As a kid, I and my brother used to travel at least 80kms (to and fro) for school everyday. Our mother would wake up at around 5am and prepare breakfast, get us ready and drop us to school. Then she would wait outside till the school was over at 3pm and take us home.

During these years, I had my first brushes with the conflict. Once, our bus skipped a checkpoint and on the next one, all the men as well as the driver were brought down and beaten up. Next, a driver dared to overtake a convoy, he was beaten until my mother intervened.

The bus-station in Sopore was (maybe still is?) just opposite to an army bunker. Once, while passing through, somebody lobbed a grenade at it. It missed the target and blew just behind the bus we were travelling in, breaking the glass windows. I was again too young to understand.

In 2008, there were large scale protests going on against the Amarnath land row, there were curfews. My elder brother had tried to get milk in the morning but was made to do sit-ups, beaten and sent back home. No other kid dared to go out after that until Yusuf Kak was shot dead.

I remember Yusuf Kak as a kind & soft-spoken man, I had never in my life seen him scream at or hit anybody. He was shot while coming out of a mosque (protests were happening nearby). Another relative was shot in the hand. I was still unable to understand the situation completely.

The bullet had penetrated somewhere between the 8th-10th rib (left) and escaped from the back. His clothes were changed, the blood on the black kameez shalwar had dried and turned maroonish purple, We took it with us and gave it the elders who buried it somewhere near the body.

As the curfew kept going, rations at home ran out. Probably in my early teens, I had to travel 2KMs, get a 20KG bag of rice, carry it on my shoulder and get it back home before dark. I wounded my shoulder in the process and I remember my mother crying when I reached back home.

I suppose for me at that time, it was just a law & order issue. I did know since the very beginning that the men in uniform aren't exactly our friends but it was hard for me to figure out what was happening exactly. Who did this face represent & why exactly was it at war with us?

Then 2009 happened, by this time I was on the internet with anonymous handles, this was the time of Frontline Kashmir, Aalaw, Koshur Mazloom, Lonesome Kashmiri etc. There was also a secret group named Kashmiri Admins where all admins of prominent pages would chalk out stuff.

Things got from bad to worse in 2010 and this one was serious, the numbers crossed 120. Suddenly, I came to the stark realization that something was very wrong. That this is not how things are supposed to be, this was not a law and order situations, kids my age were being killed.

I started reading, first newspapers & magazine, Kashmir Reader, Honor and Conveyer. Then books. Curfewed Nights was very famous at that time. It might be the first book I read carefully and page to page but it was more of personally story. I needed facts to clear the air.

Then, I visited my school principal, he had a huge library of his own. I asked him if I could borrow a few books & brought home 3 who had Kashmir in the title. One of them was a Human Rights report, other two I don't remember. I would just borrow more books for a year or so.

After reading enough, I started saving money to buy my own books. The first few books I brought were Kashmir Under The Sultans, Until My Freedom Has Come Kashmir Under The Shadow Of The Gun. I also came across the existence of PDFs so I downloaded Victoria and Lamb.

It was important to understand the background to know what was going on. Why are we where we are & why is all this happening to us. I then started sharing whatever I was reading on my page that I ran until recently. For the first time, there was chronological documentation in K.

This was important because I realised if I was going through this, that would mean so are others. There must be people even now look for answers, trying to figure out what is going on. Not only would it force me to read more it would also help them in clearing their thoughts.

I would and still do keep an hour or two for such reading and would rarely or never go outside for long. My friend circle is way too small due to the fact that I spend most of my time inside (also due to my family who are paranoid just like any other Kashmiri family).

I can count the times I have been to Srinagar on my fingers. As exams came close and grades started to suffer, my mother thought I was getting obsessed with Kashmir.
@ZulkarnainAli_'s mother would stay at the main gate in case I tried to escape and meet like-minded people.

Tbh, it was frustrating. I could barely travel or talk too much politics. My family wouldn't even allow me to buy black clothes fearing I might wear them on 26 January or 15 August (lol). @ZulkarnainAli_'s father was the only person imo who was as interested in Kashmir as I was.

He would call me by his side and ask me to read or recite to him whatever I had read. As a kid, his parents hadn't allowed him to study & I guess this drives his will to learn more. He would tell me stories from the 90s and I would tell him about our own and foreign rulers.

Gradually, as I started becoming more content with what I knew and read, my family too started to accept the fact that Kashmir isn't going anywhere. But I am sure I am not alone, there must be hundreds if not thousands of Kashmiris that have the same story to share.

In 2016, my friend and another relative, Nayeem Qadir Bhat was shot dead. Most of our conversations would either revolve around Kashmir or he forcing me to buy him stuff to eat. His coffin was the first I ever shouldered. https://twitter.com/KASHMlRlSM/status/719838127364378624

The flame in our hearts for a better future is the only thing that keeps one going, nothing is as satisfactory (or deadly) as speaking truth to power in Kashmir. Sometimes, at night, I wonder what we have become and how 2010 changed everything. In a way, we were all reborn.

#BuriedInOurHearts