Srinagar: “The cold breeze of Kashmir is worth all the comforts of life in Delhi,” Roshan Lal Mawa, a Kashmiri Pandit, uttered in a dulcet tone, with tears in his eyes. Mawa, in his mid-seventies, returned to Kashmir after 30 years on Tuesday.
A renowned businessman originally from Zaina Kadal in Downtown Srinagar, Mawa was allegedly attacked by militants in October 1990 outside his shop at the Gada Kocha area of the Zaina Kadal market. He suffered four bullet wounds – three in his abdomen and one in his leg.
The new market enclosure. Credit: Muhammad Raafi
On Wednesday, Gada Kocha, a part of the historic Zaina Kadal market, was abuzz with people visiting a newly constructed double-storied shopping enclosure. In the freshly painted basement of the enclosure, Mawa was being garlanded and coronated with a traditional turban by the shopkeepers. People were greeting him while he was serving Kehwa (Kashmiri spice tea) and Kulcha (a Kashmiri bakery bread) to his visitors.
Soon after the October 1990 attack, Mawa said, “the family packed its bags and migrated to Jammu.” Mawa, who is married, has two sons and a daughter. All but one son settled outside the valley.
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Mawas, locals of the area said, were one of the leading business families in the valley, particularly in the spice business. Soon after the family settled in Jammu to live a migrant life, Mawa suffered a severe bout of depression. “It was like the whole world had crumbled,” he said. His son, Sandeep Mawa, a medical doctor by profession and a political activist, said that after repeated counselling sessions, his father decided to set up the business in Delhi. “Me and my mother stayed back in Jammu while the rest of the family shifted to Delhi.”
After struggling for a few years, Roshan Lal Mawa established a huge business in the spice market of Delhi’s Khari Baoli. “It was after many years of struggle that I could establish the business in Delhi with the same name as it had in Kashmir – ‘Nandlal Maharaj Krishan’,” he said. Many businessmen and friends who had assembled on Wednesday at Gadda Kocha said that they never stopped trade with Roshan Lal. “He was such a noble soul and an honest businessman,” said Ghulam Muhammad, who sells spices in Maharaj Gunj, an adjacent market, “In Delhi I always preferred trading with him.”
At a makeshift counter of this under-construction shop, Roshan Lal was busy billing customers. The rush of customers was so intense that it hardly appeared as if the shop had reopened just today. Thirty years later, what motivated Mawa to return to the valley?
Inside Mawa’s new shop. Credit: Muhammad Raafi
“Honestly Delhi never suits a Kashmiri,” Mawa said, “Although I own a huge business today in Delhi and have a massive house costing over Rs 20-crore in Sainik Farms, I was never able to mingle with the people there.”
“The air of Kashmir has an attraction. I will sacrifice everything for one single breeze of Kashmir,” he said, “Life in Delhi is completely different. It is fast and nobody cares about anybody,” Mawa said. He said that all these years he had a “fire” in his heart. “The fire never extinguished but rather kept aggravating,” he said.
“I always wanted to die in Kashmir.”
Roshan Lal’s son Sandeep said that looking at his father so desperate to return to his motherland, he decided to reconstruct the shop and get his father back. “In the latter part of last year, we started the reconstruction work on the shop. And after several meetings, my father finally decided to return.”
Now when the business is almost set up, Roshan Lal Mawa vows to shift back to the valley completely. “I have an established business in Delhi and hopefully the business will flourish again here in the valley. I have decided to stay back in the valley permanently,” he said. “I want the ashes of my body to remain in the air of my homeland,” he added with tears in his eyes.
Asked about the situation in the valley, Mawa said that he often traveled to Kashmir during the last thirty years. “I never felt any threat. Kashmir is as safe as any other place in India,” he said. “People who pitch for separate colonies for Kashmiri Pandits are doing politics. Nothing else,” he said.
“The Pandits outside the valley have been projected a wrong image of the valley. I urge them to return to their motherland. It is peaceful,” he said.