Memoir:
#KashmirBleeds
#StandwithKashmir
1. Today couldn't function at all. Never before helplessness. Miles away from home (is it still our home?) multiplies the anxiety. During Amarnath land row, few hectares of land saw murder of 200 people, this time everything is snatched

2. I lost couple of my belongings today during the commute. I missed my train, multiple times. I sat there staring at screen showing my stop has arrived yet I found myself numb in the valley. Couldn't get my mind off the things going back home. Couldn't.

3. We don't care about repealing of any articles, of imposition of any articles but the aftermath. The aftermath that will follow will be bleak.
There's an adage- For every person, their home is like Kashmir. And my home IS Kashmir.

4. If they think they can settle outsiders there and change the demography, they're mistaken. They'd have imported Non-kashmiris from state for that but who will prefer living in a prison?

5. Maybe they'll trifurcate the state, Jammu, Kashmir, and Gupkar. I met many Kashmiris considering seeking asylum elsewhere. The home isn't same anymore.

6. HM carried a doc, one point read, "rebellion from uniformed personnel." They fear that uninformed personnel will rebel even after knowing their position during Kunan Poshpora, Macchil, Gawkadal, Bijbehara, Zukra.
Tells you how little they understand Kashmiris, even their own!

7. Friend is going to contact Canadian embassy, his parents are alone. The thought of not being able to communicate with them for at least few weeks made him break down. He said, there's nothing left. Maybe he's overreacting. Distance does that to you.

8. Kashmiris out of Kashmir are consoling each other. There's no news from home. Texts read, "Any news from home?". All of us scared to our core knowing what is going to happen but still feigning calmness. Only we can do this, only we are capable to console feigning calmness.

9. 33 hours since the gag. No news from home. Indian news reports say everything is alright. Everything! Everything? They put tinderbox on fire but it's fine.

10. Govt says people are celebrating amidst curfew and lockdown. Wonder when they'll upload celebratory Instagram stories, Snapchat, tweets. Two former CMs were formally arrested, probably because of celebration while entire populace detained informally, because of celebration!

11. A call comes from home, "We're fine. I'm calling from Sat phone. Take care", "We're fine, I'm calling using certain WiFi. Take care."
Brevity is the soul of wit, you've to be a Kashmiri today to know that it exacerbates the yearning.

12. Certain phone over a certain service provider can send a text. Like Majnun kissing the paws of dog coming from Laila's alley, we're all feeding of crumbs of information from home; venerating them like relics. #KashmirBleeds

13. Texts from home have turned into sacred texts, the voice notes into chants. You're rereading the texts and relistening the voice notes.
Habba Khatoon said, you may read Quran in a single breath but beloved's letter with pauses.
Like Habba Khatun we wait for those letters

14. A favour is sought for a non-kashmiri working at home. A Hindu carpenter finds asylum in a Muslim home.

Mangal- just his name is his curfew pass, yet he chose to stay in a sanctuary within the prison. https://twitter.com/Yunii_que/status/1158777901233266693?s=19

15. Imagine what mothers in Kashmir must be going through, esp those whose children are in India. In Feb, we saw how Kashmiris were treated in India. Mothers in Kashmir wouldn't be scared for themselves but their Kith and kin in India.

16. The anxiety and fear that has crept in is unprecedented. Having watched the 2016 mayhem up-close and now hearing about the never before troop deployment is troubling. The curfew of 2016 started in July and ended after more than 100 days.

17. But at least phones and broadband was working. Communication was going on. At least incoming call facility should be in place, so that people can know about their loved ones.

18. In this day and age, phones calls from somewhere back home says, "Take care. Will try to call again after 3-4 days". Missed calls from home give hope that perhaps this time it'll connect through.

19. As Ayaz Nazki said,

Aav ma kanh?
Na sa na, aav ne kanh
Haayi gayi Raat
Tamah draav ne kanh
Aav ma kanh?
Na sa na, aav ne kanh

20. Day 4: Nobody has a clue what's going inside Kashmir. Videos, photos, stories coming out of Kashmir are rare. Bidding is taking place for the videos and photos coming out from Kashmir. Our plight auctioned to highest bidder for the world to see.

21. People are flying back home despite not knowing what awaits them on the other side. This is what longing does to you, you take a leap into the abyss.

22. Anxiety is not letting you sleep, fears are not letting you stay awake. If one sleeps, he wakes up due to nightmares.

23. In Auschwitz, Victor Frankl said about nightmares:

"No dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp....to which I was about to recall him"

Our problem is that we don't know whether the reality of our camp is as bad as our nightmares, or worse.

24. Two public phones for commoners to contact the world. Two mobile phones for 6 million people to contact their loved ones abroad. The movement is clamped down, two phones are in the city center, brave the curfew, walk miles just to say "We are fine" as there's a long line.

