Your past doesn’t define you, but how you carry it does: Avinash Kaul on Kashmir exodus

Avinash Kaul, Chief Executive Officer - Broadcast & Publishing - Network 18 & Managing Director A+E Networks, has shared a deeply personal reflection marking 36 years since his family was forced to leave Srinagar during the Kashmir exodus of 1990, describing the experience of displacement as a defining force in his life and leadership journey.

In a post recalling January 19, 1990, Kaul wrote about leaving Kashmir as a school student, boarding the last bus to Jammu with his father, without time for goodbyes or belongings.

“I was supposed to be studying tuitions for my 12th grade after my 11th grade final exams.
Instead, I was holding my fathers hand as i boarded the last bus for Jammu, watching everything we knew disappear behind us. No goodbyes. No last look at my room. No time to grab the photo albums.
Just… gone.
Today marks 36 years since my family became migrants in our own country. Thirty-six years since the Kashmir exodus tore apart a community and scattered us across India like seeds in a storm.
I don’t write this for sympathy. I write it because leadership isn’t just taught in boardrooms—it’s forged in moments when everything falls apart and you have to decide who you’re going to become.
That frightened boy in the bus didn’t know he would one day lead some of India’s largest media companies. He didn’t know that losing everything would teach him the difference between what’s taken and what can’t be taken. He didn’t know that displacement would become his greatest teacher.
But here’s what I learned in those years of starting over:
Your past doesn’t define you—but how you carry it does.
I carried Kashmir not as a wound, but as a foundation. Every time I faced impossible odds as leader, I remembered: I’ve rebuilt before. Every time someone said it couldn’t be done, I thought: I’ve survived worse. Every time I had to make hard decisions, I knew: I already know what real loss feels like.
The summit was never the goal. It was just the view from where the next path begins.
To everyone carrying their own January 19th—whatever form it takes—I see you. Your displacement, your starting over, your quiet rebuilding in the dark. That’s not your weakness. That’s your superpower in disguise.

36 years later, I’m still climbing and thats my superpower.