Kashmiryat in
Separatists’ health
By RAJESH BHAT
Call it a new doctrine of `` Kashmiryat’’ or mere a coincidence, the `` Kaul factor’’ is turning to be an inseparable part in the lives of two top Kashmir based ailing separatist leaders.!
These separatist leaders and their staunch followers presently swear by the name of two internationally acclaimed Kashmiri Pandit doctors---- both Kauls--- and pray for their long and healthy lives. Because in esteeming the ``Kaul square”
high and wishing well for them, they are infact concerned about their own lives!
While one Kaul is a top
heart specialist---
Dr U Kaul, the other is an ace oncologist-- Dr Sameer Kaul. And interestingly, both these two Kaul doctors have two `` prestigious and top’’
valley based separatist leaders their patients!.
In was in early nineties-----the militancy was at peak in Kashmir, when Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front ( JKLF) Chairman Yasin Malik had to undergo an open heart surgery at New Delhi’s Batra Hospital. Dr U Kaul, presently Director of India’s top heart institute, performed the operation. Forgetting the hard fact that his fellow community members were driven out from the valley by the separatists, Dr U Kaul, that time stuck to his `` Hippocrates Oath’’ to save a patient in Yasin Malik. Interestingly, Malik too showed a big heart in reposing faith in Dr Kaul for the sake of his heart!
Given the stature, status and public following, Malik could have hired the services of any doctor across the globe for his open-heart surgery but he preferred Dr U Kaul, possibly to have heart-to-heart with a Kashmiri speaking doctor.
It is now more than a decade that Malik, who has already picked up the threads of life, is still under the constant ``medical surveillance’’ of Dr U Kaul
Jamat-e-Islami’s fire-band leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani is another high profile patient, who was operated at Tata Cancer Hospital Mumbai in March 2007 after his trusted doctor-- again Kaul by surname-- Dr Sameer Kaul diagnosed him having metastasis kidney.
Geelani too could have contacted any oncologist. But like Malik, he too pinned high hopes and faith in Kaul, forgetting the fact that Kauls, Ambardars, Parimoos, Bhats and other Kashmiri Pandits don’t now live in valley after their exodus at gun-point and killings of several fellow community members..
Despite all these turbulence within the community, these two doctors rose above community feelings and did not cock-tail the pain of migration with their profession, while treating these two separatists who are blamed for Kashmiri Pandits’ exodus from the valley. And equally marvelous is the fact that these separatist leaders still hold Kashmiri Pandit doctors in high esteem with whom these high profile patients can speak in their mother-tongue while convalescing or discuss any post-operative complications.
This `` Kaul factor’’ in separatists till health appears to be every-body’s filed of high interest. Jammu and Kashmir Governor, Lt Gen ( Retd) S K Sinha, who is fond of
``Kashmiryat’’ and speaks high about such classic examples at national and international fora, can refer to this `` Kaul factor’’ is his future `quotable quotes’’.
For those, who have a Sufi or spiritual bent of mind, it is a true reference of 14th centaury Kashmir’s mystic saint Lal Ded’s one of Vakhs----- `` Mau Zaan Huend Te Musalman’’ --- ( Don’t differentiate between a Hindu and a Muslim), or another Kashmir’s spiritual saint, Nund Rishi’s Shrukh `` Musalmanan Te Henden Kar Bhandan Toshe Khudaaye”… ( Oh Lord Unite Muslims and Hindus!).
And it is a time for a joint prayer for a common Kashmiri either living in Kashmir or outside------ To pray for peace in the valley. Because in the return of peace, they see the return of Kashmiri Pandits to Valley, to take care of their two highly affected sectors--- Health and Education---- by Razdaans, Bhats and Kauls!.
( The author can be approached on raajbhat@gmail.com)
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