By Tarun Vijay
I am not Khan. My name bears a different
set of four letters: K A U L. Kaul. As those who know Indian names would understand I happened to be born in a family which
was called Hindu by others.
Hence, we were
sure, we would never get a friend like KJ (Karan Johar) to make a movie on our humiliation, and the contemptuous and forced
exile from our homeland. It's not fashionable. It's fashionable to get a Khan as a friend and portray his agony and pains
and sufferings when he is asked by a US private to take off his shoes and show his socks. Natural and quite justifiable that
Khan must feel insulted and enraged.
Enough Masala to make a
movie!
But unfortunately I am a Kaul. I am not a Khan. Hence
when my sisters and mothers were raped and killed, when six-year-old Seema was witness to the brutal slaughtering of her brother,
mother and father with a butcher's knife by a Khan, nobody ever came to make a movie on my agony, pain and anguish, and tears.
No KJ would make a movie on Kashmiri Hindus. Because we are not Khans. We are Kauls.
[Doesn't matter if tens of thousands of Hindus have been killed
in Jammu & Kashmir and over 400,000 have been driven out of the state that was condemned by even the US Congress in 2006
as ‘ethnic cleansing. They are living as refugees in their own state and their known country. Their crime: they are
Hindus, they are patriots, they refuse to be converted, they are patriots, they sing Vande Mataram and they salute the national
flag with pride.- Ed]
When we look at our own selves as Kauls,
we also see a macabre dance of leaders who people Parliament. Some of them were really concerned about us. They got the bungalows
and acres of greenery and had their portraits worshipped by the gullible devotees of patriotism.
They made reservations in schools and colleges for us, in many other states. But never did they try that we go back
to our homes (in our own state). They have other priorities and 'love your jihadi neighborhood' programs. They get flabbier
and flabbier with the passing of each year, sit on sacks of sermons; issue instructions to live simply and follow moral principles
delivered by ancestors and kept in documents treated with time-tested preservatives.
They could play with me because my name is Kaul. And not Mr Khan. I saw the trailer to this fabulous movie, which
must do good business at the box office.
There was not even
a hint that terror is bad and it is worse if it is perpetuated in the name of a religion that means Peace. Peace be upon all
its followers and all other the creatures too.
So you make a
movie on the humiliation of taking off shoes to a foreign police force which has decided not to allow another 9/11.
The
humiliation of taking off the shoes and the urge to show that you are innocent is really too deep.
But what about the humiliation of leaving your home and hearth and the world and the relatives and wife and mother
and father? And being forced to live in shabby tents, at the mercy of nincompoop leaders encashing your misery and bribe-seeking
babus? And seeing your daughters growing up too sudden and finding no place to hide your shame?
No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie, a telling, spine-chilling narration on the celluloid, of six-year-old
Seema, who saw her parents and brother being slaughtered by a butcher's knife in Doda. Because her dad was not Mr Khan. He
was one Mr Kaul.
Sorry, Mr Kaul and your entire ilk. I can't
help you.
It's not fashionable to side with those who are Kauls,
and Rainas, and Bhatts. Dismissively called KPs. KPs means Kashmiri Pandits. They are a bunch of communalists. They were the
agents of one Mr Jagmohan who planned their exodus so that Khans can be blamed falsely. In fact, a movie can be made on how
these KPs conspired their own exile to give a bad name to the loving and affectionate Khan brothers of the valley.
To voice the woes of Kauls is sinful. The right course to get counted in the lists
of the Prime Minister's banquets and the President's parties is to announce from the roof top: hey, men and ladies, I am Mr
Khan.
The biggest apartheid the state observes is to exclude
those who cry for Kauls, wear the colors of Ayodhya, love the wisdom of the civilizational heritage, dare to assert as Hindus
in a land which is known as Hindustan too and struggle to live with dignity as Kauls.
They are out and exiled. You can see any list of honors and invites to summits and late-evening gala parties to toast
a new brand. All that the Kauls are allowed is a space at Jantar Mantar: shout, weep and go back to your tents after a tiring
demonstration. Mr Kaul, you have got a wrong name.
A dozen KJs
would fly to take you atop the glory - posts and gardens of sympathies if you accept to wear a Khan name and love a Sunita,
Pranita, Komal or a Kamini. Well, here you have a sweetheart in Mandira. That goes well with the story.
And you pegged the movie plot on autism.
I wept. It was too much. I wept as a father of a son who needed a story as an Indian. The Indian who cares for his
autistic son, his relationship with the western world, his love affair with a young sweet something as a human, as someone
whose heart goes beyond being a Hindu, a Muslim or a proselytizing Vatican-centric aggressive soul. Not the one who would
declare in newspaper interviews: "I think I am an ambassador for Islam."
Shah Rukh is Shah Rukh, not because he is an Ambassador for Islam. If that was true, he could have found a room in
Deoband. Fine enough. But he became a heartthrob and a famous star because he is a great actor. He owes everything he has
to Indians and not just to Muslims. We love him not because he is some Mr Khan. We love him because he has portrayed the dreams,
aspirations, pains, anguish and ups and downs of our daily life. As an Indian. As one of us.
If he wants to use our goodwill and love for strengthening his image as an Ambassador for Islam, will we have to
think to put up an Ambassador for Hindus? That, at least to me, would be unacceptable because I trust everyone: a Khan or
a Kaul or a Singh or a Victor. Who represents India represents us all too, including Hindus. My best ambassadorship would
be an ambassadorship for the tricolor and not for anything else because I see my Ram and Dharma in that.
I don't think even an Amitabh or a Hrithik would ever think in terms Shah Rukh
has chosen for himself. But shouldn't these big, tall, successful Indians who wear Hindu names make a movie on why Kauls were
ousted? Why Godhra occurred in the first place? Why nobody, yes, not a single Muslim, comes forward to take up the cause of
the exiled and killed and contemptuously marginalized Kauls whereas every Muslim complainant would have essentially a Hindu
advocate to take on Hindus as fiercely as he can?
If you are
Mr Khan and found dead on the railway tracks, the entire nation would be shaken. And he was also a Rizwan. May be just a coincidence
that our Mr Khan in the movie is also a Rizwan.
Rizwan's death
saw the Police Commissioner punished and cover stories written by missionary writers. But if you are a Sharma or a Kaul and
happened to love an Ameena Yusuf in Srinagar, you would soon find your corpse inside the police thana and none, not even a
small-time local paper would find it worthwhile to waste a column on you. No police constable would be asked to explain how
a wrongly detained person was found dead in police custody?
That
is because the lover found dead inside a police thana was not Mr Khan. No KJ would ever come forward to make a movie on 'My
name is Kaul. And I am terror-struck by Khans.'
Give me back
my identity as an Indian, Mr. Khan and I would have no problem even wearing your name and appreciating the tender love of
an autistic son.
[Tarun Vijay wrote this article for the Times
of India]