‘Many mothers of my Kashmir will cry today’

This article was published in The Times of India editorial. Iam only presenting this as a work of, and copyright of Dr. Syeda Hameed. 

On June 30, last to last year, Asif Rather, aged nine, ran out of his home in Baramulla in search of his older brother. Minutes later, he fell victim to a bullet fired by securitymen. He was just 150m from his front door. An elegy on the death of an innocent by Dr Syeda Hameed , writer and member of the Planning Commission.

He stood at the sunlit door

A nine-year old with tousled hair

Asif Rather, student of class four,

Baramulla, 55 km from Srinagar

'Where is Touqeer?'

He sought his older brother.

'Nowhere! You come back now

Here's tea and last night's bread

My baby, let me comb your hair'

Outside, the sounds Allah o Akbar

Chanting at once, one thousand strong

'Mother, I'll get him back'

'No child, Touqeer is big, he's with friends

My youngest, you're too small

See here is cream skimmed off the milk

Now come, you make me angry'

The little form at the sunlit door

Ran out, unheeding

The face appeared, smiling at the window pane

'Mother, you can't be angry; I'll make you cry today'

And he was gone

Outside the milling crowds of tall and lanky youth

And one lost boy in a forest of long legs

And long sticks cut from poplar trees

Some hands clutch roadside stones

'Touqeer!' he called out

Was that his blue shirt?

But there were hundreds in blue

He felt the tears well up

Quick jammed with grimy fists.

He stood confused, afraid, ashamed

'I should have had the milk and last night's bread

So hungry and so far from Ma..

But Touqeer, where's he?'

And then it burst

The tear gas shell tore his tender flesh

'Allah' he cried his small hand

warding off

the evil that drew blood.

The crowd stood still

A dozen hands reached out

To hold the falling body

His bullet broken neck

Gently rested on still hands

Of weeping boys

The tousled head of hair

Blood drenched, hung in strands

On a shining forehead...

And twisted in the sinews

of my mind

Are seven words

(Seven lines of Quran's first Surah)

'Mother I will make you cry today'

How many mothers of my Kashmir

The place where I was born

Will cry today?

Will cry tomorrow?

This beautiful elegy by Syeda mam presents the condition of Kashmir, a beautiful place, the heaven on earth, torn between strife and life...the place battles with numerous struggles, internal, external, political and demo-graphical  my heart reaches out to them, to people, the 'hoi polloi' who live in perpetual fear of death, longing for a peaceful life in the lovely valley. the place which once sparkled as "firdaus" now tries to find living, tries to find its life amidst terror attacks, tear gas, bomb shells! this heart wrenching work of prose touches a cord with every mother, every human. i cried when i had read this in paper. i silently cut and pasted it in my scrap book. and today when i stumbled upon it again, i felt i need to share this. so that all my friends who missed the article, can ponder over the struggles, the battles, the life in valley. and probably figure out what they, as youth, can do to improve or at least aid the situation. each of us has it in us to work in our own mild manners to help the mankind, to help our brethren. may be our politics, our system, our cops, everything needs to be revamped. and don't we as countrymen, lay responsible to bring those winds of change?? think.... ponder...introspect...and act.... in whatever, howsoever little ways......