House in Jammu, Home in Kashmir

I went to Jammu this early winter. Not as a visitor. Not as a traveller. But as someone returning to a memory. We met our old Pandit family friends. The moment the door opened, their faces changed. There was excitement, yes. But more than that, there was recognition. A kind of recognition that doesn’t need explanation. They greeted warmly as if time had folded in on itself. As if years had not gone by. As if geography had been a misunderstanding.

One of them smiled and said, “It feels like we are living our golden days again.” Another corrected him gently. “Not living,” he said. “Breathing.”

That word stayed with me. They spoke of Kashmir not as a place. But as a sort of rhythm. Of waking up to familiar sounds. Of seasons that arrived softly, not violently. Of neighbours who did not need invitations. Of lives that were not merely shared, but intertwined. Not just living together, they said. But actually breathing together.

They have their own house in Jammu. They have lived there for more than thirty years now. They have built lives, routines, resilience. Yet one sentence returned again and again. “We live in a house here. Our home is in Kashmir.”

That evening, they cooked. Not for formality. For remembrance. Nadur te daal. Gogji te maaz. Haakh te chaman. The food carried stories. The smells carried childhood. Each dish was a sentence from a language spoken without words. We ate slowly. We listened more than we spoke. Somewhere between the first and the last bite, something softened in the room. The past did not feel heavy. It felt close.

Later, I returned to Jammu again. This time for an official assignment. And this time, we met other Pandit brethren. Their stories were different. They spoke of extreme weather. Of summers that burned instead of warming. Of winters that were dry and harsh in their own way. Of bodies that never adjusted. Of health that weakened quietly. Of ageing accelerated by unfamiliar skies.

They spoke of loss, not dramatically. Loss had settled into them like dust. They spoke of hardship without bitterness. Of starting over without complaint. Of children who adapted faster than parents. Of elders who carried silence like a second spine.

And as they spoke, narrating anecdotes, something became painfully clear. There is no single story of suffering. There are many. Those who left did not leave lightly. They carried grief into new walls, new streets, new climates. They learned survival where belonging once came naturally.

And those who stayed back did not stay untouched. They carried a different loss. Young lives disappeared too soon. Mothers buried sons, not dreams. Childhoods were shortened, laughter sprouted guardedly and fear became part of growing up. They too lost neighbours, rhythms and shared laughter. They lived among absences that were never filled. Homes changed shape on both sides. Life went on. But something vital was broken, quietly, inside homes and hearts. In Jammu, many houses stood complete, yet missing something unnamed. The suffering was different. But the ache was familiar. It is tempting but senseless to measure pain. To compare losses. To ask who suffered more. That question leads absolutely nowhere.

What remains is this: people on both sides learned how to live without what once made life whole. The Pandit friends in Jammu spoke of return, not as a plan, but as a feeling. A return that happens in memory, in food, in language, in sudden tears triggered by a familiar phrase.

And those who stayed back talked of coexistence not as an ideal, but as something once lived; easily, naturally, without effort.

No one spoke of blame. No one used sharp words. Only small, truthful sentences. We lost something precious. We all did. Not land. Not property. We lost a way of being together.

And perhaps the deepest tragedy is not displacement or endurance, but the quiet normalisation of loss. The way people learned to carry it without asking questions. Without seeking answers. Without hoping for reparation. From both sides.

Yet even now, when old friends meet, something remarkable happens. Laughter returns briefly. Food tastes fuller. Stories flow without caution. For a few hours, people breathe together again.

That tells us something important. That what was lost was not erased. It was carried. By those who left. And by those who stayed. Silently. Genuinely. Humanly.