(Looking back at the untimely death of a promising young man by his father Jeevan Zutshi of California-2; see the link for the forward below)

The Last Smile: A Fatherâ€™s Love Story by Jeevan Zutshi

Chapter One

Following The Footprints Of My Origin

Chapter 1, a

Amitâ€™s parents: Following the footprints of my origin

My story begins in Kashmir, India. Situated mostly in the Himalayan mountains, Jammu and Kashmir, the northernmost state of India, borders China to the northeast, the states of Himachal Pradesh and Punjab to the south, and Pakistan and the Pakistani-occupied territories of Kashmir to the west and northwest. The history of Kashmir provides the backdrop to the story I am about to tell.

Although the story of Kashmir may seem remote to a Kashmiri young man growing up in the United States, it provides a context from which to understand Amitâ€™s personality. The history of Kashmir is long and complex, but the welfare and destiny of its people continues to weigh on all Kashmiri American minds as they wend their way into making a life here in the U.S.. Kashmirâ€™s longevity, and the majesty of its natural beauty, has survived much of its religious and political conflicts.

It has inspired within me a dedication to finding peace in spite of my familyâ€™s upheaval and loss. Kashmir Through Time Through its myriad cultural births and rebirths, Kashmir has seen many conquerors, much war and devastation, but it has had at least one documented golden age. The majesty of the land has also been mirrored in geographical concepts (namely, Purana geography) of its place upon the world map. Kashmirâ€™s centrality as a place where goods and ideas of the four corners of the ancient world were exchanged and shared was, in part, why Purana geography depicted the continents of the earth as petals of a lotus flower that had the Meru mountain, the Himalyan region circling round Kashmir, at itâ€™s center. Kashmir was central to trade for the ancient world, and, as Subhash Kak writes in The Wonder that was Kashmir, it â€œbecame more than a meeting ground, it was the land where an attempt was made to reconcile opposites by deeper analysis and bold conception.â€

According to author Satish Ganjoo, in his book, Wailing Shadows in Kashmir, Hindus, currently referred to as Pandits, have been residing in Kashmir for more than 5000 years. When Buddhism began to take root in the valley during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, the response by the Brahmins, the educated Hindus, set up a long rivalry between Hinduism and Buddhism.

Kashmirâ€™s first imperial history began in 250 BC when Asoka reigned over the land. It is important to note that, although Asoka was Kashmirâ€™s first emperor, Kashmir had been run by kings for many centuries before that. Asokaâ€™s reign began a golden age for Kashmir. Its inhabitants became known for their intellectual, artistic, and scientific contributions to the ancient world.

Paramahansa Yogananda, the great yogi who migrated from India to the U.S. to establish a foundation for studying and practicing the ancient science of yoga, cited the observations of H.G. Rawlison, the English historian, â€œAsoka, the third king of the Maurya line, one of the great philosopher kings of historyâ€¦ had the courage to â€¦renounce war as a means of policy.â€

In his Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda underscores the significance of Asoka as a kind of guiding pillar for independent Indiaâ€™s aspiring generations to â€œrenew the eminence and prosperity that for millenniums enveloped the land.â€ Nearly 1000 years later, Lalitaditya reigned (725-761), conquering most of north India, Central Asia, and Tibet. By the time Lalitaditya was in power, Hinduism had pretty much wiped out Buddhism by force and most Buddhist shrines had been destroyed. Islam entered Kashmir nearly 700 years after its birth, when Kashmir came into contact with the Muslim invaders.

Islam had been spreading throughout the rest of India for 300 years. Ganjoo writes that between 1003-1028 AD, when Kashmir was ruled by Sangram Raja, Mahmud Ghazni took over Punjab, and the tribes on the borders of Kashmir began to convert to Islam. They began to visit Kashmir as â€œtraders, wanderers and even missionaries â€¦ settled in the Valley and â€¦ some venture[d] into propagating their new religion.â€ From the 10th century on, Hindu kings struggled to â€œcounter emergent Islam in north India,â€ writes Schofield, who believed that their â€œisolationistâ€ policy meant there were not sufficient resources to adequately sustain Kashmirâ€™s population.

Harsha, who ruled Kashmir from 1089 AD to 1101, began to use Muslims among his generals--the first time this was ever done. It was during his reign that â€œMuslims as a class appeared in the political field and began to consolidate its roots,â€ writes Ganjoo. Within a few decades, the population of Kashmir reflected more Muslims than Hindus. There would not only be many unforced conversions to Islam, but also forced conversions and several mass exoduses of Hindus.

Kashmirâ€™s history, after the arrival of Islam, sets the backdrop for the current conflict, which has been waging ever since India won its independence from Britain in 1947 and Pakistan became an independent Muslim state. Although some groups of Muslims had visited Kashmir earlier, notably one headed by Bulbul Shah, it was Shah Mir (1339-1342) who started the Muslim Era in Kashmir, which would last for four hundred and eighty years. Shah Mir came from Swat, presently in Pakistan, propelled by a dream that revealed to him that one day he would become the King of Kashmir. Helped by the Hindu queen, Kota Rani (who earlier had become the queen of Kashmir twice, first by marrying the last Hindu king, Udyandeva, and then the Ladakh-born king, Rinchin), Shah Mir capitalized on the misrule of the last few Hindu kings.

see a forward by Maharaj Kaul

The Last Smile: A Fatherâ€™s Love Story by Jeevan Zutshi -2