From those wires, I did listen
The last words of my son
But never through these wires are carried
The pain of losing a son,
These wires only carry sighs…
And when they shall learn to broadcast
My erased verses
For lack of words written by blanks
You receive a phone call. The caller is none other than your son. Informing “I am trapped”. An unfathomable lightening branches over you, yet you encourage the son who speaks for the last time and you know it. And if you continue to persuade your son amidst of curbing your tears to take the bullets on the chest, I salute you as a father. Usually mothers scream, sisters cry but fathers silently sigh. The last words of a son, who soon will be garlanded by merciless steel capsules, might seem just mere blocks, but the pain behind these words can never be ignored. A father speaking to his son for the last time on phone with screams and sighs in the background is no way a fictional creation of writer, but a reality that speak volumes together. How now a father has prepared himself to receive his son soaked in blood after guiding him to take bullets on the chest!
As a father, we all know hard it is to be in such a situation and many may lose their temper. Conflict has changed the landscape of our thinking. We are a changed lot now. Yet the world around us is just a silent spectator. We are criticized by those who are unaware of the reality on news channels; we are being supported by those who feel our pain on the same platform. There has always been a mixed response. And in between these purposeless debates we are being labelled and our labels are not prepared in laboratories but manufactured according to the need of the oppressor who knows not what is meant to be known for he is an unknown citizen of a known city.
Shall we salute a father who encourages his son not to surrender or shall we weep for losing a generation? Shall we mourn or shall we make it as a point of reference to take forward the ‘Voice’? Shall we write a tale of our woes or draft a script to eternalize the contribution of young men? How long shall we dig the graves to carry our younger generation to their eternal palaces? Is there no stoppage? Is there no one to take a lead to end this menace? How long shall we see a father carrying dead body of his son amidst sobs and silent screams? How long a mother shall shed her tears?
Here in Kashmir, seasons speak through a colour
Our greenery is red, soaked in serum warm
Spring comes with a sigh
Summer summons us to mourn
Autumn argues with our aspirations
And winter wages a war
And we live without a season to celebrate,
For conflict is itself an endless season
Of burials and of brutality.
This conflict has not only chiseled our brows but has also scratched every heart irrespective of regions and race. Our spring season is red, so is our summer. Our autumn is no longer pale, but it is all reddish, every leaf that falls is exposed to bullets and pellets. Our winter is no more snow white but smeared with human blood. Our tulips are no more refreshed by dew, but with rich life serum donated by young men. Our entire landscape has been bruised beyond repairs. In the ruins of our memories we are endlessly experiencing echoes of pain, the silent sobs of a mother, screams of your sisters and pulsating plight of our younger ones.
Attempts to resurrect our sunken sensation seem a far distant dream. Exclusiveness has taken over; we are pushed into the depths of monstrous gorges meant to terminate voices. Our loneliness has earned for us a space where blood speaks and narrates. Our sighs carry a common narrative. We are being greeted with pellets and bullets, our limbs are fractured so are our frames. As a result of this outward projection of hate, we are being treated as ‘other race’.
Our almond blossom is no more seen on the limbs, but on the graves. Parents no more take their rest of the kids to parks but take them to the graveyards to offer garlands to their lost ones. How now these gardens and parks are just a heap of dust for us! How now these running brooks and rich books have lost verdicts for our libraries are flooded with blood. What else shall we narrate, our tale is like a flood running and ruining the fields and folks.
Dusk shall lose its crimson romance soon
For night is marching fast
The moon is driving its chariot
Making the stars to clear the signal
For dew drops in plenty
Are on the way to refresh the leaves.
