I and my son visited our native land Kashmir this July, 2009. It was a trip both of self discovery and nostalgia. As we landed at the srinagar international airport, my friend and schoolmate, Rashid Lone was there to receive us. Even though I was seeing him afgter a long period of 32 years, I could recognize him in the crowd of faces outside the Arrival Lounge. He was as quick as I to notice me. and My eyes moistened as I hugged him tight. He drove us home from the airport. It was indeed a trip down memory lane to drive through the streets of Kashmir, particul;arly to see the unripe walnuts hanging from the walnut tree. I remembered the time when as a child we would wake up early in the morning to pick the walnut that would fall at night due to a strong breeze. Rashid plucked some walnuts and knifed the soft and as yet tender kernels from within them. My son, Rishab liked them mightily and so did I. We drove straight from his place to Hotel Meridien. It is a very daintily maintained hotel, with beautifully manicured lawns and blooming flowers. We made ourselves comfortable in the room on the ground floor. As we had tea and snacks, we talked about the situation in Kashmir. The hotel staff boy who attended on us took keen interest in what we talked and agreed passionately with what we spoke about how some people had misused and misinterpreted religion to drive a wedge between one brother and another and how all Kashmiris were of one stock and that divisive politics always feasdted on creation of difference to find a foothold for its survival. Everyone who I met that day in the hotel was warm and full of joy upon seeing a Kashmiri pundit come to re-connect to his native land. That night I realized that Kashmir had changed far beyond what the media reported about it. The days of militancy and support for it were all a thing of the past and the days of Peace are here to grow and stay on if only the governments at the state and the national level know how to touch the hearts of the masses.
