These days a Facebook page is doing rounds all over social media named Raabta, went live on 11 February. The reason due to which it is getting a lot of attention is, as it is a small endeavour to help search and reconnect old friends, neighbours and schoolmates who parted ways after the exodus of 1990. The man behind Raabta, Mr Jaibeer Ahmad, said that he grew up in Kashmir in the 1980s, in Mattan, Anantnag and used to play with Pandit boys, had a Pandit tutor, and both communities were dependent on each other. He had left home in 1991 to study at Aligarh Muslim University. “But whenever I visit my parents in Kashmir, It is not the same as it used to be earlier, it feels we’ve lost something essential from the valley,” he says.

It was due to Raabta that we got to witness a heartwarming reunion between childhood friends Ashima Koul and Abbas Hamid. As in the 1980s, they used to be neighbours in Baramulla and as every kid does so, they used to play together and even were classmates in their school. “We used to be fierce contenders for the first position at St Joseph’s school… I’d really want to connect with him,” read her post. Both of them had to part ways due to Ashima’s family left Baramulla in the early 1990s.

Ashima who now lives in Jammu also said in her Facebook post, “Over the years I often thought of him and wondered where he was. We used to play badminton, have story-telling sessions and even grow vegetables in the backyard. A few years ago, I went to our old colony in Baramulla and found out all the old-timers had moved along with the Hamids and the current residents knew nothing of them.”

People involved with the Raabta page helped Ashima find Abbas’s phone number. Raabta and Radio Mirchi-Jammu both came together to facilitate this beautiful reunion of old pals as Ashima’s call to Abbas after three decades was made and played live in a recording studio. Abbas, who is a lawyer now in Anantnag, without any difficulty recognised Ashima and the two exchanged notes on each other’s lives. The call ended on a happy note with Abbas inviting Ashima to his place to visit sometime.

There are many more reunion stories and still, there are many more who are searching for their lost, old friends but kudos to Raabta to give a platform to the grief-stricken valley to bridge the gap made between the Kashmiri Hindu migrants and currently residing Muslims. For example, Someone is looking for a teacher, someone for an old colleague and someone for their long gone neighbours.

But the gap that is prevailing between Pandits and Muslims is so rooted that many people ridicule the initiative, while many see Raabta as an unnecessary attempt to attain Hindu-Muslim brotherhood as that is a Utopian idea for many. But it due to the very efforts like Raabta will help us come closer, keep us unified as the essence of the whole initiative is to help people to overcome religious orthodoxy and bury the past, to have a humanitarian perspective to attain integrity and harmony again in the valley, so that our coming generations can live in a peaceful environment.

What do you think about this initiative and do we need more examples to promote religious harmony in the nation? Tell us in the comment section!