A truth of life, yet ignored by the majority of Indians, except a few!!!

I hope you count among those few.

This is not an Anti-muslim article.

It is a cry from the majority for equal rights, and equal attention. To the uninitiated,
Pt Jawaharlal Nehru was one of the Kashmiri Pandits........

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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
to make a movie on our humiliations, 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.

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 many other states.
But never did they try that we go back to our homes. They have other priorities and
'love your jihadi neighborhood' programmes. 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 five-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 colours of Ayodhya, love the wisdom of the civilisational 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 honours 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.
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 famousl 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 tricolour and
not for anything else because I see my Ram and Dharma in that. I don't think even an
Amitabh or a Hritik 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?

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