25. In the evening, people working at that certain place take voice-notes meant to be sent to loved ones abroad from their families in their respective localities and deliver them during office hours. Siege has turned them into postmen

26. Communication blockade is so inhuman and unexpected from any decent govt that despite so much advancement in science & tech we don't have any solution for it because nobody is working on it as democracies don't impose such bans!

27. Day 5, no news comes out of homeland. There's a lockdown on Kashmiris in Kashmir while Kashmiris outside have locked their accounts due to trolls. We've been silenced within and without Kashmir

28.Tabiyat jabriya taskeen se ghabra jaati hai

We get scared due to ease enforced upon us, wrote Kaifi Azmi. Kashmiris are living it.

#KashmirBleeds

29. A friend was supposed to be home today for Eid, he's still going but only to evacuate his family from there.
#Kashmir

30. Wasi Shah said, ...ab tou Eid bhi Muharram ki Tarah manati hogi.

I can relate now.

31. A sheep that needs to be sacrificed on Eid costs around 8k and payment is in cash. People will prefer to save those 8k as the duration of lockdown is unknown. The choices are between sacrificing a lamb or themselves.

32. Phone calls come from home- for a minute only.

Wasl Ka din aur itna mukhtasar
Din ginnay jaatay thay is din k liye?!

33. Bea shaam banith thappi thappi tshaarath
Tse tyi bann subah te raav, Matyo

I'll be the evening search for you
You be the morning scatter

- Bashir Dada

The search parties go full force in the evening just before they stop the search.

34. Like search parties our hopes are like that evening search but what we're searching is the morning itself. The dawn that scatters every living soul, the start of new day.

35. Apna tou Kisi toar se katt Jayega ye din
Tum jis se milo aaj usey Eid Mubarak.

You cannot contact home and wish them on this auspicious day.
Ye zawaal Kitna ajeeb hai

36. It's like that, a tree has fallen in the forest and no one is around to hear, does it make a sound? The family is alone back home with no contact with world, are they anxious?

37. Dacchi raenth no draam zanh warr lo lo
Tei paano roodum sharr lo lo
Shaam watith laegim arr sarr lo lo
Waqt tzaer avv waen kyah karr lo lo

My grapevine ever so twisted
My wishes all unfulfilled
It's night and I'm anxious again
So much time has passed, all in vain?

-KaniHami

38. Tas waeyn dyi dyi doh chum nyeraan
Pheraan chus bewaai watan
barr'e tall pyaraan, shaam patiyay
Latiyay dil chum ravaan hyuv

Looking for him, my days go by
Him I seek in every nook and corner
Besides the door, I wait after dusk
Dear friend, my heart isn't at rest

39. Su sheshwaavul barr'as tal yun, te Barr metchrith pahar therun ~
Su temsund, saase pheere sochun, mye dop shayad chu yaar'as yun.

The arrival of messenger and that pause after addressing me ~
That hesitancy, that bafflement. Perhaps, beloved is here.

-Gulab Saifi

40. The fire marshall is on duty, stationed despite the curfew. But why?
The houses can't burn because there's no way to inform the fire brigade, a runner is dispatched to the nearest fire station shouting "Fire fire", his cries only echo the alleys, laments need no curfew pass.

41. A pregnant woman wading her way through the concertina wires. She has walked several kms in this condition but she is happy because she doesn't need to hassle for state subject certificate for the newborn. Her child is born patriot knowing his birth needed no curfew pass.

42. I just called on the landline back home. It rings and someone picks up. My heart skips a beat. There's someone on the other side. I don't recognise the voice. I try to listen carefully to decipher who it is. 13 days do that to you.

43. "Hello"
"Hello"
"Hello"
"Hello"

Someone on the otherside speaks a strange language. Jump call. Maybe. I call again. Same result. Someone picks up, a different language. Maybe they've started to mock us now.

44. I feel that they will lift the curfew soon as everyone is being detained. Govt sources say 4000 people have been detained.

As Aga Shahid said, "they create a desolation and call it peace!"

45.
Dil naumeed tou Nahi, nakaam hi tou hai
Lambi hai gham ki shaam Magar shaam hi tou hai

46. Every NRK I spoke with is broken, feigning a brave face because everyone is a mourner and everyone is a consoler.

47.
Na chi galaan
Na chi balaan

Neither dying
Nor recuperating

48. It has been a long time since we have heard a familiar voice from home. A friend received a call from his mother who was in DC office. For 45 seconds.
His mother had started with "Aes chi theek" (we are fine). They are in a siege but they don't want you to worry! Mothers!

49. Because of the paucity of the time, his mum spoke in continuity. Lot was to be conveyed in so little time. Not just about herself or her family but also about some distant relative whose kid is NRK as well so that he could know all is well back home.

50. The living are breathing, for now. The dead don't get death certificates. Everything is fine. Cages are going to be gilded.

