Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits By Rahul Pandita

“I will come again. I promise there will come a time when I will return permanently.”…Such were the

promises made by the Kashmiri Pandits when they left their homes to escape the wraths unleashed upon them by the Islamists. Little did they know that they were leaving, forever.

Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits unravels the unspoken chapter in the history of Kashmir which was written with the blood of Kashmiri Pandits. Rahul Pandita, the author of this powerful book, a journalist and presently an associate editor with Open magazine, was only fourteen when his father held his hand and left their ancestral home to live in exile. He still remembers the day when his mother held a knife and said, “I will kill her (Rahul’s sister) and then myself”, lest they attack upon them. This memoir is an effort to bring to the forefront the heart wrenching, nerve shaking episode of the brutality faced by the Kashmiri Pandits since 1947. You will be appalled as you read along and slowly get to know the reason behind the (permanent) exodus. Kashmir was purged of the Pandits in a call for ‘Azadi’ from India by the Muslims, backed by the Islamist militants, to make the state free of kafirs-infidels. Hundreds of Pandits were tortured, killed, raped, burnt alive and about 3, 50,000 Kashmiri Pandits were forced out of their homes to spend the rest of their lives as a refugee in their own country. Such painful ordeal is never before heard of! How gruesome it was!

Even after more than two decades since their exodus in 1990, they have not been able to return home. The book tells you how till today the victims of the conflicts are suffering-living in refugee camps, suffering from permanent neurological diseases due to trauma, no food, no money, no relief, people dying almost every day, insults to pride, insults to dignity. The damage is permanent. The government’s promises and propositions to resettle them and give them a better life are nothing but futile promises. Forget about a better life, they have not even been given a proper shelter- proper and adequate water supply, food, electricity supply, education, jobs, security, healthcare are farfetched questions. This book is an effort to bring to the world’s notice the tragic plight of the Kashmiri Pandits with a hope that someday that fourteen year old will be able to return home, permanently.

Our Moon Has Blood Clots is a masterpiece. It is written in a simple and fluent way. The impressive comparisons and the personifications bring the book to life. The construction of the sentences, with each word adding to the beauty of it, is so powerful that you are sure to live the book as you read along. You will share with them the merriment of Shivratri and also cry with them on their misery.  Our Moon Has Blood Clots is sure to

 strike a chord in your heart. When you finish reading you are bound to think it in your heart,”Let us join together and do something so that the efforts of Rahul Pandita does not go in vain, so that they get their lives of prosperity back, so that they get their respect and dignity back, so that they get back to ‘Shahar- a city that is home’”.

It is a must-read!