algiers from 1933 to 1936, Grenier was his anchor, but Camus also studied with classicists like Jean Hytier and Jacques Heurgon, and earned his degree writing on Greek thought and Christian metaphysics. Beyond the lecture halls was the École d’Alger : Fouchet, Audisio, Amrouche, Robles ,  writers who argued with him, staged his plays, and sharpened his sense of the Mediterranean as a philosophy. His first teacher, Louis Germain, had given him the scholarship that got him there. So Camus did not come to Dostoevsky cold. He came with Greek tragedy in his head, Russian despair in his hands, and Algerian sunlight in his body.

(Avtar Mota)

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INDIAN MUSIC HAS ACHIEVED UNIVERSALITY : BOLLYWOOD SONG:" BALMA "

                                       

INDIAN  MUSIC  HAS  ACHIEVED UNIVERSALITY : BOLLYWOOD SONG:" BALMA " 

"Tera rasta dekh rahi huun

Sigadi pe dil sek rahi huun

Aa pardesi moray  balma.."

Written by Sameer , sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Sreerama Chandra, with music composed by Himesh Reshammiya, this song has turned  popular with youth across  continents. I saw many American youth  dancing to  the beats of its foot tapping music. The reason looks  both logical and cultural: Indian composers have always felt the universal pulse. They build songs around 95-110 BPM, open with an instant dhol-tumbi hook, and use repetitive, playful vocals that anyone can mimic in 15 seconds :  no translation needed. Balma works because it was engineered for movement, the same way Indian musicians have for decades composed for weddings, films, and festivals where 100 strangers must dance as one. Legends like R.D. Burman, Ilaiyaraaja, A.R. Rahman, and today’s folk-pop producers understood that rhythm is a language older than words, and joy is the most exportable emotion. That’s why  Balma  jumped from Desi creators to TikTok trends in New York, Algiers, Seoul ,London and  Lagos, and  it gives the world what it’s craving  for : real energy, real percussion, and collective celebration. Indian musicians didn’t chase a global trend. They created music so rooted and so human that the world had to come to it.

( Avtar Mota )

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THE MESSAGE OF BHAGAVAD GITA CAME TO CAMUS VIA ROMAIN ROLLAND

                                      

THE MESSAGE OF  BHAGAVAD GITA CAME TO CAMUS VIA ROMAIN ROLLAND 

Romain Rolland (1866–1944) was a prominent French author, pacifist, and one of the first major Western thinkers to popularise Eastern spirituality in the early 20th century. His connection to the Bhagavad  Gita stems from his deep interest in Indian philosophy and his friendships with iconic spiritual leaders. Romain Rolland was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1915. Rolland was 49 at the time.  This is also the same period when he was studying Indian philosophy, yoga, and Gandhi — which later led him to write  Vie de Vivekananda 1929 and bring the Gita to France. 

Romain Rolland’s reading of the Bhagavad Gita  was a great inspiration on Albert Camus. Camus grew up in Algeria reading Rolland  especially Jean-Christophe and  La Vie de Vivekananda at a time when Rolland had made the Gita known to the French public as “the Gospel of Action.” For Rolland, the Gītā’s teaching of niṣkāma karma  to act without attachment to results  was the moral answer to war and ideology. That same ethic reappears in Camus: the demand to revolt, to act with lucidity, and to refuse both despair and illusions of historical victory. When Rolland died in 1944, Camus wrote in  Combat that he had taught a generation “to refuse to hate without ceasing to fight.” In this sense, Rolland was the bridge: he brought the Gita to France, and Camus carried its spirit into the literature of the absurd and the rebel.

( Avtar Mota )

Key sources 

1.  Romain Rolland, La Vie de Vivekananda (1929), Gallimard

2.  Albert Camus,  Carnets I (1935-1942)  on reading Rolland as a youth

3.  Albert Camus, Combat, 31 Dec 1944 , Obituary for Romain Rolland

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LACK OF EMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS

                                               

LACK OF EMPATHY AND SELFISHNESS 

A human relationship is not sustained by logic alone. It is sustained by recognition: the daily, quiet act of seeing another person as fully real. That is empathy. Without it, cohabitation becomes negotiation, and love becomes administration. You cannot live with a person who lacks empathy, because you end up living alone inside a shared life.  

