Our Moon Has Blood Clots: The Exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits by Rahul Pandita

I don’t feel qualified enough to review this one hell of an emotional rollercoaster.


This is a firsthand narration situation leading up to and of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits. The author has documented his own family’s experience and that of those around him. The horrors that the people have faced are not entirely known and while some of us have the barest idea, the real picture is something that has never been openly painted before. Reading it now, from a young boy’s point of view and narrated in a grown and experienced man’s language, it is an experience that one has to feel for themselves.


From the religious differences to the different agendas and to the brutal killings, the author hasn’t spared us any details. Imagine having to flee from your own home not knowing when or if ever you would be able to come back to it. Imagine having you friends murdered for no fault of their own. Imagine women raped and children orphaned as a natural and regular occurrence… well the last one isn’t so hard to imagine as it is our nation’s reality. But still, the effect and the toll it took on people is not something to be taken lightly and the Author has done an absolutely brilliant job of painting the picture for us.


What do we learn something from it or what do we feel something after reading it is going to be different for each one of us. But the fact remains that this is one of the best non-fiction or rather one of the best books by an Indian this year.