Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits by Rahul Pandita Page B

in my ear, as if my cochlea has burst. One of them must have then picked up a stone and thrown it at Razdan’s house. The sound of glass breaking tears through the freezing air. Pigeons take flight. A pack of dogs begins to bark .
    ‘Haya kyoho goy,’ says one of them, ‘you have incurred losses upon Akram. Now he will have to replace this windowpane .’
    ‘ At least go inside and piss; like a dog you need to mark your territory .’
    And then they leave. Their voices grow distant till they completely fade away. Silence prevails again except for the staccato barking of mongrels and the cooing of pigeons that are returning to the attic .
    ‘It’s over,’ Father said. ‘We cannot live here anymore.’
    Ma went to the storeroom and fetched a few candles that she always kept handy. In candlelight, she made turmeric rice. There was neither will nor appetite for an elaborate dinner. We ate silently, and quite early. I was so stressed that my stomach was in knots. Satish was feeling cold and Father told him to take one of his sweaters from our huge wooden wardrobe. I went with him. While he looked for the sweater, he nervously took a crumpled cigarette from his trouser pocket, lit it, and pulled so deep that the cigarette finished in three or four drags. After he left the room, I picked up the cigarette butt and lit it again till the filter burnt. I was nervous and thought a few puffs would calm me down.
    Father told us we would have to leave early the next morning. That night we couldn’t sleep. We just lay beneath our quilts and Ma kept her torch beside her as usual. Father spoke to Satish in hushed tones. In the middle of the night we heard a thud as if someone had jumped from the boundary wall into our compound. It turned out to be a false alarm—a pigeon had pushed a loose brick from the attic on to the ground.
    Early in the morning, it had begun to snow. There was snow already on the roads and some of it had turned into slush. Father said he would first venture out and see if it was safe for us to leave. I held his hand and both of us came out onto the street. Father closed the gate very softly behind us. Suddenly, a bearded man wearing a thick jacket appeared on the other side of the street. His pockets were bulging. His eyes fell on us and Father fumbled. His grip on my hand tightened and we turned back. Father pretended as if he had forgotten something inside the house. We hurried in, with Father locking every door behind him.
    After a while, we came out again. At the main gate, painted blue, Father saw a piece of paper that had been stuck onto it. It was a hit list. Written in Urdu, with ‘JKLF’ across the top, it warned the Pandits to leave the Valley immediately. A list of about ten people followed—the list of people who the JKLF said would be killed.
    I read some of the names. Some of them were of our neighbours. ‘We must tell Kaul sa’eb about it,’ Father said. Together, we almost ran to his house.
    ‘I hope nobody sees us,’ Father muttered.
    The previous evening, we had seen our neighbour, Mr Kaul, at the bus stop. Father and he had got talking and Mr Kaul had said he was going to stay put.
    ‘Pandita sa’eb, you don’t worry. The army has come now, and it will all be over in a couple of months,’ he had said.
    At the Kaul residence the first thing I noticed was that the evergreen shrubs that had not been tended for weeks now. The main gate was open and we entered. We found the main door locked.
    ‘Maybe they are inside,’ Father said. Very hesitantly, he called out Kaul sa’eb’s name. There was no response. The Kauls had left already. We hurriedly turned back. Satish and my mother were waiting. Ma had packed whatever she could. And we left immediately.
    At the blue gate, Father stopped and turned back. He looked at the house. Looking back, there was a sense of finality in his gaze. There were tears in his eyes. Ma was calm. Satish stood next to me. Nobody uttered a word. Before we