And this applies to individuals and groups equally. A marriage, a friendship, a workplace ; and wherever humans gather, the same law holds.

Philosophically, this has been argued for centuries. Adam Smith, in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments",  called sympathy “the foundation of justice.” He meant our capacity to place ourselves in another’s situation. When that capacity is absent, moral reciprocity collapses. One party demands to be understood but refuses to understand. One party expects care but withholds it. That asymmetry is not difference. It is exploitation.

Contemporary psychology confirms the link. Low empathy correlates strongly with narcissistic traits, instrumental relationships, and moral disengagement. Empathy is what inhibits us from using people as tools. Without it, the other is reduced to function: provider, audience, problem-solver. Martin Buber called this the “I–It” relation. You do not meet the person. You use the role. To live like that long-term is a form of social death. At scale, this is how groups justify cruelty — by refusing to imagine the life on the other side.

This is why lack of empathy is the second name of selfishness. Selfishness is not only taking more than your share. It is the prior decision that only your interiority counts. The empathic person asks, “What is this like for you?” The unempathic person asks only, “What is this like for me?” Pain, fatigue, grief ;  all are filtered and dismissed if they do not touch the self. The cost is then externalized. You carry the emotional labour, the repair, the translation.

Scholars debate whether empathy can be biased or exhausting, and whether “compassion” is a better guide. But even that debate concedes the point: a life without any orientation to the other is not sustainable, whether that life is one person or one million.

Regret is what follows. The regret of speaking into a void. The regret of realising you were not in a relationship, but in a transaction where only one side kept accounts.  

( Avtar Mota )

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BOOK REVIEW : "KASHMIR : ITS ABORGINES AND THEIR EXODUS "BY COLONEL TEJ K. TIKOO

                                                                        

BOOK REVIEW

Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus ( Revised Edition )

Author: Colonel Tej K. Tikoo, PhD.

Publisher: Lancer Publishers & Distributors, New Delhi

Pages: 526

 

A Monumental Study of Kashmir's Civilisational Legacy and Historical Tragedy

Colonel Tej K Tikoo's ‘Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus ( Revised Edition )’ is a monumental and meticulously researched work that occupies an important place in contemporary scholarship on Kashmir. At a time when historical narratives concerning Kashmir are frequently shaped by ideological predispositions, political expediency and selective memory, this substantial volume seeks to present a comprehensive historical account of Kashmir and its indigenous inhabitants through the prism of extensive documentation, historical analysis and lived experience. The book is not merely a chronicle of events; it is simultaneously a work of history, political analysis, cultural documentation and collective remembrance. More significantly, it constitutes a serious attempt to preserve the memory of a community whose historical experience has often remained inadequately represented in mainstream discourse.

The first impression that the volume creates is one of extraordinary breadth and ambition. Spanning over five hundred pages, the book traverses an expansive historical landscape extending from geological antiquity and mythological traditions to the contemporary political crisis in Kashmir. Colonel Tikoo demonstrates an impressive command over a wide array of sources, including classical texts, archaeological evidence, historical chronicles, official documents, government reports, journalistic accounts and personal testimonies. The extensive use of documentary material lends considerable authority and credibility to the narrative. The author's scholarship is both deep and wide-ranging, reflecting years of painstaking study and sustained intellectual engagement with the subject.

Colonel Tikoo’s thematic concerns give the work its scholarly weight. First, the very title,' Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus (Revised Edition )’ is a deliberate claim. By opening with Natya Shastra, Sangitaratnakara, and Yoga Vasisht, he situates Pandits not as mediaeval migrants but as bearers of Kashmir’s classical foundations. This reframes the exodus from a 1990s law-and-order problem to a civilisational dislocation. Second, the book is an exercise in historiographical balance. Colonel Tikoo’s stated hope is to “set the record straight”. He does not demand that other narratives be silenced, but that Pandit experience be documented with equal rigour. The extensive use of Persian chronicles and modern Muslim historians demonstrates engagement, not negation. Third, by consulting a disaster-management authority, Tikoo moves the exodus out of pure identity politics and into the comparative study of forced migration. Chapter 18 of this book reads like a policy brief, discussing rehabilitation in terms of safety, livelihood, and dignity. This is a major scholarly contribution. Fourth, the book functions as an archive. It is conceived as “a record for future generations of uprooted Pandits… now spread in far corners of the world”.  A distinctive feature of this work is the manner in which the author organises his narrative into nineteen carefully structured chapters, each addressing a specific historical or political theme while contributing to the larger conceptual framework of the book. Together, these chapters create a coherent and compelling account of Kashmir's civilisational journey.

