Punch a paper, lest you get punched yourself.
Recently I hit upon a blog that was so dipped in complaints. “Because my wife got tired of listening to me,” it was titled. Really if you do not get used to focussing your frustrations on a piece of paper you will eventually get a punch in the face. Maybe your wife bears you for a day or two, or, if you get really lucky, a year (you do realise I am trying to be cynical here), but then eventually her patience will wear out and then you will get that kick in the backside punch in the face. We all have complaints. Someone`s job is too dreary, when in fact it is the best job he can ever get and also that he was down in obeisance, in front of the almighty, for months together before he got it. Sombody`s financial condition is appaling. Someone lusts after a sedan when he drives a Maruti 800; prefers to eat at Shamayana when his wife cooks such delicous food. There is no end to people and the complaints that they have. So what does one do? I say and the best way would be to let them out on a piece of paper and then just quietly swallow it down. As for the digestion problems that may surface, see a doctor who you are sure does not reset you into the complaining mode; or you would be stuck in a vicous circle that will eat you up (as well as your digestion system). An altrenate way, also more tecnologically advanced, would be to let your complaints out on a typewriter that does not write! Whatever you do, keep one thing in mind; do not and striclty do not let them out on the same person again and again, or you know what you are destined to get. That`s right a good punch on your face.
Driving Bald!
I hate driving. I realised it just an hour ago. It may be a feeling that vaporizes the moment I find an empty road, free of potholes inviting me to just trample it down. But then the odds of that happening in Kashmir look pretty thin; at least for the time being. So, I am happy assuming that I will just continue to hate driving for some time to come. If anything, in the next few years, or maybe months, I suspect my hatred would have reached a level where it would not be known as hatred anymore; loathing perhaps or a stronger word that I can`t find at this moment. If the traffic choas in Sriangar continues to worsen at the current rate, in the next five years you might find only bald men driving; bald women as well, of course. No. Not because men with hair would have given up driving for a better transport system; because there IS no better transport system here. Just because all the hair pulling all the while people drive would mean no hair for drivers anymore. Imagine how that would be; your driving experience indicated by your hair strength. Looking at the brighter side, no man(of course woman as well) will be able to lie about his driving experience. Beat the optimism in that!
An appointment with Dr. Devil
It was a usual Friday morning when I visited this health-care-center for the first time; a single story complex with two to three rooms where a reputed doctor operated his clinic. I entered the clinic. A not so healthy compounder keeping track of the patients sat in a corner, scribbling something on a piece of paper. I approached him and in a rather feeble voice asked, “Excuse me. Can I have an appointment?” The compounder paid no attention. Perhaps the chaotic backdrop of crying babies, angry mothers and distressed patients had made it impossible for him to hear me out. I cleared my throat and with much more deliberation asked once again,” I want an appointment with the doctor.” Once again the compounder did not respond. Now I knew. He could hear me easily but was pretending to be busy. He continued scribbling while I waited patiently. He looked enormously engrossed. Had one not known better, he could easily have passed off as Einstein drafting the most important theory of the millennium. I craned my neck, reached over the desk and tried to take at look at the prized piece. Just before I could, his left hand swiftly moved and covered the paper. I succeeded in stealing a glimpse somehow. He was framing the order in which he would let the patients in! Some unlucky ones had been scratched out, others, possibly on the dint of crisp notes or perhaps powerful references, managed in. Trying to catch his attention yet again I waved my hand, “Excuse me,” I said. “You do hear me, don`t you?” After what seemed an eternity, he raised his head and looked up. He did not say a word but I could read it all printed in his eyes. “What are you shouting about?” his eyes said with burning conceit, “This is my backyard. Out here I am the king. I know you want to be heard. I know you may be late. But the king has his own priorities and for the next few moments, you do not fit among them.” He made me wait a few more moments before he finally closed the piece of paper, ever so slowly, and looked up at me again. “What do you want?” he rudely asked.
“An appointment with the doctor! What else do you offer?” I mockingly replied. He did not like the answer, as expected. How could he? He was the king out there. Me, just a petty slave. With an irritated look about himself he replied, “Where is the patient?”
