At Kheer Bhawani shrine, nostalgia overwhelms Pandits

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Kheer Bhawani, June 8

The annual festival at Kheer Bhawani, a revered temple of Mata Maha Ragnya in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district, is set to begin on Monday and hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits are expected to offer their prayers.

Girdhari Lal Razdan is among the devotees who have already reached the temple. He was among the last Kashmiri Pandits to leave the Valley in the winter of 1991 and has returned for the first time since.

Razdan, a doctor from Srinagar’s Sonwar neighbourhood who spent the last three decades in Pune, Delhi and Ghaziabad, was overwhelmed with nostalgia of his childhood and youth when he arrived in Kashmir.

On Saturday morning, he walked under the shade of the majestic chinars to pray before Mata Maha Ragnya at the revered Kheer Bhawani, a temple which connects the hearts of thousands of displaced Pandits.

The 107-year-old spring temple, built by Hindu monarch Pratap Singh, is located in Tulmulla village of Ganderbal and is a magnet for the Pandit community which is now dispersed far and wide. “I was busy with my children because they were very young when we left. I have come to Kashmir after three decades... perhaps the goddess has called me,” Razdan said.

Manoj Kaloo, the manager of the trust that looks after the affairs of the temple, said they were expecting nearly 20,000 devotees on Monday when the main prayer would be held. “We have made arrangements to host 20,000 devotees. Prayers will begin at midnight and continue throughout Monday,” he told The Tribune.

The Kashmiri Pandits, a distinct community of Saraswat Brahmins who follow Shavism, had to leave their homeland in the early days of insurgency when several of their members were killed by militants. The killings sparked panic and led to their exodus, which is now nearing a third decade.

For the generation of Pandits, who spent their childhood and youth in the Kashmir valley, the longing to return is intense.

Prem Nath, who still has a house in the Devsar area of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, had left his home in 1990 like most members of the Pandits community. “It was very scary. I had so many Muslim friends and I often remember them. Even they couldn’t have done anything that time,” he said.

The 70-year-old now lives in Jammu with his family, but says his heart is still in Kashmir. “I find peace here. I have visited this temple every year since we left. I never miss,” he said.