Two Poems on Kashmir
Photo: Kashmir Observer
memoirs from a conflict zone
By Faakirah Irfan
1
He learnt his first sentence
At the age of three
At a protest of his father’s death.
He said, ‘justice’
I still remember.
He clicked his first photograph
When he was ten
Of his father’s unmarked grave.
2
They tore our frocks
And marked their occupation on our bodies.
That night enough souls were martyred
To bring revolution in a hundred nations.
They trailed the soil and skin of our mothers
Only to be afterward claimed as a fragmented lie.
Our rapes became evidences stacked neatly behind
The disappearances of our men.
That night was engulfed with screams of help and disdain
Until a chilling calm suffused the air of our village
Which still stays put in the hours of our night
As we hug ourselves tight.
But, of course, their forensic report could not claim that.
They claimed our bodies that night.
A hundred men inside the precious walls of our sanctity
A hundred men that night raided the honour of our men
A hundred men that night raided the life of our women.
We became fables of conspiracies that they weaved to tell the world
We became prophecies to ourselves
We became the conquered bodies
Mutilated and gnawed souls whose violation a forensic report couldn’t measure.
We became the totems of their oppression
They tore our frocks that night
They tore our souls that night
They ate through our bodies like animals
They left our meat as evidence.
Evidence locked wrapped in plastic
Out on display;
Their oppression nullified and dug deep
Next to our unmarked graves
Forgotten.
3
Khaki
Guns and control
Oppression and mutilation
Barbed wires and bunkers that rise on
The fodder of our young souls.
Red
Crimson red.
Flowing through our streets
Running out of bullet wounds
Blood of our people
Marking its territory on the streets of the land.
The khaki claims to protect.
Bio:
Faakirah Irfan is a law student at the University of Kashmir. She aspires to be a human rights defender someday. For now she can be recognized as the “seditious” research intern at the Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi, India.
***
Wail Of a Mother
By Sartaj Rather
I will be there waiting for you
At the school entrance, near the courtyard.
I remember when you were born,
You were shinning like a star.
The day when you first time said, ‘Mama’,
It was the happiest day in my life.
You were born free, raised free
Until the day when you reached eighteen.
My boy, I can understand
How you felt about your homeland.
You once said, “We are the children of conflict,
The wretched of this earth,
Born to be oppressed and tyrannized.”
Listen my dear, I still wait for you
At the school entrance, near the courtyard.
You were the hope of my heart,
The shelter of my life,
You were my world,
My dream, My beloved.
I still remember that fateful day
When you last time left home.
You told me, “Mama I will be back soon.”
But you left that day and never came back.
Tears roll down my eyes
When I think of you.
You were my safety,
O desire of my soul,
I have no home nor name without you.
How could a man from a distant land
Kill you as if you were an animal?
O my boy, you were a kind kid,
A pious person, a darling to me,
You never hated people,
Be it Indian or any other,
Yes, you did feel angry for innocent killings,
Those thousands of thousands
Killed by the oppressor.
For Insha, a 14-year-old girl, pelleted and blinded,
For Asiya and Neelofer,
Yes, you loved to scream ‘Azaadi’
Not because you hated India,
Instead you loved every tormented soul.
Now that you are no more
As that man with black eyes shot you.
You were just eighteen,
You were a promising cricketer,
They killed you mercilessly
Without caring that you too have a mother,
A sister, and a Father.
I will wait for you,
At the school entrance, near the courtyard.
Bio:
Sartaj Rather passed out from the Central University of Kashmir. He is a blogger.
***
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***
Read the latest issue of Cafe Dissensus Magazine on ‘Unmasking the Conflict: Making sense of the recent uprisings in Kashmir’, edited by Idrees Kanth, Leiden University, The Netherlands and Muhammad Tahir, Dublin City University, Ireland.
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