“I just want an appointment,” I tried to explain.”The patient can come when at the time of the appointment.”
My explanations proved to be an alien logic. He removed his glasses and stood up. ”I am sorry but that is not the protocol. You have to bring the patient here. I will fix your appointment. You and the patient will wait in this very hall; right before my eyes, where I can see you. Your name will be called. You will go in. That is how it works here. If you do not like it, you may as well leave.”
He announced his verdict through a crisp, free flowing volley of words. I had seldom witnessed someone speak with such ease. It must have been crammed up I concluded. I turned my back and bid goodbye to the health-care-center. I was determined never to return back. However, as soon as I left, the importance of seeing the doctor once again overtook me. I shrugged off the frustration, decided to make a compromise, and sped off.
In an hour or so, I returned with the patient. The unhealthy looking compounder minding the health-care-center quietly acknowledged my return with a silent chuckle. “Here he comes back,” I could hear the sadist inside him ridiculing.” Where else could he go?”
I reached over and asked for an appointment once again. This time he readily scribbled my name down. I managed to catch a look and found our name right at the end, twenty ninth on the serial. I sat down, took a deep breath of stale air that was filling up the small room and resigned to the fact that I was supposed to be there for not less than a good two hours. It did not bother me much. What did was the fact that I was accompanying a patient who was forced to endure the same as well.
We waited and waited. The clock struck ten. The clock struck eleven. It kept on rolling and we kept on waiting. One by one the patients went in and one by one they left. Some happy with what they were told. Others just because they were finally leaving. We kept on waiting until just three patients remained. The clock had already registered twelve. The hustle and bustle of theFriday afternoon had already taken over when suddenly the unhealthy compounder went missing. On asking for his whereabouts an elderly man sitting near his empty chair, made a surprising declaration. ”The doctor has left!” he said.
The health-care-center was located in the doctor`s backyard and it appeared that he had sneaked out of the clinic and into his home. “The doctor has some guests to attend. Some very important ones,” the elderly man announced. “He will be back though. You all can wait.”
“Guests! That’s weird,” I thought. What were we then? Perhaps we were pests. At least that is what we were presumed to be. We always are. I was more concerned about the compounder at this point. Where had he disappeared? Perhaps sent buzzing to buy bakery for the guests!
“You all can wait!” the elderly man had said. He had been utterly confident about it. And to some extent he had been right. We indeed can wait. We are used to waiting. We are made to wait at every opportunity that people get. Inside idling busses where drivers wait endlessly for passengers. On unsung provision stores where shopkeepers refuse to get enough of talking on mobile phones; talking to I don’t know who. At government offices where babus need chai to work. In mindless traffic. Besides half dug drains. Below unfinished flyovers. Inside crowded stores. We are expected to wait . We wait. No wonder the elderly man had taken the liberty of assuming we could wait!
The doctor took his time. Five minutes became ten. Ten became fifteen. No sign of him. I did not want to waste another morning. I did my math and concluded that it was more beneficial to wait there and then rather than lose it, go out furious and be forced to come back the next day. We continued to wait.
After what seemed an eternity, the compounder returned. I had waited too long to keep my patience. Propped up by the memories of the treatment he had given me in the morning, I walked up to him and asked him in a stone cold voice, “Where is the doctor?” I noticed that the doctor had taken all of the compounder`s unhealthy ‘kingship’ with him. He no longer acted like a king. He no longer talked like it. All he tried was to evade my look. But how could I let him. It was his backyard after all and we were being treated like houseflies in there; houseflies that were forced to waste their precious time and at the same time pay for it.
I pressed closer and asked once again, this time even louder, “Where is the doctor?” He could evade me no longer. He sported a silly smile and replied, “The doctor will be back shortly. He had some guests to attend. Please be patient. It is quite normal. These kind of breaks are routine here.” His illogical reply made me furious. Although I knew, it was none of his fault, but just for the way he acted in the morning I decided to let him hear a few sentimental lines. I started, “But how can he leave his patients waiting. His guests may be important, I agree, but we have paid for an appointment. Paid, you know. We have booked him. The time he is spending with his guests, is not his at all. It is ours. He keeps us waiting? How cold is that? We pay for his time. He does not pay for ours.” I knew he could do nothing about it. So I did not press too hard, retreated to my sitting place and continued to wait.
