Motilal Nehru Park, Agra

There is no other way to put it: I am obsessed with the fortunes of this famous family of Kashmiri immigrants. At the start of any of their biographies when I read the line,'their ancestors originally came from Kashmir', the apathetic banality of history, the sympathies of its readers and objectivity of its writers, its complex plots and its simply complex actors, its generalizations, all cut through to offer a message: at best, this is what awaits. I know people who have these same visions, afraid, they don't even acknowledge it. It makes them do terrible, inane, things even as they do their slow walk to rendezvous with past that is future.

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