Hospitality in Kashmir

I always thought I have the potential of a good writer as my lengthy love letters always delivered good results just like Google. This thought of mine was further supported by my Master’s degree in Journalism but even after two years of the completion of my degree I haven’t written anything yet.

Yes, I cannot write but I stepped down. It’s not as though I can’t put words together and construct a good sentence, weave those sentences into paragraphs and come up with an eloquent written piece. It’s just that I cannot write objectively. Even if I try to, emotions always seem to creep in and take over the profession. So I just give up the idea of writing and keep myself happy in reading and learning.

What prompted me to write this time is out of frustration caused by my professional Gods – Newspapers. I was told during my degree that journalists should choose their words carefully as they never know who the reader might be. It took me two years to find one such word and unfortunately that one word appeared in a reputed newspaper of India, The Indian Express. The Editor in his editorial piece titled “The fires just don’t die down” dated August 13, 2008 available at their website http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEF20080813015151&Title=First+Editorial&rLink=0 describes the “100 acre” Kashmiri land as “inhospitable”. As it is quite evident that a piece of land cannot be inhospitable, the Editor means to say people in Kashmir are inhospitable. And I wonder how senior journalist approach to events and start generalizing things or events.

Conflict in Kashmir has its own context and there is no wrong in standing up and fighting for your rights. A lot of nations have done it. During India’s struggle for Independence from East India Company, people in India, regardless of their caste or religion, were united till the end unlike in Kashmir, where a community fled overnight.

Religion in this region has always been a root cause to all the problems. Majority of Muslims in Kashmir share their religious proximity with the neighboring country, Pakistan, and majority of Hindus with India. So, if Kashmirs are not comfortable with India there is no guarantee that Hindus in Jammu will find relative peace with Pakistan and this will continue. So the question of accession to Pakistan doesn’t exist anywhere.

By the way, we don’t want a partition of Jammu and Kashmir like India and Pakistan. A Kashmiri just wants freedom from such administration. We don’t want the administration to formulate heinous acts and implement them in Kashmir, we just don’t want our brothers being detained illegally and then tortured to death, we don’t want forced disappearances, we don’t want false media reports or tags, we don’t want being killed and tortured by our own Kashmiri police men, we don’t want any mothers tears, not any more…

We just want our freedom, our nation, and our rights. And if all this sums up to being “inhospitable”, we are proud for being so.

My Life and Disputed Figure

My Life and Disputed Figure

Officials say more than 40,000 people have been killed in Kashmir in the 17-year
Muslim separatist revolt against Indian rule. Human rights groups put the toll at
around 60,000 dead or missing. I guess it is over 100,000. But, whats the difference
it makes to me. None of my family member is in the disputed figure anyways. I don't
see the conflict affecting me or my family directly and indirectly I don't know, my
knowledge about economics is very poor. My dad couldn't afford to buy a car or some
other electronic luxury but i guess he was lucky enough to survive the on going
conflict along with his wife and two sons. Today, we are better off, we have a car
and other things, thanks to the new world order. I have had a nice childhood full of
chasing butterflies, catching frogs and dragonflies, flying kites, had a pet dog,
tommy, who would bring back my pharen ( traditional winter garment of kashmir) from
the playing ground, played with toys first then saw the real soldiers with polished
guns and that too at the age of 10 and above all there were numerous Monday mornings
when my grand mom would take me and my brother to the same picnic spot: Mughal Gardens.
i am happy thats pretty much of it. So what, I have spent half of my life thinking is
my brother and father coming home from the days work or do i have to be brave enough
to receive that stupid phone call, break the news to my mom and then comfort her while
she'llbe mourning. Thank heavens that never happened and i am pretty sure that similar
thoughts would have crossed my dads or my brothers mind. But, still we worried less
than the only lady in the house did. Poor creature, had to tackle the Asthma as
well. Thank heavens again, we are all safe and now her asthma has subsided as well.
I don't even want to know that thousands of boys and their dads and brothers, and
sisters, and mothers, who went through similar thoughts like me and my family were
not too fortunate and had to go through the fact that my family survived. It hurts
sometimes but what to do, we are safe and that matters at the end. Forget about
being patriotic in Kashmir or somewhere else. It looks good on 70mm and world is
much bigger place than that. Around 100,000 people died in kashmir, six times more
than that died in Iraq and many more than that died during two world wars. Who gives
a damn. Its the turn of Muslims now, so be it. The only difference is some of them
would be counted as mere numbers, while very few by name in newspapers. Revolution
needs direction and the literate and illiterate people of Kashmir don't seem to have
one. Kashmir has a population of over one crore and i believe half of them,
particularly people living in Jammu and Ladakh, were and are not interested in the
revolt. About the rest of the portion, well, there are also divided views, some
follow The Separatists, some have very strong psychological proximity with the
neighboring country, Pakistan, and rest want freedom. But, there are people like me,
who saw it all and decided to go out of Kashmir in pursuit of standard living
and write about a place they call home.