The opening chapter, Ancient Kashmir: A Brief Historical Sketch, introduces readers to Kashmir's antiquity by synthesising mythology, geology, archaeology and classical historiography. Colonel Tikoo discusses the legend of Satisar, the draining of the primordial lake, the role of Kashyapa, the Naga traditions and the emergence of early civilisation in Kashmir. He proceeds to examine the rise and decline of various dynasties, including the Gonandas, Karkotas, Utpalas and Loharas, while presenting illuminating portraits of rulers such as Ashoka, Lalitaditya Muktapida, Avantivarman and Queen Didda. These pages succeed in restoring before the reader the image of Kashmir as a flourishing centre of learning, spirituality and artistic excellence.

The subsequent chapters dealing with the transition to Islam and the medieval period are equally significant. Colonel Tikoo analyses the decline of indigenous political authority, the establishment of Muslim rule and the profound social and demographic transformations that accompanied these developments. He discusses both accommodation and conflict, thereby situating religious change within broader historical processes. The chapters on the Mughal, Afghan, Sikh and Dogra periods further enrich the narrative by examining successive political regimes and their impact upon Kashmiri society. Rather than reducing history to simplistic binaries, the author endeavours to present a nuanced assessment of each period, highlighting both achievements and limitations.

Equally noteworthy is the chapter devoted to geography, communications and demography. Here the author convincingly demonstrates how Kashmir's unique topography, strategic location and physical isolation shaped its historical destiny. The relationship between geography and politics emerges as a recurring theme throughout the book, and the author's treatment of this subject considerably enhances the reader's understanding of the Valley's historical evolution. The chapter on the Kashmiri Pandits is among the most valuable sections of the book. Colonel Tikoo provides a detailed account of the origins, traditions, social organisation and intellectual contributions of this community. He traces their role in philosophy, literature, administration and scholarship across centuries, thereby underscoring their integral place within Kashmir's civilisational fabric. This chapter assumes particular importance because it restores historical visibility to a community whose contribution to Kashmir's cultural heritage has often been overlooked.

Particularly stimulating is the author's treatment of Kashmiriyat. The concept has frequently been invoked in political and cultural discourse, often without adequate historical scrutiny. Colonel Tikoo subjects the idea to careful analysis, tracing its roots in the Rishi-Sufi tradition associated with figures such as Lal Ded and Nund Rishi, while simultaneously examining its limitations and contradictions. The discussion is thoughtful, analytical and intellectually engaging, inviting readers to reflect critically upon one of the most celebrated yet contested ideas associated with Kashmir.

The political narrative gathers momentum in the chapters dealing with twentieth-century developments. The author's reconstruction of events between 1931 and 1947 is particularly impressive. He carefully analyses the emergence of political movements, communal tensions, constitutional developments and the circumstances that transformed Kashmir into an international dispute. The complexity of these developments is explained with admirable clarity and precision. The author's command over modern political history is evident throughout these chapters. The discussion on Article 370 constitutes another major contribution of the volume. Colonel Tikoo examines the historical origins, constitutional implications and political consequences of this provision in considerable detail. Whether or not readers agree with all his conclusions, there can be little doubt regarding the seriousness of his scholarship and the logical coherence of his arguments. The chapter raises important questions concerning integration, autonomy and federalism, thereby making a significant contribution to contemporary debates on constitutional politics.

The chapters titled An Uneasy Truce, Gathering Storm and Pakistan's Obsession with and Intervention in Kashmir collectively explain the gradual deterioration of the political situation in Kashmir during the latter half of the twentieth century. Colonel Tikoo analyses political instability, administrative shortcomings, separatist mobilisation, external interference and cross-border terrorism with considerable analytical sophistication. The discussion is supported by extensive documentary evidence and demonstrates the author's ability to link contemporary developments with their historical antecedents.