A few more minutes passed. Then suddenly the compounder started hustling and busting again. I heard him whisper to the elderly man, “The doctor is back.” By now, the aura of a Friday afternoon had completely set in. Namaz was just around forty minutes away and the doctor still had to see two more patients before he could see us. We had been waiting since nine a.m. in the morning and again what bothered me most was the fact that even patients were not spared the ordeal.
It must not have been more than a couple of minutes before the next patient was called in. Another two minutes and finally our name was called. Although I was relieved that we were going in, it disturbed me that the last two patients had been given only a perfunctory two minutes of time.
We went in. As expected, the doctor in an extreme haste, did his thing. Asked some questions. Wrote down some drugs. And gestured a particular gesture. It meant; leave now. We held our ground though. I wanted to ask some more questions. I wanted to share some more apprehensions. I did. I asked he listened, half heartedly though. Quickly he wrote some more drugs and handed over the prescription without bothering to investigate any further. Till now I doubt whether he had diagnosed the problem correctly and yet had prescribed drugs for it, so easily, so quickly.
“You may leave now. Just see how these drugs do and see me again after a week,” he declared. I took the prescription and just under my breath said, “See you again? I must be a fool. Be assured I will never as much as walk your street again, let alone talk to your unhealthy compounder and ask for an unhealthy appointment.” We left the clinic. Unsatisfied with the treatment yes but ransacked with frustration and tired to bits as well.
For a few days I puzzled over that horrendous Friday morning. I did not know what to do. I knew we would need to see a doctor again. But who could we consult? Who could we trust? With our feelings, with our time, with our health! I was dejected . I always believed that their profession was the noblest profession out there. All because they dealt with humans. It was not just insentient hardware they fixed but men and women and children, with emotions and feelings. It lent their job enormous respect. It asked for huge responsibilities as well. However from what I had witnessed, the doctor had been ready to rake in the benefits but had cut a blind corner when the moment to shoulder his responsibility had come. No doubt I was dejected.
Just a few days later, something remarkable happened that reinstated my faith in doctors. Something plain and simple. Hassle free. A certain friend gave me a telephone number. It dialed to a reputed doctor`s clinic. By now I was ready to try once again. A man with a very gentle voice answered,” What can I do for you?”
“I want an appointment with the doctor,” I asked. ”What should I do?” I asked.
In a rather reassuring tone, the man replied, “Nothing more. You have already done what was required. Even as you were talking to me, I booked your appointment. The doctor will see you on Monday at 12:30 p.m. Will that be fine for you?” I could not trust my ears. There was nothing else to say. “Perfectly fine with me,” I replied. “We will see you on Monday then,” the man replied and hung the phone.
The following Monday, we dropped at his clinic, ahead of time. Our appointment was confirmed and we were shown a place to wait. Remarkably not many people were present. Telephonic appointments, I concluded. You do not need to wait for too long. Not many people get queued up. Great. It strengthened my hope that the consultation would go well. In a few moments, our name was called and we saw the doctor. He looked hassle free. He looked calm. He gave us ample time. He may well have given us the same prescription that the earlier one did, but just the fact that he cared, made us feel better, made us feel well treated.
He had made it happen. The telephonic appointment system worked great for us. As it did and still is for hundreds and thousands of patients all over the world. It is simple and elegant. You call up and ask for appointment. Your call carries ultimate weight. Even if a person personally visits the clinic and takes an appointment after you, he gets to see the doctor after you. The same holds true for all public. Excludes the need of visiting and waiting uselessly. Makes seeing a doctor ridiculously easy.
I wonder why then the system has not been embraced by more private doctors in Kashmir. Could it be because they are unaware of it? Or is it because they are too apathetic to the miseries they inflict on their patients? In any case, they are letting go of an option that can mean so much to so many. They are wasting a chance to ease the sufferings of those in trouble. Whether they wake up from their slumber and do the new or sleep in hibernation determined not to care, remains to be seen.
Salman Butt`s HOME RUN.
