Mornings in Delhi are not as cold as that of Kashmir. There is a vast difference. At the rarer side of my room, a window opens up the life of Delhi every morning: Moving cars, rickshaw pullers, labourers working at roadsides; and the most beautiful scene: a mother making her child ready for the school. Every day I see her uniform her child who is barely 9yrs old. Her face always glows with that endless smile. She might be praying millions of times for her child’s happiness and life. The little boy always bears smile, as if naturally, at her and his mother, as if naturally, hugs him tightly and kisses him infinitely. Sometimes I fail to count the kisses. She might be dreaming of her child becoming a doctor or engineer or pilot or a successful businessman; she is a lucky mother unlike the mothers of my paradise (Kashmir).
I remember my days when my mother used to dress me up for school. I never saw her face glowing.  And there was no smile like that of the former’s mother. She always used to kiss my forehead with those perpetual tears squeezing out of her eyes, there would be no dreams dressed in her eyes. “khudah thaevinai waare.  khudah bachaevinai dushmanan heind sharre nishe ” (May God  bless you. May God protect you from the enemies!) She would bless me like this every morning. She always hugged me as if it were the last time she was going to see me alive. Probably, I am enough fortunate to be alive, still. Unlike thousands of my Kashmiri brethren: many of them resting in the congested graves. Many are still unknown. May be the prayers of their mothers died down half way before reaching the heavens. May be those prayers got disappeared forever into thin air like thousands of Kashmiris. Or maybe the Almighty had been biased towards them.
Well, honestly, I do not know the reason. All I know is it was very hard to be the child of a conflict. It had always been. And it remains. Because with every new Sunrise in Kashmir, endeavours to live herald. To breathe. To exist. To have dreams in your eyes. And to see a smile on your mother’s face. May be Kashmiris alone are chastised for Adam’s sin. Whenever I see myself in the mirror, I see butchered bodies, roads painted with blood, houses on fire. And screaming mothers. I see devil snatching souls out of bodies with a cruel grin that is echoed.
That has happened in the past and the images are vivid in my mind. I hope my Kashmir smiles too like the way I see children smiling in Delhi.

Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Nov 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Tue, 22 Nov 2011 00:00:00 IST