The emotional core of the book lies in the chapters dealing with the targeting, killings and eventual exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. In Pandits Targeted, Militants Shed Kashmiri Pandit Blood and Exodus, Colonel Tikoo documents, often in painstaking detail, the circumstances that compelled the community to leave the Valley in 1989–90. These chapters derive their power not merely from documentary evidence but also from the author's personal experience as a member of the displaced community. The narrative is deeply moving without descending into rhetorical excess. Instead, facts, testimonies and documentation speak for themselves, creating a profoundly disturbing yet indispensable historical record. The subsequent chapters dealing with myths surrounding the exodus, the aftermath of displacement and questions relating to return and rehabilitation are equally important. Colonel Tikoo critically examines competing narratives and seeks to challenge what he regards as misconceptions concerning the exodus. He discusses refugee life, loss of property, cultural dislocation, psychological trauma and the continuing challenges associated with rehabilitation. These chapters transform the book from a mere historical account into an important work on memory, identity and displacement.

The final chapter, appropriately titled Critical Issues, synthesises the principal concerns raised throughout the volume and reflects upon the future of Kashmir. Questions relating to identity, justice, reconciliation and peaceful coexistence receive sustained attention. In doing so, the author moves beyond historical narration to engage with pressing contemporary concerns.

 From a stylistic perspective, Colonel Tikoo deserves high praise. He writes with clarity, precision and remarkable economy of expression. Complex historical and political issues are presented in language that remains accessible without sacrificing scholarly seriousness. The prose is lucid, disciplined and free from unnecessary ornamentation. The author's military background perhaps explains the methodical organisation and systematic presentation evident throughout the book. Equally commendable is the author's analytical approach. Historical events are not merely narrated; they are interpreted, contextualised and critically examined. The narrative displays considerable conceptual clarity, enabling readers to appreciate the intricate interplay of history, religion, politics and geopolitics in shaping Kashmir's destiny. The logical sequencing of arguments and thematic organisation of chapters further enhance the book's readability and scholarly value.The appendices and documentary material included in the volume significantly augment its academic worth. Lists, statistical data, official documents, chronologies and other supporting material transform the book into an invaluable reference source for future researchers. Historians, political scientists, sociologists and scholars of migration studies will find these materials particularly useful.

 In conclusion, ‘Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus Revised Edition’ succeeds as history, memoir, and policy document. Colonel Tej K. Tikoo brings to bear a soldier’s discipline, a scholar’s apparatus, and an exile’s memory. His style is precise, grave, and humane. His structure is encyclopaedic yet narrative. His central issue, the erasure of a community’s story, is addressed with evidence and restraint. For students of South Asian history, the book is indispensable for its integration of cultural history with conflict analysis. For policymakers, Chapter 18 offers a template for thinking about return that goes beyond slogans. For the Pandit diaspora, it is, as Tikoo hoped, “a record”: a book to hand to children who have never seen the Chinar trees their grandparents left behind. In British academic parlance, this is a significant contribution to the field. It does not close the debate on Kashmir. It ensures the debate is no longer conducted with one voice absent. The author’s narration maintains a commendable objectivity despite the deeply personal stakes, anchoring every contention in primary sources and archival detail rather than sentiment, whilst his conceptual clarity, whether tracing civilisational lineages or framing displacement as a policy crisis, gives the work both intellectual rigour and moral weight. The book expands the evidentiary field of Kashmir studies and contributes meaningfully to ongoing debates on history, memory, and contested political narratives in the region. For its rare blend of evidentiary discipline, humane tone, and analytical coherence, 'Kashmir: Its Aborigines and Their Exodus (Revised Edition)’ is recommended wholeheartedly to scholars, policymakers, and general readers alike.

 

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.

MY SHORT STORY :" WAITING TO BE TAKEN"

                                          


                                                

Waiting To Be Taken

Old Jonathan  had been fed up with his room. One window onto an air shaft, a radiator that performed its clanging monologue at 3 AM, and silence that refused to answer back. So on Tuesday, trash day on West 82nd (Manhattan ) he became his own discard.

