Our Moon Has Blood Clots: A Memoir of a Lost Home in Kashmir

The book recounts Pandita's childhood in Srinagar and the circumstances that forced his family to leave Kashmir. His personal story becomes a window into the experience of Kashmiri Pandits who were displaced from the Valley during the turmoil of the early 1990s.

Rather than presenting the subject solely as political history, Pandita focuses on people, homes, memories and the emotional consequences of exile. The narrative moves between intimate recollections and the wider history of conflict, creating a deeply personal account of a community's traumatic displacement.

Rahul Pandita is an Indian journalist and author who has extensively reported from conflict zones including Iraq and Sri Lanka. He is the author of Our Moon Has Blood Clots and Hello, Bastar: The Untold Story of India's Maoist Movement, and co-author of The Absent State. He was a 2015 Yale World Fellow and has worked with publications including The Hindu.

Rahul Pandita was fourteen when he and his family were forced to leave their home in Srinagar. The experience of sudden displacement becomes the emotional centre of this memoir.

Through memories of childhood, family, neighbourhoods and life in Kashmir, Pandita reconstructs a world that was permanently altered by violence and exile. He also examines the broader political and social circumstances surrounding the displacement of Kashmiri Pandits.

The memoir is ultimately about more than conflict. It explores what it means to lose one's home, preserve memories of a vanished way of life and live with the continuing desire to return. By connecting personal recollection with recent Kashmiri history, Pandita presents an intimate account of home, identity, grief and resilience.