This vicious cycle has made us all too stubborn; forgetting altogether the pain that yesterday almost killed us, locking the doors with Ithr of beloved’s blood and opening everyday a new wound in our souls where a new name is to be home with newer pain and maybe some new even odd numbers.
The work day was same till a murder was committed in front of me at a public place with everyone around but the bullet, the blood ,the killer, the victim, the suffocated screams were not heard or seen by anyone except me!
When a cynical cruel conversation between two young lads drifted his attention, I had seen his innocent eyes which were too pure. Just couple of minutes and he was lost in that conversation wrapping each word in silk covers, placed carefully somewhere in his palace of memories, childhood memories. They will remain there forever now , maybe will rott and rust there!
I could see him travelling places, meeting people, assuming everything that was being debated.
Imagining all that! This young chap turned some stained pages of our 40 years history, encountering Blood and bullet. Chapters were started with cordons and ended on massacres. Soon He was introduced to diabolical kashmiris and then immediately cannibalistic acts of either side of this conflict were glorified in front of him. He was initially scared, I know! He closed his eyes when he heard of Headless corpse and his badly mutilated body but he too is a kashmiri ,he survived and again maintained eye contact with one of the young man. He was rebuffing the conflict within him. It was a familiar struggle, similar to our resistance!
I could see him now rationalizing violence and every bullet. His smile turned to be somewhat cunning, without any armor he was armed now! Maybe that is where our Oppressor wins; this is how our Oppressor wins!
The pure soul I met twenty minutes before will never be the same and I can assure you his eyes will never depict the same innocence. He was murdered, killed and left unburied there.
How readily this oppression takes us from ourselves, we end up finding pride in humiliation. The grave pain shivers Me when I realize these deaths are unknown, unnoticed, we all are dead some are dying just the fact of cognizance and you will testify it too. You know these deaths will never be documented, never will score in history, they go unreported.
This is oppression I tell you, this is!
And if submission to this oppression makes me a coward, I declare myself a coward today!