Pakistan 15/3 chasing a target of 434 in the fourth Innings.
Andrew Strauss walks into Pakistan dressing room.
ANDER STRAUSS: To Salman Butt. You can bat instead of Umar Gul
SALMAN BUTT: Who is bowling?
STRAUSS: Anderson is.
SALMAN: Sorry. My Kidney is not well.
STRAUSS: Ok. Collingwood will bowl.
SALMAN: Reduce the target to 150. 434 is way too much.
STRAUSS: OK. Thinks with himself (If Umar Gul does not bat. They wont get even 150)
UMAR GUL: Hold on boys. I cant let any laloo panjoo bat at my place. It is a question of my batting average and my career. Thinks to himself( After all I havent done any wonders with the ball lately)
STRAUSS: Dont worry Umar. We will give you five wickets in every innings of the tour for free, if you let salman bat at your place. Thinks to himself (After all we do not require to score more runs)
GUL: (Feeling happy). DEAL
STRAUSS: (Feeling Happy). DEAL
SALMAN : (Feeling Happy). DEAL.
HIS CONVERSION TO ISLAM.
ABDULLAH AHIR`s nerve wreaking account of his conversion to Islam.
Click for AUDIO.
Indeed if and when Allah Almighty wishes 
He can change the cruelest of hearts in a matter of moments.
It goes to show that a random act of kindness can do wonders. That is what the young Muslim man in the forest does. Even after being a dacoit, I think his one right deed has acted as a spark to ignite more than half a dozen hearts with the light of ISLAM.
Allah Bless Us. And give us the wisdom to understand the gift of Islam better. Give us more Imaan.
Ameen.
FROM ONLINE TO NO-LINE !
As hell breaks loose and internet is banned in Kashmir, take a ride with me to meet the INTERNET-LESS.
If rumors are to be believed, internet will soon be banned in the state. Although an extremely improbable move, if by any chance such a ban gets enforced, it will mean a total obliteration of all the mileage we have gained so far.
If a dangerous beast does deadly rounds of your neighborhood, certainly the long term solution does not lie in staying indoors forever but confronting it and taking it down. If internet poses a security threat in the state, it makes more sense to eliminate the threat by identifying and neutralizing the pockets of concern rather than imposing a sweeping ban. Depriving tens of thousands of helpless people from its services will tantamount to mutilation of rationality. Banning prepaid mobiles was one thing, banning internet an altogether different. In case of prepaid services you always had the option of jumping post paid. Without downplaying the discomfort it caused to millions of subscribers, the ban was something that could be tolerated (not to say that there was any other choice). However in case of internet there are no second fiddles to fall back upon. If it is out, it is out. All the good that can be had from it will turn ashes.
It is needless to say that a ban on internet does not mean a ban on internet alone. As many misunderstand, internet is not confined to checking emails and chatting online. Its significance cuts across almost all walks of life. You may not be aware and yet you may be dependent on it in some way. If internet goes down, everything that depends on it will go down with it – budding software firms, call centers (Aegis for example), banking systems, communication giants, retail outlets, education, health – everything will take a heavy clout. Beyond a smidgen of doubt the loss will be enormous. For some it may even be unbearable. This inherent loss associated with the ban stands out as the single most telling deterrent to it. The question is whether it will be accounted for, in case a decision has to be made. I think it should be. I think it will be. And that is why I believe such a ban will never be imposed.
However, going by our illustrious history of living the impossible, you never know what to expect. There may well come a morning when people wake up and find their newspapers bland, for the quality of news would have suffered because the editors did not have the facility of internet. A day might come when the otherwise unruly short queues outside pay counters would have turned into unruly, boisterous, unending extra long queues because the option of paying online would have gone down the drain. A time might come when books are costlier and newspapers are rare; when gathering information is a mission and connecting with loved ones a dream; when post boxes regain their lost reverence and telegrams shine again. Such a day, such a time seems so distant but may actually be just round the corner.