He walked to West End and 82nd and leaned against a credenza with brass handles, like a prop waiting for stage directions. Around him: a chair with a dog’s autobiography chewed into the leg, a Breville that hissed philosophy instead of coffee, a dog in a tuxedo trapped in gilt. 

No sign. Signs were for objects that didn’t know they were in a play. Jonathan knew. 

His premise was simple, and therefore absurd: you put things on the curb, humans arrive, humans assign meaning by taking. Maybe for one day he’d be selected. Maybe for one day the universe would blink. 

It wouldn’t. He knew that too. That was the contract.

By 8:30 AM, a woman with a French bulldog liberated the dog portrait. Jonathan watched the transaction and thought: So this is how value works. Someone points and says ‘this.’The sky, as expected, offered no footnotes.

At 10:15, a man in a beanie used Jonathan’s shoulder as leverage to lift the espresso machine. Jonathan didn’t flinch. I am furniture now, he thought. I am also the audience. The man didn’t thank him. The universe didn’t thank the man. The circuit was open, buzzing with nothing.

Noon: the chair went. The Franzen novels went. A single Le Creuset lid was adopted with more ceremony than Jonathan had received at his wedding. Each object was plucked from meaninglessness by a hand, then carried into another room where it would wait to become meaningless again. 

Jonathan understood. He was Sisyphus, but the boulder was himself. He was Meursault, but the sun was a street lamp. He was on the curb because the alternative was his room, which was the same play with worse lighting.

At 5:10, the DSNY truck arrived. Two men in orange vests fed the credenza to the hopper. Jonathan stepped aside. To be compacted would be too literal. One of the men looked at him. “You alright, pops? Can’t put people out. That’s not a thing.” Jonathan smiled. “I know,” he said. “That’s the thing.” The truck left. The curb was empty. The world was empty. The play went on, because plays do. Jonathan was alone now. Just him and the street lamp on West End Avenue( Manhattan ), humming its sodium note. He looked up at it. It did not look back. Of course it didn’t. So he gave it his monologue.

“You see? You’re on every night. No one chooses you either. You don’t get carried home. You don’t get a new room. You just stand here and throw light at things that leave. And still, you turn on.” 

He paused. The lamp buzzed. The 1 train groaned underground. The city declined to comment.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Jonathan said. “The whole trick. You don’t wait for the taking. You don’t beg the hand. You just be the thing that shows up. Even if no one claps. Even if the only review is the dark.”

He laughed then. A short, private sound. Not bitter. Not happy. Just lucid. He buttoned his wool coat. “I’ll see you Thursday,” he told the lamp. “Recycling. Maybe they take glass. Maybe they don’t. I’ll be here either way.”

He walked back to his room. The radiator would be waiting. The silence would be waiting. He would be waiting.

( Avtar Mota)

PS

Critique of the story

Avtar Mota’s “Waiting To Be Taken ” is a sharp, compact exercise in literary absurdism. The premise : an old man discarding himself on trash day risks twee symbolism, but the execution stays grounded through concrete, Upper West Side detail. The Breville, the Franzen novels, the Le Creuset lid: each object plucked from the curb makes Jonathan ’s invisibility more acute, and more human.

The story’s structure mimics a day’s futility with timestamps that feel like stage directions, reinforcing Jonathan’s sense that he’s both prop and audience. His self-awareness prevents him from becoming pitiable. When he thinks “I am furniture now”and “I am also the audience,” the story pivots from despair to lucid revolt. That’s the Camusian turn made flesh.

The street lamp monologue is the piece’s hinge. By addressing something equally unchosen, Jonathan reframes value: “You just be the thing that shows up.” It’s not hope, but defiance without illusion. The prose is lean, wry, and avoids sentiment. The universe stays indifferent; Jonathan chooses anyway.

At under 600 words, the story doesn’t waste a beat. If anything, the DSNY exchange could be trimmed further to keep the focus on Jonathan’s interior logic. But that’s minor. This is absurdism with a New York accent : precise, unsentimental, and quietly triumphant.

(J. Paul )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.

Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.