Memoir: A boy in 1950s’ Srinagar encounters the shape of things to come

As a child, I studied at the Lal Ded Primary School, an institution run by the Hindu Education Trust. This trust had a chain of schools and colleges in the city of Srinagar. It was a minority trust established by Kashmiri Pandits and located about two kilometres from my home in an old building owned by some rich man.

Here the teachers were mostly from the Pandit community, but the students came from all communities. Although the building belonged to a rich man, it was not a rich school. All the kids came from modest households. There were regular classes throughout the week, and Saturday was meant for cultural activities, where the children would learn Kashmiri folk songs and enact little plays written and directed by our Hindi and Urdu teachers.

I remember my Urdu and Sanskrit teachers as being very tough. They always wanted us to learn by rote, which was very difficult for me. I was often punished by these teachers in very mean ways; they used a cane or sometimes placed a pencil between our fingers and squeezed our hands as we screamed in pain. Those were horrible punishments, so learning these languages was very difficult for me.

My teacher could not...

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