“How dreams are shattered in Kashmir
Everyone wants to have life of pride & esteem, to make themselves so lordly they use all their resources. To reach that dignified status, not all people get that blockbuster of their desire. Some loose the race due to financial crisis, some befall under such circumstances from where time hardly gives them any opportunity to escape. Like most of the people, I too was born in a middle-class family & hardly got all the luxuries of life which children of nowadays enjoy. I grew up under such circumstances to which every person shall scorn. In the beginning phase of my life I dreamt to be a police officer to make my parents proud but as the days passed, my eyes started witnessing the brutal face of the world. The world, which seemed gorgeous till then, commenced to introspect my passion in early childhood. The obnoxious humor which life bestowed me in my premature age was the real face of conflict.
At night I snuggled under quilt with parents & tell them about my dreams but in morning life gives me the different version of it. We were roused not by our parent but strange & horrifying faces of men in uniform with gusty guns in their hands with weapon sealed body. The home, in which everyone enjoy his felicity of life, was turned to the hornet’s nest. Not only this doom was enough but I have seen these unknown, gruesome, sullen faces taking my father away & beating him with iron hand so many times without guilt or crime. The severity of life didn’t end here. I have witnessed my mother chasing these men in uniform with bare hands to release my father unscathed. So many lies have been flung by many renowned claiming that no evil doing has happened in Jammu & Kashmir in last 30 years. If any wrong has taken place, it has been dealt with iron hand. Those so-called conflict entrepreneurs who always justified Indian forces atrocities need to answer Omar (name changed) what was his father’s guilt? Who was killed by Indian forces without any crime.
What happened to those predators whose torture marks are still visible on my father’s body & have effected his health. What befell those security personnel who have beaten my mother when she was shielding us from military barbarism. What came out about those security personal who frightened my sister with bullets when she confronted them while my mom was being beaten. I still remember the moments how we were kicked out from our home bare-footed in the chilled & heavy downpour. The scream & holler of those octogenarian men, women & young ladies is still flashing in my head who were being beaten mercilessly by forces. What will happen to those, who have thrusted such a dreadful picture of my childhood to my mind. Who will return our childhood luxuries which we lost to conflict trauma. I can say that not only the circumstances around me have shattered my dreams but there are few persons who were very close to my heart have contributed it too. The queue of questions is too long but the answers seem repudiating.
Fortunately, I have got very little contributions of conflict but There are people whose stories are so heart-wrenching that to cobble them in words seems infeasible. The people who served Indian politics in Kashmir who claimed to be the real sympathizers of people were never the “mainstream politicians“. They never represented the emotion & aspirations of people, Rather they always stood to gratify their Delhi masters. They forced people to suffer peacefully & sometimes justified violence and atrocities against people by comments of Toffee’s & chocolate. To them, if they consider themselves the real representatives, they should have answered the shivering voice of those fathers who have lost their young ones when they needed them the most. Some lost them in such a terrifying way that after passing numerous years of their disappearance they are still aspiring the return of their son’s alive or dead.
They should answer the murmuring voice of Omar (name changed) who lost his father when he hardly knew the pain of losing him. “When my father was killed, I didn’t know how to react, but as soon as day passes I start feeling the burnt of orphaned age. I am thankful to those people who helped me to come out of that phase. Days bled into years but my wounds are yet to heal.”
There are people who are half-orphaned. Who don’t know whether their parents are alive or dead. And there are youngsters like Ahmed Bin Qasim son of Dr. Qasim Faktoo who is leaving the age of orphaned while his parents are alive & are incarcerated in different jails from their childhood.”
–Kashmiri Mubashir Naik