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Vitasta, Published 1995. Hardcover, xii, 126 pp.; 22 cm; First Edition; frontispiece portrait photograph of the author and a sketch map of Kashmir. Edited with a preface by Subhash Kak; foreword by Ravinder Kumar (Nehru Memorial Museum and Library).
In Very Good condition with a Very Good dust jacket. Black grained cloth boards with gilt lettering on spine; mild bumping to corners, mild shelf and edge wear, slight color loss along top edge. Binding tight. Pastedowns show some rippling and uneven adhesion along hinges. Pages unmarked, with occasional light spotting and soiling to endpapers and first blank leaf. Pictorial dust jacket (photograph of autumn leaves by Rupinder Khullar) has a few small nicks and tears, light creasing along edges, mild shelf and edge wear, and a few faint marks to rear panel. Now in an archival quality (removable) Brodart cover. [From jacket flap] "Kashmir has a unique tradition of recording history. This book, in this tradition, presents the intimate life of a Kashmiri in the post-independence era. Such a personal story is a rarity in India. Ram Nath Kak draws compelling vignettes of everyday life; a hard childhood, life as a government official, drama of the war with Pakistan, meetings with mystics, and so on. The book presents perspectives on Kashmiri society and politics that are helpful in understanding the rise of the recent insurgency there." Ram Nath Kak (1917-1993), a Kashmiri Pandit veterinarian in Jammu and Kashmir government service, wrote these memoirs in Baton Rouge and Honolulu; his son Subhash Kak, the computer scientist and Indologist, edited them after his death. Includes his account of the 1947 tribal raid and accession as seen from Shopian, and of the flight of Kashmiri Hindus from the valley after 1989. Also father of computer scientist Avinash Kak and literary scholar Jaishree Odin. Rear panel blurbs by Guy L. Beck, Wendy Doniger and Ravinder Kumar. Contents: Preface; Foreword; Growing Up; Householder; More Travels; Reflections; Glossary.