Without internet many of our nightmares will spring to life. The global village, as internet has made the world, will become something we aren`t a part of. As if fallen down from the planet, we will become a small community living in darkness, hidden behind mountains, cut off from the world. Children refusing to sleep will be admonished by their grandmothers, “And there exists a community which nobody knows about. They live behind the sprawling mountain. They have no e-mail accounts. They have no presence on the net. Their businesses are not automated and they own no websites. They know no social networking and they have no means to chat. Their long lost friends are lost forever and the distant ones never talk to them. They are cursed and so will be you. Sleep lest the internet-less take you away.” And that is how we will be remembered; the internet-less!
Everything that we have somehow managed to gain in the past few years will be lost with the dreaded ban. It may not be much, but lost it will be all the same. The last twenty years have dented our development by vast multitudes. We are already lagging miles behind when it comes to the use of technology to make life better. However, with time we are catching up fast. Already enormous sums of money have been pumped in to aid our limping development. Some of it has started to bear fruit. If things go well from here on, soon our own state will be as developed as any other part of the country. State-of-the-art shopping malls are being built. World class chains are setting shops in the valley. Things look a little more promising. Times seem a lot more rewarding. A ban of any kind at this juncture will be a total misfit. In case it is forced to fit, not only will it dreadfully undermine its own immediate domain but will cause tremors that will bring down all that stands near it.
IBM (International Business Machines – a world class multinational company dealing with the Information Technology) talks about building a smarter planet. Every night I find their commercial being aired on television. I like it. I like it for they talk about smarter things all the time.”Smarter cities, smarter retails, smarter government, airports, trains, cars, smarter classrooms, smarter hospitals, smarter people. Connect them all together and what do you have…Happier people!” That is what they believe in. That is what I believe in. To have smarter things around us, internet is definitely one thing we need. With smarter things around us happier things are certainly that will happen to us. That is what internet can provide and that is what we could be robbed of. If you do not believe me, ask IBM.
Right now there are zillions in the state who use internet and depend heavily upon it. With every passing day many more join them. For such people even seconds and minutes without its services can cause insomnia, not to speak of months and years. If internet was a luxury ten years ago, it has become a necessity today. It is a crude fact that we must understand and wake up to, sooner the better. If we rob common people of this provision now, we might as well ask them to stop sucking oxygen from air!
Az chay me FORM.
Its been quite a while since I last wrote anything in this space. Looks like it is about time that I spare a thought for my hungry fans … lol lol… and give them something to read. Well, to tell you the truth, I am still to figure out what my next lines are going to be, but I am sure we will discover it together and have a ball!
It has been almost a year, a little more I guess, since I first started writing. Like every other skill – if it is correct to call it that – you seem to have your moments with writing. ( Here, now I know exactly what I want to write 
So enjoy) I mean, one morning you wake up, place your fingers on the keyboard and the stuff really starts to ooze out, just like that. Other times you certainly have to press and deliberate more to make those black inanimate, winding and swaying, little signs we call letters to make sense. I am not sure if I am making any now. But yes, if there is one thing I am sure I have discovered in the recent past, it is the ever winding secret of ‘form’.
Well, that is what we call it – FORM – at least in Kashmiri. ‘Kya goi, kya goi, mia aesi aaz form.’ You can have a batting form, a carom board form, table tennis form; I even discovered a driving form! But one thing is for sure, at a particuilar moment, a day perhaps, you either have all of them or none of them. I guess, it has more to do with the alacrity of your nervous system rather than anything else; this form of ours.
PS:
FORM IS TEMPORARY, CLASS IS PERMANENT.
Said by… hmmm… I guess someone who was fed up of not having it for too long.
The Plastic Life.
The frigid breeze blows across your face as you appreciate the snow clad trees and the vast expanses of endless land covered with the white blanket of the ultimate blessing. In the middle of the panorama stands your lovely home, standing upright, smoke emanating from the chimney. It is a view that drives you mad every single time. Quite uninvited, a mosquito zips across your nose and into your ear. You hear a strange animal snore somewhere. A familiar alarm tune yanks you out of your sleep. You find that the snoring animal is nothing but your vibrating cell phone. Your lovely dream is shattered!
You realise that you are miles away from your home – the fairy land you witnessed in your sleep – and the only thing accessible is the pathetic ,possibly dengue carrying, mosquito which continues to party inside your delicious ear. Your head spins and your heart sinks as you realise that you are at the brink of a new day, a new day which has ironically nothing new to offer. You reluctantly get up. You resume your “plastic life!”
