The Lamp In The Window: A Story For Our Times, A Mirror for Our Society

Here is a deeply emotional linkage in this version of my story written to not only tell a moving tale of love, sacrifice, and reconnection—but to also convey a deep heartfelt message to our society.  Especially within the context of the Kashmiri Pandit community in exile. It is written in a flowing narrative form, enriched with cultural nuances, emotional truth, and a concluding appeal to awaken our conscience.

In the narrow lanes of Chotta Simla chowk, Gandhi Nagar, Simla, nestled amidst the mist-kissed foothills, stood a modest house. Weathered on the outside, yet warm within built not just with bricks, but with memory, migration, and the enduring light of love.

This home belonged to Shiv Nath Koul and Kamlawati Koul, an elderly Kashmiri Pandit couple. Who, like thousands of others, had been forced to flee their ancestral home in their Habba Kadal, Srinagar, during the unforgiving winter of 1990.

A suffering within all, unspeakable truth about the fate.

It was a time when silence had fallen over the valley—not the silence of peace, but of fear.

That winter, prayers were drowned by gunshots, and neighbours became strangers.

Due to death threats received and mass Islamic barbaric attitude towards the Kafirs, non muslims in Kashmir valley.

The Kouls, along with an entire community, walked away from their homeland with tears in their eyes and gods on their lips.

They left behind the echoes of their childhood, the scent of saffron in clay pots and the comforting hum of river Vitasta. But what they carried with them was faith, dignity and a fierce will to rebuild.

Shiv Nath, once a respected science teacher, found a new job in exile.

He taught with patience and conviction, even when the children around him had no understanding of the history he carried in his silence.

His wife, Kamlawati, poured her displaced soul into everyday rituals—preparing Koshur sabzi as usual, sometimes Nadru yakhni, a sharp reminder through yakhni, lighting the lamp at dusk and singing ancient lullabies in Kashmiri—a language that echoed only within their walls.

Their only son, Rohit, was raised in this humble home of perseverance.

He was a brilliant student, moulded by their sacrifices. A scholarship took him to Pune, a job took him to Bangalore and ambition took him further still.

He married Nandita, also from a migrant Kashmiri family and together they built a modern life—successful, sophisticated, fast.

Phone calls were routine, filled with affection but shortened by time. Visits became rare.

The children, Tanmay and Simmy, had never known the warmth of their grandparents’ kitchen, tasted the aura of cuisine or the stories of the valley from which their roots had sprung.

But still, every evening, after lighting the sacred lamp and offering her prayers, Kamlawati would place a tiny diya in the window facing east.

 She would whisper in her typical Kashmiri tone, ‘they say spring will bloom again’.

followed with usual Indrakhshi Strota and Some Krishen Leelas of Baka Gopal.

Shiv Nath would sit beside her, his eyes filled with both pride and sorrow.

He is a good boy, he would say. “But the world today… forgets quickly.” a reminder to his legacy and assert that the children have become too busy in their jobs and get very less time. Let them be healthy and happy wherever they are, thus feeling solace at night when he would go to sleep.

And then, one bitterly cold evening, the inevitable happened.

While covering a small Tulsi plant from the biting frost in their garden, Shiv Nath lost balance and slipped.

The stone path, cracked by years of monsoon and moss, failed him.

A sharp thud, a muffled cry. Silence.

Kamlawati rushed out, barefoot, calling his name. Neighbours came running.

The red flash of the ambulance lit up their quiet home like a warning bell to the universe.

At the hospital, she sat wrapped in her Cotton Sari, her lips trembling with silent prayers. But in truth, her heart cried for just one thing—her son.

Far away in Bangalore, Rohit’s phone rang during a business meeting.

The words were few, but enough to shake the ground beneath him. “Beta… Uncle slipped is now on the Hospital. Aunty is alone.” saying this the phone got disconnected.

Guilt, sharper than pain, pierced through him. He had been so busy moving ahead that he’d forgotten to look back.

Within hours, flights were booked. Calls were made. Bags were packed.

By the time Rohit reached the hospital, dawn had barely broken.

He saw her—his mother—frailer than he remembered, her hands clutched tightly around her prayer beads, her eyes red but not wet.

“Rohit?” she gasped, as if speaking to a memory.

He dropped to his knees. “Ma… I’m so sorry. I forgot what mattered.”

In the days that followed, Rohit didn’t behave like a visitor. He became once again the son he had buried beneath the weight of work and the world. He sat by his father’s side. He brewed kahwa with his mother. He cleaned the garden path. He sat in the kitchen and asked to be taught how to cook haakh and clean nadru, just like in the old days.

When Shiv Nath finally opened his eyes and saw his son reading aloud from the Bhagwan Jis Gita path, Sandya Aarti, a faint smile broke through the fog of pain.

“You came,” he whispered.

Rohit took his father’s hand and said, “You never stopped waiting.”

Weeks passed. Nandita arrived with the children. The house once filled with longing now pulsed with life.

Tanmay and Simmy learned Kashmiri rhymes, sat in their grandfather’s lap and listened to stories of a lost homeland.

The language that had almost faded found its echo in laughter.

And one quiet evening, as the sun dipped behind the pines, Kamlawati lit the evening diya once more.

She placed it in the same window, but this time, with a smile—not of hope, but of fulfilment.

“Our light has returned,” she whispered.