No. My emancipation does not hide beneath the grimness of delusionary pages of history. I stand vindicating my own truth: sometimes on narrow streets while throwing stone of courage; sometimes inside the cordoned-off houses while firing bullets of resistance; sometimes in open fields while yelling slogans of freedom; sometimes amid earnest silence while remembering all my sacrifices.
I am Kashmir, mother of thousands of people killed over the past decades. I vividly remember everything. The Gawkadal massacre. The burning of Sopore town. The Bijbehara massacre. I remember every innocent face. Every drop of blood. Every soul. Every corpse. Every mourning. I remember Kunan-Poshpora. The darkness of that night. The barging of inhuman army into houses. Every scream. Every helpless shriek calling to God for help; the help that never came.
I lived the cunning times of Jag Mohan, Farooq Abdullah and Mufti Syed. I survived the brutality of Ikhwan and STF. I emerged from the catastrophe of 2005 earthquake. I sacrificed more than 120 of my children in 2010. All of this I have sacrificed for a cause; that hinges on an Old Man.
I feel proud that my children have always beheld honor and dignity more sacred than their careers and their lives. Involved in this battle of honor I have been for years now: it doesn’t matter how many times I fall, what matters is that I rise again.
Today when I look at my people, I see them more conscious than ever. Being conscious is being sincere to one’s reality; and it is this sincerity that has essentially binds my family together. This makes me the mother of kindled spirits.
But in a dream last night I walked across Martyrs' Graveyard. I heard some of my children crying from their graves “mother, please don’t trade our blood…were we not sincere enough? Mother, please don’t let people make a career out of opportunities. Why is it always the arrogant of your children exhibiting ‘honesty’? What happened to those ‘sincere’ ones?”
As I opened my eyes the flood waters had cautiously entered my house and were touching my feet; threaten to extinguish me. It had already killed some of my family members and partly destroyed my house. Not my resolve. I closed my eyes and sought forgiveness form god for the sin that brought me this catastrophe. I’m Kashmir and I shall rise again.
(Iqbal Sonaullah is a blogger from Kashmir.)
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