Freedom, is a word, which we keep on using, keep on listening to and keep on inflicting in our guts, the first time I listened to this word was when I did not even knew the meaning of it, I don't exactly remember when, but I do exactly remember the sentence, that everyone used to chant, "we want freedom" I grew up a little older, I started chanting it too, yet to come to know and explore its meaning, to me it was something that was mandatory to say, nobody told me or asked to do it, it was just pure instinct that made me do it each and every time whenever I heard people chanting it, it all started once when I was a kiddo and a marriage was being held in our locality, I needed not to be invited, and I was their with all the girls and guys of my age, with a basket which was given to me by somebody for collecting the palates and flowers for the bridegroom, as everyone was waiting for the bridegroom to come, phone was a luxury those days and the conception of a cell phone was absolutely alien, to cut the long story short, means of communication were not that great, and everyone had no choice but to wait for the groom, what happened after that is something that kept me awake several nights and still haunts me right there in my sub conscience, there came an ambassador with the bridegroom in it, and with something which nobody knew and nobody wanted and nobody expected, he came with 3 bullets in his young chest, the bridegroom was now nothing but a corpus, nothing happened, everyone reaction less, and all of a sudden the song "aakho shaherk sheerazu" turned into "asalaam asalaam a shaheed asalaam" I knew not what was going on, but tears trickled out of my eyes, I wanted to cry but I couldn't shout, I turned voiceless, I still remember the screams all around, I still remember everyone crying, it is as fresh to me as the breakfast I had today. It haunts me, I remember the spell it caused around the village, I remember everything, I saw bride mourning for the groom she never had, and later somebody said the sister of that groom lost her mental balance now she stays all day long near the window and throws dust and what not to people passing through her house, I don't know but I am sure, she takes every passenger passing through, as her lost brother and the things she throws on them as flowers and candies and that everything she wanted to do when her brother would come back with the bride its just one story and many more countless stories each person with a story of his own, each person with a pain of his own.
Why am I writing this, why am I sharing what I have not dared to share all these years not even with the people I know, what constrained me to tell you all this, what is the driving force, is it all because of the profusion of time I get nowadays exploring being myself or is it what I witnessed in the recent past, or is it Surfing the net which has more or less become orkutting these days and as I and most of us do these days, I landed up in a friends blog and then a video of you tube, whatever the reason be, here I am, saying that we are still alive in our hearts, we are still not dead, my friend as used to tell that kashmiri's are a dead race, the sentiment here has died, I'm sure he no longer would be using the same phraseology/terminology for the nation he belongs to. Nor will nobody dare say 'the jungle we live in' we have seen our unsung heroes, no dead race or jungle boys, we are the invincible, we did not bow before the oppressor , we retaliated, we have shown that the oppressor can kill at will, take everything from us, use every brutality possible, all viciousness, still he can't change his fate, we have shown he is still a failure, he is not able to take away the emotion, the outlook, the sentiment, the principles that we not only live for.
I am not able to sleep, am I awake? I suppose I was resting from the last so many years, having lived my childhood my adolescence or having lost it somewhere, I don't really know, now I want to play my part, it is my time now, I will try to participate in my own little way, not by pelting stones or raising slogans or burning tyres and blocking the roads, but by giving out whatever little I know and I feel about my land, my nation, the place I live and for the place I will be buried in someday. I would now be a man at peace, I would no longer wrestle with my conscience.
