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"Praznath (the identity)" - a short film, by Vivek Sinha, is the story of a young and successful Kashmiri Pandit boy who wants to return to his ancestral home in Srinagar. Ishan Bhat (a Kashmiri Pandit) has completed his engineering in Computer Science from IIT Delhi. During his last days at college he bags a lucrative job offer in the US. However, Ishan decides to settle at his ancestral home in Srinagar instead. He hires a taxi on his way from Jammu Railway Station till Srinagar. The taxi driver is Basheer, a Kashmiri Muslim. So why did Ishan turn down a job offer in the US and opt to settle at Srinagar? How do Basheer and other Kashmiri Muslims react to Ishan's decision to settle in Kashmir? What will he do at Srinagar? Does he succeed in his objective? What happens after Ishan reaches Srinagar? "Praznath (the identity)" seeks to answer these questions.

A few months ago I was on a quiet saunter with Stuti, my daughter, when I crossed the neighbourhood shopping complex. Holding my hand she pointed towards the sweets shop asking for a chocolate. "Which one?" I asked. "Ummmm.....okkkayy.....this....i will settle for this one," she said finding it difficult to zero in on one particular type. Chocolates are her weakness and if permitted then she could have them for lunch!!! But, Stuti knows that I allow this indulgence of her s only to an extent. She always gets upset with my objection to her over-indulgence in chocolates. "Chocolates are so tasty....why don't you give me a whole bag of chocolates to eat everyday?," is her response every time I object. "You will spoil your health if you eat too much chocolates," I try to reason out with her, every time. Well, that day I was happy that she asked for only one chocolate. I happily bought one for her, playfully tore away it's wrapper and gave the...

Journalism lessons from an "Aam Aadmi" in Uniform  Vivek Sinha It was a cold and foggy winter night of January and he stood guard at the barricades near India’s Parliament in Delhi. His mandate was clear and simple: Provide security to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who was sitting on a dharna demanding dismissal of a few personnel in the Delhi Police.  Yes, he was one of the men in uniform and yet was unmindful of all kinds of slogan mongering by the AAP (Aam Aadmi Party) men that bordered verbal abuse on the police personnel. A constable in the SSB (Sashastra Sema Bal), he stood his ground, bereft of the happenings in his immediate vicinity and braving the biting cold of Delhi along with the vitriolic barbs by AAP men. Just a few days back he had returned from Jammu Kashmir and was scheduled to be on his way back to his home town in West Bengal when this sudden dharna by the incumbent Delhi Chief Minister made him report for duty. “How come you are interested in knowi...

(First written and published in January 2014 during the infamous protests of Shri Arvind Kejriwal--the then Chief Minister of Delhi)  An Open Letter to the Chief Minister of Delhi Dear Mr. Arvind “anarchist” Kejriwal, I am forced to write this letter to you just because you have been misusing my name and continue to do so for your own parochial designs and to further the devious Maoist agenda of destabilizing my beloved India. Yes, I am an Aam Aadmi (common man) who enjoys no VIP privileges who likes to spend time with his family and takes pride in the democratic institutions of this country. I may criticize the government and its functioning time and again, yet I am fully aware that the Indian Constitution offers me enough safeguards to correct the procedural lapses or wrongs (if any) without undermining country’s democracy and without creating anarchy in the society. One such safeguard is the process of electing a government through which anonymous Aam Aadmi(s) cast their vote an...

Vivek Sinha I vividly remember that day in school when a simple exercise about map explanation turned out to be a big shocking experience for me. The assignment was to draw the external boundaries of various Indian states and mark important cities therein. Each student chosen to draw the boundaries of one Indian state would also mark its major cities and explain the state’s historical, geographical and political importance to the whole class. I was to explain about Jammu Kashmir. “This is Jammu Kashmir and this is the state’s capital city Srinagar,” I said pointing my little fingers towards Srinagar on the map. “…the famous 'silk route' passed through this state which served as the world’s major trade route since ancient times. Jammu, Gilgit-Baltistan, Muzaffarabad, Gulmarg, Mirpur are other important cities of this state. The state has famous pilgrimage centres such as the Sharada Peeth, Amarnath Shrine and Mata Vaishno Devi….” I went on with my erudite explanation about the ...

How deliberate historical fallacies created myths about Jammu Kashmir’s accession to India Vivek Sinha  History, in India, is a strange subject and historians even stranger. The subject is reviled by students who perceive it to be dull and boring. This, in effect, encourages rote learning of the subject and bereft of any meaningful discussions--so very essential to acquire historical knowledge. And historians, especially the “Eminent Leftist Historians” of India are well aware of this fact. Yet they have, by design, let history-learning remain that way in schools and colleges. Strange as it may sound, but then this dull and boring ‘history-teaching-and-learning’ devoid of any discussions and factual analysis suits the agenda of our “Eminent Historians”. How? Well, boring it may be, yet history provides a sneak preview of what has happened in our past, helps guide actions in the present and sets the course for future road map. A basic tenet of history writing remains that it should ...