It is a life driven by nothing but money that too in plastic form. The boisterous rats inside your stomach remind you of the empty kitchen. One more day without breakfast! It doesn’t matter anymore. You coax yourself into motion as you leave for your supposedly wonderful office with a big big name and an even bigger building. You just find time enough on your way to pick up some junk food – the junk that eats you rather than you eating it. Your office is swarmed with people of all shapes and statures, accents and colours, etiquettes and habits but you can hardly find anyone who could match yours – someone who could understand your feelings, share your ideas, and suggest remedies. You pretend you don’t care. You try to concentrate on your work. You want to make it big with the quality and quantity of your work. You thrive for satisfaction, recognition, care, mentoring but alas! You get the ostensible clichés only … customer satisfaction, value addition, pursuit of excellence, duty onto death. The list just goes on and on. Your day starts with a few, it ends with a lot more. You are stuck in an environment where self centred unrealistic hypocrites use human values as stepping stones to reach to their materialistic goals. You are fed up of this mechanical world which is fuelled by the incessant desire to succeed, by- hook- or- by- crook. You miss your home ever so more. You want to live a life that is simple and uncomplicated, not a rat race. You want to amble not run amuck. You want to appreciate not be thankless at all times.
You still remember your first day at office when the faculty asked, “What do you want from your life?” You had bravely stood up in a hall swarmed with strange people and replied.”I want to be satisfied!” Your idea dismissed in a jiffy. “You can never climb the ladder of success if you get satisfied with what you have! You fool.” You had learnt your first lesson. The quiver of life can hold only one of the arrows, success (as they see it) or satisfaction. The question is posed to you. Which one do you prefer to carry with you? You long for the answer everytime you are reminded of the cunning world you are living in. You stop every now and then and you evaluate. You ask yourself, “What am I doing here? What am I doing so far from my family, my friends, and my loved ones? Is my current life a self inflicted misery more than anything else?” The more you think the more you are convinced that you want more and more of the pie called satisfaction. Ambitions, success, money, nothing matters anymore. All you want is the peace of mind. You make your decision. Come what may you want to get back to your real home. You are on a lookout for the slightest of the opportunities. Finally you get one. You pounce upon it. You are over the moon for you reach the land of your dreams – your home. You say goodbye to your plastic life. You start living life again, in the real sense.
The gruelling experience has taught you a lot. You see the world with a totally new perspective. For now you are satisfied. However there is a lot more to learn. You find people in your dream land cribbing all the time, about the most trivial of the matters. You feel sorry. You are surprised when you hear people complain about silly things. “You kept me waiting for five long minutes! There is not enough salt in the food, I can’t eat it! What is there in Kashmir? I wish I could move out of here.” You want to reach out to all these people and shout; tell them how lucky they are to be living in the comfort of their homes, enjoying all the blessings Allah has bestowed upon them. You are glad that at least you know the value of what you have. You realise that your plastic life has had some benefits, after all – it has taught you to appreciate even the very little you have.
Every now and then you meet people who ask, “Why did you come back? You gave up everything – your budding career, the possibility of a successful life. You are a fool” You become a stone. You are reminded of the typical paradox yet again – Success or Satisfaction. You are elated that you chose the latter. However you don’t answer them, not because you have nothing to say but because there are volumes inside your heart. You wonder if there is a sentence precise enough to explain. Not really, at least not to a person who thinks, “Kasheer manz kyah chu!” (Kashmir has nothing to offer)
Torn between sides : A HARROWING TALE
That a Kashmiri lives decades every day is no rhetoric. It is not an exaggeration either. It is a cursed truth that comes tagged with his existence. The life of every second Kashmiri is good enough to serve as a script for a billion dollar Hollywood thriller. Don’t trust me?? Read this:
His joy knows no bounds. He is the first ever in his family to have a decent full time job. It’s not been easy though. It’s been countless nights of cruel Kashmir winter with no sleep, sometimes with no provisions either, endless hours of hard work, dedication and resolve. But all that seems to have bore remarkable fruit, for now he is the proud and lone bread winner of his family. It’s finally time to give life to his long standing dreams. He always wanted to have a ride of his own. He should buy a new bike. He does. He is over the moon. However it may well be the last thing he buys before he has to buy his life back!
