On the electricity outage in Kashmir:
“The entire Kashmir is without electricity since last four days now. In my many years outside home, I have never heard my mother cry on phone. She is a strong woman who didn’t cry once during the ongoing siege. Today, she finally gave up. “Zulum chu bardaasht nyebar gomut.” The oppression is beyond our limits of endurance now. There is no water, no electricity, no phones, no internet. Nothing. Nothing. The people of Kashmir are put to this test for what? Why, I ask?
My sister said it’s only us Kashmiris who can survive this harsh winter without any basic necessities available. We have nothing and we are still going on. If there is an electricity outage for just an hour anywhere else, people start losing their mind. We have been eating food under candle light since last four days now. She is seventeen.
My cousin who has his class X board exams going on doesn’t know how to study under such conditions anymore. There is no heating arrangement. There is no electricity. There is no water. How do we expect our children to study under such conditions and then score well enough to compete with the “outside” world? He is sixteen.
My frail grandparents who live in the outskirts of the city have no phones, no electricity, no water, no heating arrangement. I have no idea how they are surviving, if they are at all. Who is responsible if something happens to them? Which court should I go to for justice if anything happens to them?
I can’t be here and focus on my work when all hell has broken loose on my people back home. I ask you why are my people put through this hell? Why? Tell me fucking why? Why isn’t anyone talking about the electricity outage in Kashmir? Has the world already accepted it to be a forgotten land? Is it truly the graveyard of your conscience?”
–an unidentified Kashmiri