Testimony

Who will bear testimony
to my identity
when the bits and pieces of evidence-
the ration card and the municipal certificate,
the passport and the driving license,
the revenue records and the land papers-
have all been inundated
in the flood of violence,
and human evidence
either unavailable or inadmissible,
unless it were possible
for my abandoned house
where I lived and loved and dreamt,
or the lonely chinar nearby
that often its breeze lent,
or the lovelorn birds
that of a morning flew in for the grain,
or the sulking dog
that never barked in vain,
or the deserted lanes
that I traversed every day,
or the temple in ruin
where I would worship and pray –
one or all of them-
to speak up one day
and vouchsafe to the identity
of a Kashmiri Pandit?