It is hardly a month of joyful ride when he is stopped by a group of people one day; a group wielding dreadful weapons. He is scared out of his wits, as expected. One of them waves a shining little pistol at him. He immediately stops. He has to. In Kashmir weapons are the ultimate authority. Whoever has one, has the unstinted superiority. He is asked to get down. He acquiescently does so, with no resistance whatsoever. A moment later he witnesses his bike whizzing away from him. It is gone, taken (read stolen) in front of his eyes, and yet can’t even protest. However, he knows it is not much of a loss. He is lucky to be in one full piece, to have escaped a potentially life ending experience, to have the opportunity to meet his family once again, to be able to see another day in a set up where you go as easy as you come. He knows that the remorse of losing his bike is no match to the joy of survival.
A day passes, he remains patient. One more, and still no sign of the bike. He begins to worry. He is cautioned by a friend about the possibility of the bike being used in an unlawful activity. In Kashmir, where most people are comfortable with a zero accountability system, even people with no fault can be put to sword. Not to speak of people who actually have incriminating evidence against them. Alarmed, he rushes to the closest Police Station to register an FIR. However, he is two full days late and the possibility of the bike having been misused still exists. He chooses to get the FIR lodged in the back date. He is asked to pay as much as 50 thousand to get it done! He is all thought. Does he go ahead with it or does he not? 50,000 is no price to pay for one’s life. He decides in favour. He is more than happy to pay.
Two more days pass and still no sign of the bike. However today, unlike any other day, is dreadfully different. His bike is actually used in a planned attack. Fortunately for him, before it wreaks havoc, it is confiscated by the police. Unfortunately for him, the people riding it are killed. From what it appears, he made an excellent choice to buy his life back from the devil. Had he not paid the sum, he would directly have been held responsible for the activity his bike was involved in.
That night, while he is celebrating his close escape, a group of men approach his house. He is asked to come out. These are some of the men who had stopped his bike. He is told a story; a story where a man lodges an FIR. Police use the information (the number of the bike) to locate the bike and kill the people riding it. He is accused of being the man and having conspired directly against the people the group had lost that day. He is tainted as a spy.
He watches as one of the men closes in, carrying a sparkling blade probably having the capacity to cut a stone into two. What is this feeling he is experiencing? Is it fear? Is it remorse? Is it helplessness? Probably it is all of them concocted, asking him one single question: what are they going to do to him? He is pretty sure they won’t hurt him. He did nothing to merit that. But why then is the man pulling his hair? He watches as the blade is put to his throat. Suddenly his legs tremble and his heart sinks. He is frightened, all the more surprised. They can’t kill him! He is too young to die. Besides he did nothing that deserves death. This can’t be it. Something has to be wrong. He tries to explain. He shouts and wails and asks for reconsideration. He tries to clear the misunderstanding. It’s then that it seems to him that they may have understood; understood that he is an innocent, someone who has just started to find his feet in a cruel cunning world, who has a family to support and dreams to live. But no. The cold hand holding the blade has moved… one, two, slit. The blade grazes across his throat, tears apart the flesh and finds warm blood. He feels not a thing. They probably let him go after all. But something is drastically wrong. There is supposed to be no blood. It’s all over, a lot of blood, sprinkling out incessantly from his throat, kissing the dirt. He is choking now, holding his throat with both his hands.. Yes, he can feel it now – the kiss of death. The pain is too much to bear. But the pain of misfortune is several dols greater. He can’t believe it; they were killing him for no fault of his. He was robbed of his bike. He was robbed of his money. He and his family were robbed of their right to peaceful existence. Nobody gave a damn. Nobody cared. But obviously that was not enough. He was now being robbed of his greatest possession – his life … and that too for no fault of his! The blood constantly drips out of his veins until the last drop is gone. It is all over. He is dead. However, before he dies, he has asked himself this one last question: While he was alive, what was he? Was he predictable? Was he unpredictable? He knows exactly what he was. He was torn between sides. He was a Kashmiri.
