New Delhi: Actor Kunal Kemmu revealed that during the 1990 Kashmiri Pandit exodus, his family left Kashmir. His mother's side relocated to Delhi, while his father's side moved to Jammu, enduring the brunt of the exodus. The actor also revealed that his father, Ravi Kemmu, attended the national capital's National School of Drama.
The actor told Raj Shamani in his podcast, “We left during the exodus. I was too young, I might have some kind of PTSD from it but more than me, my parents and family faced it, and had to deal with it. My father went to the National School of Drama. He was still trying to figure out if he wanted to move to Mumbai, because he was working with Shyam Benegal at that time. He worked on ‘Yatra’, ‘Bharat Dekho’, ‘Discovery of India’ all those kinds of shows.”
"At the same time, my parents were doing the show ‘Gul Gulshan Gulfaam’ which was shot in Srinagar. So, he was trying to see if life can be lived in Mumbai and if it’s gonna make sense for the whole family to move. Eventually, we came to Mumbai. Others in my family moved to other places, my paternal side moved to Jammu and my maternal side moved to Delhi,” he added.
The minority Hindu Kashmiri Pandit community in the Valley suffered a "exodus" more than thirty years ago. After more than 5,000 years, the residents of this Valley were driven into exile. Tensions between the communities had been simmering since 1947, but they reached a boiling point in 1986 when properties and temples that belonged to Kashmiri Pandits were attacked and destroyed.
On the professional front, Kunal Kemmu will direct the upcoming project 'Madgaon Express', which will be his first film. The movie's filming is said to have finished recently.