In the midst of a dark July night, I woke up from deep slumber to a nightmare that was reminiscent of an event which happened some 16 years ago. The scenes of that nightmare are still fresh in mind. I was covered in sweat and could feel a lump in my throat. Stretching my arm to switch on the lights, I looked around for water but could not find my water bottle. I checked my cellular phone, it was 1:38 am. I stood up from my bed and slowly walked down to our kitchen for water.
Even after drinking a glass of cold water, I felt the uneasiness caused by the nightmare and walked back to my room thinking a good sleep will calm me down. I switched off the lights and went back to my bed but couldn’t find sleep. When I closed my eyes, the thought of the nightmare kept me awake. The scenes of that nightmare kept playing back and forth in my mind. I kept staring at the ceiling fan and its bitter thoughts took me back to my childhood years.
I was born in Khanyar area of Old City in Srinagar, that part of the city that had become the hub of the resistance movement. A few years before my birth, Kashmir had started to bleed, and coffins carrying young men were common. Kashmir had become an archetype of oppression, resistance and sacrifice.
As the resistance movement gained momentum, the brutalities and oppression intensified. More suppression from the regime saw more youth joining the ranks of freedom brigades.
The locality where I grew up was not new to crackdowns, curfews, house-to-house searches, arrests, and every other oppressive tactic used by the regime to counter resistance movement. Old City has no planned or organized colonies. Generally, houses are situated in very close proximity to other houses and the aerial view of the neighborhood from one house is blocked by the presence of another house. Same was the topography of our Mohalla. But our house was different; it was situated at the end of a long lane with all other houses either on the left or right side of the lane.
From our house, we had a clear view of this 150 meter long lane. During crackdowns and curfews our house used to become the center of attention for government forces. They used to occupy our hall and point their LMGs towards the lane.
I remember, it was the summer of 1996, my father was out for work and so were my uncles who lived in adjacent houses. At around noon, crackdown was imposed in our area. I remember that I was holding my mother’s hand and my sister, mother, grandmother were standing near a broken window pane, trying to peek out from the cracks in that window. I saw two boys being beaten just outside our gate.
They were kicked and hit by the gun's butts on their heads by men wearing camouflaged uniform and black scarfs. Blood was oozing out from the heads of those two boys and they were being dragged to a bottle-green gypsy stationed near the entry point to our lane. The next thing I remember was that our main gate was kicked down by the forces and they barged into our compound. We were asked to come out and sit on the porch (veranda) of our house facing the compound.
My uncle’s family living in the other house was made to join us too. In all, we were three children (me, my sister, my cousin) and four women (mother, grandmother, and two aunts), sitting on that porch. There was no man in the house. The army men in our compound were pointing their Kalashnikovs at us and threatening that they will kill us. I, along with my cousin, sister, mother and aunts, was crying.
With their muzzles pointed at us, they kept on saying, “hum tumay aaj maar daingay” (we will kill you all). All of us were crying. My grandmother, crying for mercy, told them “Mei mari’v, magar yem mosoom bache travyookh” (Kill me, but leave these innocent children). She hugged us continuously.
After checking everything (read ransacking) for a long time, I don’t know why, but they left everyone unharmed. The very next thing I remember is that women from our neighborhood thronged to our house and they too were crying with us. I remember father coming home and my cousin, sister and me narrating the episode to him.
Later, we learned that the boys who were arrested were actually laborers living in a rented room in the neighborhood. They couldn’t be traced down. They must be recorded somewhere in the books of “custodial disappearances”. They might be buried somewhere in some unmarked grave.
The Nightmare:
I dreamt it was the same day as the day of that crackdown and this time around, I was no more a kid. I was all alone standing near the same broken window and looking out from the cracks in that window. I saw hundreds of men carrying two coffins and remember talking to myself and saying that they were the coffins of the same two boys who were taken away in a green gypsy. Next thing I remember is walking with people, crying and chanting in unison “la illaha illallah”.
Sehar Khan’s drum broke the silence of this dead, dark night. I checked my phone, it was 3:05 am. For next few minutes, I heard the beats of the drum die down and don’t know when I felt asleep.
(Shahid Ul Islam is a business management student at the University of Kashmir)
No comments:
Post a Comment