By Irfan Mir
On the main road outside Mohammad Yousuf Bhat’s house, a young boy buys a pack of cigarettes from a shop. He is joined by a few more young men and they settle down to talk. At the end of the road, half a dozen men come out of a mosque after saying their prayers. People of the village, it seems, have returned to their lives and have excised Rasiq from their collective memories.
By Faakirah Irfan “Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truth sayer with quill…
By Faakirah Irfan
Women of Kashmir with all your strength, your valor, your pride, your magnificence, your patience, your resilience, you are the definition of what a woman is. You battered the mountains and crushed the rocks, with your blood, and with the granite of your courage, you built the entire city.
By Faizaan Bhat
India has made Kashmir, what John Walls Cushnahan, the European Union’s Head of Ad-hoc Delegation on Kashmir, said when he visited the Valley in 2002, “A Beautiful Prison”.
By Yasir Altaf Zargar
It happens only in Kashmir where a father shoulders his son’s coffin. It only happens in Kashmir, where the old live while the young offering resistance against illegal occupation are killed.
By Archita Mittra
all words are only a black-faced pretext
to fill up the
e m p t y
s p a c e s
in the dusty, abandoned
parking lots of your heart.
By Faizaan Bhat
The youth have been killed during several such uprisings in 2008, 2009, and 2016. These youth deserve our respect as they are the martyrs of Kashmir, who have sacrificed their lives for the collective good and common cause.
By Irfan Mir
Death was on his young mind; it had gone into his brains, seeming nearer to him than it had ever been. In the quivering light of a candle, the wooden rafters above his head seemed to float. He imagined Ezrail hovering around him like cigarette smell.
Nitasha Kaul said India’s relationship with Kashmir—humiliating attitude towards them, killing, injuring, and blinding of innocent people, intimidating of journalists, and clamping down on the media and shutting down internet and mobile communication— was like Britain’s relationship with India under colonial rule.
By Omair Bhat
In the streets, filled
with impenetrable smoke,
Kashmir is burning again,
so are tyres, rubber,
and logs.
By Yasir Altaf Zargar
I saw you on a national media channel, where you were shedding crocodile tears. Did you want to convey the message the suppression of the people’s movement made you cry? Do you endorse the movement? In that case I would like to make you aware that you have killed 58 people so far.
By Abhay Kumar
The Indian media, barring a tiny section, have now turned itself into a propaganda machine for the state’s ideology and majoritarian sentiments. This is not to say that earlier, the mainstream media were fully objective, but now with its coverage of the ongoing Kashmir crisis, it has gained a new notoriety.
Cafe Dissensus Everyday 