Kashmiriyat!

Barefoot she stood in the blood drenched snow staring at the charred doors of what used to be her home. Clutching her hands to disregard the aloof self she buried her feet in snow to write her name for the last time. The snow she had played in, smelled of death, smelled of religious battles, smelled of anonymity of faith. She wasn’t alone, yet she was.

Decades have passed, she lives on hoping, the snow would have melted, and her name would have buried itself in the dry blood. Blood that didn’t belong to her, bloodshed that she witnessed yet wished otherwise. She lives on like a refugee in her own home hoping against the hope of a blissful life that she was promised. Heaven on earth was what they called it, burns like hell today.

Distant she may consider herself, distant from where she belonged but she reaches out to those charred doors, every time she closes her eyes. Too far, picturing her house being haunted with the smell of gun powder, she loathes for the moment of helplessness and leaving a mark of hers, no matter if it was momentary.

They all had to flee, flee for their lives which now complain of a dead soul. A land that stays disowned, a land that stays owned by too many, yet disowned by them all. While she searches her soul that once was alive and preserved, they look for their missing sons who now belong to a septic world of their own. They all live a life of regret, regrets that outnumber the breaths they may have but there is no reverse from here.

The house once charred, will always smell of burn, the snow that has tasted blood once, would live in denial of its purity. The hands that chose to kill their own brother, wouldn’t comfort anymore, the ones who have crossed the border already have lost the trail back home. You may choose one side or the other, but truth be told, they all live with a sour heart.

It doesn’t matter who is hurt more, what matters is, they chose to live with that hurt!

~Chintan

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