Autumn Leaves: Kashmiri Reminiscences Is the Autobiography of Ram Nath Kak
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Cover Photo by Rupinder Khullar PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences AAuuttuummnn LLeeaavveess Kashmiri Reminiscences Ram Nath Kak Kashmir has a unique tradition of recording history. This book, in this tradition, presents the intimate life of a Kashmiri in the post-independence era. Such a personal story is a rarity in India. Ram Nath Kak draws compelling vignettes of everyday life; a hard childhood, life as a government official, drama of the war with Pakistan, meetings with mystics, and so on. The book presents perspectives on Kashmiri society and politics that are helpful in understanding the rise of the recent insurgency there. ii KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)). PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences AAuuttuummnn LLeeaavveess Kashmiri Reminiscences Ram Nath Kak RAM NATH KAK, who passed away in Honolulu in 1993, was a veterinarian, a scholar and a teacher. He was influential in shaping the attitudes of many young people in Kashmir and in Delhi. First Edition, September 2002 KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)) iii PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences Contents page Contents......................................................................................................................................v 1 Preface.............................................................................................................................1-2 2 Foreword..........................................................................................................................2-3 3 Part I – Growing Up.........................................................................................................3-4 4 Part II – Householder.....................................................................................................4-22 5 PART III – More Travels...............................................................................................5-43 6 Part IV - Reflections.......................................................................................................6-55 7 Family Pictures..............................................................................................................7-60 8 Comments from Critics..................................................................................................8-63 KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)) v PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences vi KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)) PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences 1 Preface The pages that follow were written by my father in Baton Rouge, in the fall of 1985 and eight years later again during April and May; some more sections were written in Honolulu, Hawaii. Before he could give the book a final shape, my father passed away suddenly in Honolulu in July 1993. I have edited his notes and used other materials such as his letters. In Kashmir, autumn leaves are used to make embers for kangris. These are the autumn leaves from one Kashmiri life. This sweep has not captured all, but the golden leaves do carry impressions of many storms, lightning and the balmy warmth of the sun. Subhash Kak Editor 1-2 KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)) PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences 2 Foreword It gives me great pleasure to say a few words about this remarkable autobiography created by a very distinguished scientist and humanist, Shri Ram Nath Kak, who has lived through some of the most momentous events in the history of Kashmir, no less than in the history of India, in the twentieth century. As I read through this manuscript, a question gradually took shape in my mind: how do we locate memoirs and autobiographies within creative literature as a whole? I am not a literary critic and therefore, I can offer no formal answer to this question. Yet I have no doubt that memoirs, if sensitively created, rate very high in the scale of creative writing. For this mode of literary creation not only provides a glimpse of the inner psyche of the person, it also portrays the 'context', or the 'times', in which an individual pursues his life. Shri Kak's memoir meets all the requirements of a truly distinguished autobiographical piece. It has the additional advantage of having been penned with a poignant sensitivity that captures and constructs the past - no less than the viewpoint of the participant observer - with a faithfulness of extraordinary quality. Autumn Leaves, as Shri Kak calls his reminiscences, portray with rare elegance the culture of Kashmir and the manner in which sensitive minds located in this beautiful valley interacted over the centuries with creative men in India, on the one hand, and Central Asia, on the other. In the course of this portrayal the composite character of popular religion in Kashmir is sketched with rare grace and understanding. Against the backdrop of a remarkably integrated culture, Shri Kak delineates his life as a growing child in a Pandit household, characterized by intensely close bonding between generations, no less than within generations. Through such a portrayal, he captures the strength of the family as the basic unit of Kashmiri society, which gives great resilience to the individual, no less than to the wider community. The core of Autumn Leaves is concemed with the professional career of Shri Kak as a distinguished scientist, on the one hand; and the love and affection with which he nurtured his family, in close interaction with the larger kinship community, on the other. This part of the memoir spells out a remarkable success story so far as the Kak household is concemed; but even more telling than material success is the affection and concern which tie different members of the family to each other. In the concluding sections of the memoir, Shri Kak dwells upon the exterior world in which his life work was located as a Kashmiri and a citizen of India. We see through his eyes the growing politicization of Kashmir prior to 1947; as we also perceive the tragic handling of politics in the state by the Delhi authorities after it had been drawn into the Indian Union. There is much here that would be of interest to those who are reflecting on the Kashmir problem today as well as to those who are responsible for fashioning the destiny of Kashmir. I trust this autobiography will get the wide circulation it so richly deserves. For it conveys in a way no formal work of scholarship can convey, both the cultural quality of Kashmir and the tragedy which has overtaken it of late. Yet the spirit of the Kashmiri people and their extraordinary ability to refashion lives of dignity and creativity for themselves comes across even more powerfully than the tragedy which has overtaken this beautiful valley in Shri Kak's account of his life and times. RAVINDER KUMAR Teen Murti House New Delhi KASHMIR NEWS NETWORK (KNN)) 2-3 PDF created with FinePrint pdfFactory Pro trial version www.pdffactory.com Autumn Leaves – Kashmiri Reminiscences 3 Part I – Growing Up I have nothing at all, and endless is my wealth. --- Shankara I came straight and straight I shall return. Who can bend me out of my shape? --- Lalla In my beginning is my end. --- T.S. Eliot Section 1 The allure and beauty of Kashmir is a mixed blessing, bringing our land considerable fame but also adventurers and pillagers. Over centuries, people learnt to cope with the plunder of the nomad from the north and the west. Then there were the cycles of flood and famine. Inspired perhaps by this terrible beauty, Kashmir bacame a great centre of philosophy, literature, painting, dance and the other arts. While it was often the first to suffer the devastation by the conquerors who cherished the riches of India; it was also the springboard for the missionaries and scholars who set out to spread Sanskritic culture and learning to Central Asia, Tibet and China. Mahayana Buddhism went north and east from here. For about fifteen hundred years until around 1200, Kashmir was one of the great centres of learning in the world. The period of the most brilliant flowering of Kashmiri culture was during the time of Abhinavagupta, the philosopher and critic, who lived about nine hundred years ago. This was also the period when Shaiva philosophy of Kashmir attained its zenith. But this was also a period of great political turmoil. Kashmir got caught in the vortex of forces let loose by the Mongolian empire of Changez Khan and his successors. Powerful feudal lords, displaced from their principalities in Central Asia, took refuge in Kashmir. The Kashmiri political system was not mature enough to deal with these forces. At the height of its glory, Kashmiri culture suffered violent political defeat. The centuries that followed were full of tribulations. The Turks and the Persians who became the new political masters had no sympathy for the old Kashmiri heritage. The subtle insights of the philosophers and sages were preserved for the common man in the mystical poetry of Lalla and her successors. For my ancestors the struggle was just to preserve the old; there was no time to build afresh. It was in one such family