I’m alone, walking among the atrocities,
guillotines blood-scorched,
gods stabbed at their altars,
dry wells piled up with bones,
a curfew on ghosts.
Who were these people?
~ Agha Shahid Ali
I still remember when i was in middle school and wrote my first story. My English teacher told me to throw it away. Not because of the language, but because of the content. The story was about Kashmir, because after all what could i write about if not my distorted home. Even now, when i think of something to write; a poem, a story, a random line, there’s Kashmir in it.
I grew up like others did; under the shadow of corpses, bullets and violence. In between all the blood and tears, there was a childhood, astute and frivolous, but worthy to cherish; even now when we still live under the malice of darkness, filled with more dead bodies, more bullets and more violence. Like Shahid, there lives a life inside everyone that craves to be expressed, with sentiments and emotions. And what better way to live and speak in a war zone other than to write?
Cover Photo credits; Adil Abass
PS; Only the cover photo is out yet.