Waiting room for natives; for outsiders, a paradise
|| ZAHOOR GULZAR
There was a time when this valley of the majestic mountains and of the mesmerising breezes was a paradise for its people. Gone are the days when its inhabitants used to live without fear- as they say, now, one can find the fear in the handful of dust. There are streets soaked in blood and streams bearing the dreadful memories of the massacres. Hardly one could find a place in Kashmir that has remained untouched by the gruesome violence that has been engulfing this Himaliyan state since the decades. What hasn’t been victimised by what we have been witnessing? Perhaps nothing.. Everyone has lost the most precious gift that nature bestows upon the every human being- Tranquilly.
Here in Kashmir, an insane could only be termed tranquil, rest are the minds marred by the turbulence. Would there be any home here wherefrom the lament of the mother hasn’t been heard- the mother who has seen the tormented body of his lone son. The mother, who feeds, nourishes and raises his son with the unconditional love, only to find in the end that a bullet was destined for him since the day he was born.
The only thing is the matter of time. Site me a single place on earth where there are the graveyards of the youth killed by bullets in every village, every town, in the midst of the bustling city noises and in the silence of the forests.. Our land has in its belly the blood soaked bodies of the young, the old, the men and the women… casting a dead stare on those who haven’t joined them yet and asking ‘How Long?’ The question that perhaps no one has been able to answer.. the question that has left us dumfounded.. the question that has consumed our generations and the question that has managed to get pertinence even during the times when in the outer world human lives have started becoming precious- here they aren’t. Here the students are being killed, here the men with little children are being killed. Here the children are being killed. Here there are women who are being killed but killed for what…
A single protest and you will be killed… Throw a stone and you will be killed… raise of voice about anything and you will be killed…. Here managing to remain alive is difficult- much more difficult than being killed… On April 12, a mother received the blood riddled body of her son. The son that had promised her a good life- the son that had the eyes open and in them was a dream… Dream of remaining alive..
Dream of becoming a cricketer and dream to live a life that everyone wants to live…. Nayeem Qadir, a 19 year old was killed for the reason that perhaps he couldn’t know while bidding adieu to the world in the lap of his friend.. the word he murmured in the end was ‘what happened to me..’ Probably, Nayeem wasn’t the only one in Kashmir to have murmured such a word.. there were thousands of him, before, who asked the same question while dying at the young age, while being hit by a bullet, a tear gas shell, a grenade splinter and what not… No one would be certain how many more would ask the same question in the similar circumstances that of the Nayeem, during the times to come. ’What happened to me?’ His mother, at times mute and mumble at times, wants no mother to feel the pain that she has to bear.. she wants no more killings and demands punishment to those who have killed her son…. Would anyone amongst us assure us that she will be accorded what she wants? Would there be anyone who would tell her that Nayeem’s killers would be brought to the book? Would there by anyone who would assure justice to this grieving lady? No, because she has joined the club of the mourning mothers… she too has to wait and for how long.. we don’t know…. there are thousands in Kashmir waiting like her… she too has to wait for she has no other way… wait is written in our destiny and we all have been waiting in this beautiful waiting room. The waiting room that has the snow capped mountains all around and streams following with the gush and flowers spreading fragrance on each spring- The place which is the paradise for outsiders and for us it is a waiting room…. a beautiful waiting room….