51. All the news that is coming out of the graveyard we call home is depressing and miles away you are supposed to believe the govt propaganda. We, the outsiders are like the families of Flight hijacking victims, our families hijacked and we wait for soundbites from the govt

52. Maybe the demands of the hijackers will be met, maybe they won't be. Like those families, we wait. Sometimes someone is allowed to speak to outer world. Sometimes someone is allowed to be free.

53. Mei togg ne parun kyah chu lyekhit posh dewaran
kael gaem tavai laen ashar
yoot matsar kyah?

I couldn’t read
the writing on floral walls
my lines of fate turned mute
What frenzy is this?

-Zareef

54. Your sibling getting married next week, entire family planning to fly back home from different parts of world. September was etched as homecoming since a year ago. Rendezvous stands cancelled. There's no going home.

Happy married life, see you after your wedding!

55. It is like a post-apocalyptic scenario. Kashmir has been in intl news for a month now. @BernieSanders makes mention of Kashmir plebiscite, @nytimes, @washingtonpost, @BBCWorld carry news items on Kashmir on their front pages all this while Kashmiris are oblivious about it.

56. As if a catastrophe has struck it and wiped it off existence, all that remains are its memories.

57. What makes one shudder is the extortion that would take place in lieu of arrests. 70k for the release in two days else PSA and shifted to outside state

58. One can easily draw parallels between Karbala and Kashmir today. The siege, few helpless against many, shortage of supplies and essentials, and humiliation.

But as we know from Karbala

Yazeed tha, Hussain hai!

59. Calls from home speak about unprecedented restrictions and uneasiness in air. Survival is order of the day. Supplies are very hard to get. Shops remain open for couple of hours after dawn, if you arrive late, there's no one there. People have started to feel the cash crunch

60. I hope Mohalla committees like 2016 start providing to daily wagers and others in need but the question is will they be allowed to? More importantly, who will have extra money to give in charity after a month of siege? Nobody is sure how long it will last.

61. People are running out money and patience. There's money in banks but access is not there. Anecdotes from home are like apocalyptic horror stories. How long will people survive like this, being incarcerated in their homes?

62. I vividly remember 2016 when after 2 months of siege, I saw a well to do business man turned grocer. He had turned a room of his house into makeshift shop. Things are different this time, access is limited, I don't think he would be making it to Sabzi Mandi this time.

63. This is normal and it continues, businesses in Kashmir suffer most. Especially, the ones that are dealing with anything other than emergency supplies. Nobody will buy new garments, shawls, kitchenware etc for a long time; food and medicines are priority

64. What are these people supposed to do? They will turn to doing menial jobs like grocers. Education is the biggest casualty in all of this along with mental health. You never remain same after the siege ends.

65. Imagine yourself locked in your home for 30 days, it throws your cicada cycle out of the window. You need a very long time to recover from it. You never remain the same afterwards.

66. Imagine waking up for more than a month without having anything to do, without any purpose! In jail, they count the days that are left in their jail time but in siege you never know when it will end.
Depression 101: Get a job-find a purpose, be occupied.

67. It wouldn't be wrong to say that people will develop depression and mental scars after this.

68. It takes 40 days to form a new habit, to construe something as the new normal, to accept the change and adapt to it. It has been 40 days of siege, #Kashmir has adapted to it. World has accepted it to be the new normal for us.

69. Like Yaqoob in the longing of Yusuf, mothers in Kashmir wait tirelessly for their phones to ring, they must be charging their phones everyday without fail.

70. Nothing explains Kashmir more than Amir Jan's "Shahar Khali"
Cities empty, roads empty,
streets empty, homes empty
Goblets empty, dinner tables empty,
cups and measures empty
.
.
.
Where the chevaliers fear flat roads
Where doctors fear the sight of patients

71. Inadvertantly call from home started to describe situation back home. Then stopped and changed the topic.
"Line will be disconnected, I think you know "

72. If Evolutionary adage, "Adapt or die" held any truth, Kashmiris would have been at top of the food chain and not in chains!

73. Nearly 3 months of curfew and large population have reinvented ways to sustain. Markets open in the morning for brief amount of time, do business and then shut. Same is with the transport.

74. Zulum-parast were we called, Zulum-parast did we remain. Little has changed in our psyche. We redefine our thresholds every time, our tipping points always move up ahead, we're always on the edge.

75. Like that wife who has to put up with an abusive husband. Every time she's beaten, she protests, gets beaten again, she looks out for help, then gets tired and gives up on herself.

76. You can never be hopeless, because that is literal meaning of 'Iblees' and you are not Iblees. But what is most detrimental for you is having a false hope. False hopes have destroyed many lives.

77. A false promise is enough for someone to change the course of his/her life and then 'Unhein manzilon pe khabar hui ki ye raata koi aur hai'.

78. We are at our lowest, in every aspect. Trampled to dust but as Waseem Barelvi says,

tum girane mein lage the tum ne socha hi nahin

main gira to masala ban kar khada ho jaunga

We rise only as problems, full of false hopes.

79. Our sobs are alarming them, we cannot even mourn now. The time for the beacon is here.