A Night Of Despair

IT was quarter past twelve. I was reading Orhan Pamuk while taking sips of Lipton tea, when my younger sister entered my room with index finger placed across her lips and her eyes quite wide, as she conversed her silence into words, it took me a jiffy to hear her humming sound; “It is an Army cordon outside; turn the lights off”. Following the instruction, I put my book and half filled goblet of tea on the night stand. We both looked sneakily through the windowpane and the street lights in the dark served us the ring of soldiers patrolling the streets. An uneasy calmness had engulfed the atmosphere with only the soldiers’ murmurs breaking the quiet of the night. I saw some cops were alert while a few of them smoking cigarettes, one on phone call and another resting against the electrical pole. As if they were waiting for someone’s arrival.

None was aware of the reason behind the cordon. My Dad’s cousin had buzzed him revealing the army personnel have barricaded the entire village. Instead of pleasant sleep night brought the ordeal alarm. The tension deprived every eye of the sleep and the horror left folks miserable. Everyone was anxiously waiting for their departure, so that they could sleep in the remaining portion of night. But a big thanks to our street dogs it didn't happen the way people wished.

My grandfather once told me that in the times of my adolescence, they had witnessed such nights frequently. Crackdowns and cordons were a routine be it during the day or night. They never slept during many such nocturnal raids. Someday night would pass atrociously while at times; it would bring a half fractured sleep into one’s eyes. It’s not so nightmarish now to witness cordons or raids as we are used to these experiences. They don’t terrify people to that much extent. In those times they would barge in the houses. They would keep families even the female folks and infants outside in the teeth chattering cold during the night hours; they would even beat people especially the youth without any justification.

From the past tyrannical times, the bone-chilling incident of Kunan-Pushpora is another case in point. Where a night like this one passed and took everything away of people. Where files of justice are still waiting to get unleash. Where every eye is moist, every heart numb, every mind restless. Where people still struggling to let justice prevail. Where the regime has always miserably failed to meet the demands of people; where people are alone left to suffer.

It was quarter to two when the voices abruptly arose outside. We awfully peeped through window glasses. There was an array of soldiers coming down the alley leaving past our house and then neighbors. A spark of relief reigned on our faces. The rest of night passed away with a mixture of feelings – sleep and obsession. Obsession of past despotic nights and the one I witnessed.

Next morning came. The stories about night started surfacing regarding someone’s abduction and much more. On that particular day, while waiting outside the bakers’ shop I happened to listen to a dozen of old men and women talking about the hot topic – “last night’s cordon”. An old wrinkled woman addressing the another person “Mea booz Ramzanun qayoom chuk nemut rattith” while the latter responded in a low voice “ Hatai naai, dapaan hey kem’taan che easmech kastaen mukhbirii karmech”. I took the bread and left.

My valley has been witnessing such horrific nights for decades; when it lost its chastity and glory. When it witnessed bloodshed and wailed. When it suffered and complained. These suffering are so long and pitiless.


A version of this article also appeared in printed edition of daily kashmir reader on 30 April- 2015, http://www.kashmirreader.com/a-night-of-despair/

She Was Always There For Me.

The Noble Quran has illustrated it this way “Every soul shall have a taste of death”

SAIDA: The immortal love of my soul and the ravishing memory of my heart. Whose inestimable attachment, heed and warmth of love came to an end was Almighty’s most beautiful and priceless endowment to me. For I will – Certainly I will always crave [badly] for her companionship and in no doubt will always be deprive of – because I’ll never get my Granny back into my life for I had laid her for rest in the eternal space – GRAVE, and the universe is too weak and worthless to bear such a phenomenal soul anew and I – too dimwit to put her on a lone paper.

By Allah I ain’t in my sanity and I have no guts to express that moment when I was taking her to her last abode on my shoulder, inside a livid coffin, wrapped in a colorless garb and holding bulk of tears back into my eyes was extremely hard job I had done ever in my life. I was merely reminiscing those old-gold & beautiful moments I cherished with her. I was musing and musing over her fathomless and invaluable love and care which shall never rain on me for a second time. And POMPOSH will wither away – how can it flourish when the gardener is lifeless.

With Granny I have had an emotional attachment [that’ll last forever], be it sharing things, my studies, my shopping and other daily stuffs I would never do it without bringing her up to date about what the matter be and of course she would habitually irritate me by examining it more than a scientist would examine his or her creation for last spin. My beloved Granny you were the shining star in my seclude life. Your demise has left a great void in me, in my heart and in my life. It has depopulated my world. Phew! Who will examine those things now? Who will take care of my belongings? Who will irritate, love and nurture me like you did? Who?  – – – – NOBODY! And it hurts like anything when I think about you.

“Waloo haa nigaaro be haawai jigar
Tahas gow mea balaa,
mea maa leg’h khabar”

 I Love You [APPA] my Mother, my undying Love. I Love You so – so much, beyond the limits of infinity. I Love You more than my fractured words can convey. And I swear by Allah that your Son will turn that every dream you knit for me in a reality. May your beautiful soul flourish in heavenly spaces! I will miss you forever.

Cheerless Portrait

(I)

In this winter like spell
a ravine splits the foothills
this rain invites melancholy
to her home
where her babies
crying in starvation.
In search of chow
mother
nomadic – akin
from hill to hill
from bough to bough
in spite of food every time
with bare jaws and beak
holding the false hope
of continued existence.

(II)

The dull sheets of sky
sends the deluge of pitiless drops
lessening on the fresh daisies –
spangled grassy knoll
on the deadly boughs of fallen tree
passing life to its naked roots.
Where this feeble mother
with finite sufferings
rests a jiffy
and croons
to her creator
the refrain of severance
and the searing pain
emerging from her eyes.

(III)

From some corner
she too writes to me
the yarn of downpour
disturbed the fine slant
of her nearby hillock
and the shore of striking creek
running past her home.

She writes to me
with a lump in her throat
drawing her deciphered musings
and fighting back her tears
scrawling on a drenched paper
the brutal tale of deluge.

From the smeared shore of Jhelum
she writes;
the fluctuating
distance of filthy water
and the frozen eyes of fishermen.
She writes;
temple chants the hymn
after the bell’s every boom.

She further writes to me
the yarn of 2nd oppressor.
She writes it never warns
it visits you in the dark
akin to First one
and leaves your corpse
in the lanes of neighbor
it departs you
damped not in blood
but
fairly in ruthless water.

(IV)

To the spring I beseeched
come Oh spring
and convey life to my demised vale.
To its distressed folks
explicate the riddle of ecstasy.

Out of suffering and extreme ruin
come and attire my land
in apparels of arresting beauty.

Come and visit my perished paradise
its glum gardens
and foul brooks.
Come and heal the scene of desolation
Come and cease this growing rift
of man and nature.