They just stole everything. Were they vultures, I don’t know. But when I saw them, they looked like vultures stealing from the nests of the birds of heaven. The heaven is no more as it was to be. Now, it is just a virtual hell. Through a clever use of propaganda, they took everything from us. Where did these birds go? Some died, some fought, and some betrayed their friends.
“They restore communication only to halt it again!”
This is a story of a bird (Suhail), who is caged inside an open-air prison (the soil of sorrows).
Kashmir, or we can say the soil of sorrows, or forbidden land, or virtual hell, or heaven headed by vultures. This summer, my life changed entirely. I can now understand what is freedom and what is a cage, what is hell and what is heaven, what is annexed occupation and what is an independent state. My life changed not because of some magic, but rather because of harassment on my motherland.
I don’t understand why I am being asked to show my identity by foreigners on my motherland. I don’t understand why I am being stopped in the middle of the road while going to school. I don’t understand why I am being stopped while going to the hospital. I don’t understand why I am being frisked while I’m with my schoolbag on my back. I don’t understand why I am being asked by my parents to switch off the lights before 9:00 pm. I don’t understand why my phone is always being checked by foreigners. I don’t understand why our communication is always being halted. Unfortunately, I don’t understand this whole pointless drama. My life changed utterly when I was being a victim of this whole pointless drama.
While everyone is living their lives freely, this Suhail has thousands of questions in his mind.
Rousseau the philosopher rightly said: “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains”. Suhail too was born free, but he too is in chains. He wants to live a life of dignity, but alas! Like everyone else, his basic rights were denied in the soil of sorrows. He is a person who always wants to explore the world, but thinks that he has no right to explore just because he is a Kashmiri.
Suhail is living in the dark, where he has no communication since August 2020. He belongs to a rich family and was able to go outside the State to study, but had decided not to go. He was able to feel his heart beats and blood flowing through his veins, that were arousing him to fight for himself and the whole Valley. He left all (passion, dreams, etc) aside. “We all know that many Kashmiris are in depression. We are being tortured like a fish in a water tank.”
Suhail added, “It is my air, water and land, and they have come to restrain me from using my air, water and land.”
Suhail also used to say: “The wind cannot destroy a tree with strong roots. We still have life in our bodies; we will thrive, we will rise, we will defeat the dark.” With hope, nothing is impossible in life. Today, I have a dream that I will move freely in my land till my death, without being stopped by foreigners. In the end, if you want to fight, then fight.
Featured image source: AP Photo/Barbara Walton, File