THE LONG WAY HOME

For restaurateur and chef Prateek Sadhu, food is a way back to the Kashmir he left as a child, a remembrance of things past and a possible way forward.

- Smitha Menon

Prateek Sadhu remembers the day his idea of home shattered. “We left Kashmir on 7 March 1990. The previous day, my mother, sister and I were on our way back home from the market when we passed a sign that read, ‘Indian dogs, go back.’ Militants were patrolling the area with AK-47s, others were getting out of their Omni vans. Back then, if they identified you as not one of them, they’d shoot you. I remember my mother telling my sister, ‘If they shoot me, take your brother and run. Do not look back,’” recalls the award-winning executive chef and co-owner of Mumbai’s Masque restaurant.

That night, Prateek, along with his parents and sister left their home. “My family told me we were going on a vacation and would be back by summer to play on the banks of the Jhelum. We didn’t know we’d only return 30 years later.”

The Sadhus were one of the estimated 1,00,000 Kashmiri Pandits who migrated from the Kashmir Valley to Jammu, Delhi and other parts of India, fleeing militancy and violence in the region. Their exit from Kashmir followed what is widely remembered as Exodus Day on 19 January 1990, the harrowing event that marked the beginning of the community’s forced migration out of the Valley.