Kashmir as THEY see it.
A small piece I did for Rising Kashmir. Thought must share with you.
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He is shrouded in a long “phiran” and the traditional cap. He sits outside his mud house where he takes long deliberate sips of “Noon Chai” from that typical round cup.
His fellow is busy setting up the strange “Jajeer” by blowing gallons of air into it, making all sorts of weird noises. He is “Gaffar-Kak”. He is a stereotype Kashmiri. A Kashmiri that the outside world knows – for that is the way he is portrayed.
The electronic media undoubtedly has a great role in shaping up the views and opini
ons of people regarding everything. Most of the visuals circulated the world over about Kashmir have time and
again shown “Gaffar-Kak” sipping the same cup of “noon chai” while his fellow continues to set up the same “Jajeer”. This ambiguity, as expected, has had bizarre implications. While a good percentage of people are well aware of Kashmir in its true flavour, there exist these eerie people as well, who think of Kashmir as a far flung village stuffed with not so literate people possibly earning their livelihood by pushing bulls and ploughing fields. The unwarranted unawareness that people sometimes exhibit about Kashmir leaves you flabbergasted. I still remember this incident while I was putting up at a more “reputed” town in India. A Kashmiri friend of mine was proudly boasting to his colleague about Kashmir. “You know Apples; the ones you sell with stickers on them saying ‘OK TESTED’; the ones you sell for 20 rupees each. They are so abundant in Kashmir that you will find them scattered in gutters!” He went on and on about all the things and finally hit cricket! “Kashmiris are fanatic about cricket. You know? We are excellent at it. You will find people playing cricket everywhere day in and day out.”The colleague was somehow not ready to buy this story. “I don’t quite understand….How can you play cricket in Kashmir? How is it possible? I mean, does the ball not roll down everytime you hit it????” Poor fellow, all this time he was under the impression that Kashmir was a small town located on the slope of some undistinguished hill. “It is a valley dear, remember. A valley is surrounded by those things, the mountains, and then you have thousands of acres of level ground in between.” While this kind of unawareness puts you off, it is very prevalent. Many of my friends actually managed to ask me the silliest question ever, “Do we need a passport to go to Kashmir???”
It comes as an absolute shock to people like these when they finally get to visit the “Jannat-e-Benazir”. Quite recently I met such a group from Mumbai. The group had arrived at Srinagar just a couple of hours ago. It was but obvious from their expressions that they were mesmerized, to say the least, by the sublime view, the Dal Lake had to offer. Poor guys, they clearly were getting a lot more than they could have ever expected. I felt a titillating pleasure inside me as I saw my Kashmir ravish them to bits. I asked one of them rather sardonically, “Hey uncle…How is the view?” He was lost for words, “It`s…It`s good, great…In fact, I have never seen anything like this before!” He was quite a jovial guy. We talked for some more time before he asked me a question that struck me as a little awkward, “Where are you from?” I replied, “I am a native. I am from Srinagar.” Somehow he found it hard to swallow so he asked again, “You mean you are from Srinagar?” I said, “Yes, of course.” It took me nothing less than a couple of more assertions to make him absorb the fact. We talked about the weather and the market and the situation and just about everything else before he suddenly interrupted me again, “Are you sure you are from Srinagar?” I could take no more. I shot back, “Why is it so hard to digest UNKAL?” He hesitated a little but then broke out, “I had a totally different image of Kashmiris in my mind. I could never imagine, even in the wildest of my dreams, a Kashmiri speaking English!” I smiled as I immediately understood that he was referring to our good old “Gaffar-Kak”. I said in a typical Kashmiri accent, “Welcome to Kashmir UNKAL. You will definitely return a changed man!”
As changed men they do return, only that there are only a diminutive number of them. Of the oceans of people out there, it`s only a fraction that gets to visit Kashmir and come face to face with – its reality –the charisma of its vibrant colors and the tranquility of its unending meadows; the warmth of the hearts of its people and the tales of its unsung heroes . Others, more often than not, recognize the valley only by the masquerade of strife, turmoil and sometimes beauty.
