Voyage to the Valley

A 36-hour train journey was not enough to reach this part of the world. As you reach Jammu you realize that there is still 305 kms or roughly to say a 12-hour ride to take you to the paradise of ‘India’. No wonder people say it is difficult to reach heaven, surprisingly even for the relief materials! The jittery ride and the journey to the place of 1730 ft will go down as one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I had thought that this alto-phobian would never go back home, but I was alive possibly to write about the most memorable voyage of my life.

As I write my experiences I find it ironical that thank October 8 got me here. Over the past 50 years the Kashmir valley has witnessed some of the goriest manmade disasters. From organized army war to armed struggle this place has seen it all, Kashmiris have lived under constant threat of all most all kinds of violent outbreak. But this time there were different things in store for this jinxed valley; nature decided to cast its supremacy over this torn nation of the Himalayas. It was really unfortunate that I came to this place because of a natural disaster like the earthquake. But somewhere I feel this calamity has brought hundreds of people close to each other.

From Srinagar to Jhula, and Uri to Garkote we could visit those places, which were among the least-visited places by an outsider or tourists. But we were definitely not tourists and had come with the purpose of helping the organization Pakistan-India Peoples Forum For Peace and Democracy, that was working in the earthquake-hit areas. I was told to stay at Garkote, one of the earthquake-hit villages of Kashmir.

The narrow roads and the ice-cold climate were enough to help me make up my mind. I had from my heart and mind decided on going back to Srinagar city. I thought the cold and mountains were not the kind of company I enjoyed, and thus the sane thing was to go back. But then people succeeded in persuading me and I was on my way to explore some of the most fascinating things on this earth. Now as I look back I think I have made one of the right decisions of my life. The thrill of staying under the tent in freezing cold, the bonfire, the pheran, and so many endless things that I got acquainted with. Garkote was again the place where I was reborn, my name changed to Nusrat and all effort made by the people to make me learn Kashmiri thinking that it was the only thing left to make me adaptable to the place.

People always want to find happiness in material things, and ultimately they end up being dissatisfied and unhappy. In Garkote we were staying in a 10x14 tent with a 60 volts bulb, a sleeping bag and loads of genuine people around. In one week I could feel the strong bond of belongingness to that village. I thought I had been staying in the place for years, and surprisingly I did not miss my mom, my sister, and everyone back at home. There was so much that I was taking home, a few of them were my memories and others were huge bags of gifts. There was a time when I was so shy to tell people that everyday I got a bag of akhroots, apples, bangles and what not. But there were so many interesting facts, confessions, acceptance, and interesting stories to listen to. All said and done in Kashmir you realize the other side of the valley’s conflict.

The hatred towards Indians, a feeling of betrayal is what the Kashmiris have been going through in the past 50 years. Land up in Kashmir and you get the view that is stark opposite to what the Bollywood movies and the state of India say. Here the army is nowhere considered as ’veer jawans’, they as good as any local goonda. The Kashmiris have lost faith in their own government too; the only people whom they have some hopes pinned on are the freedom fighters. People were taken in custody just because they had long beards, and they traveled after 6 in the evening. Reason -- suspected militants. Just imagine this happening to anyone from any other state of our country. This in my view is a complete violation of human independence.

The media has played a very important role in the information-building process of the Kashmiris. It has also been a factor that has further damaged the image of India in Kashmir. Aftab Khwaja a resident of Garkote doesn’t go to bed unless he listens to the evening news on AIR and the BBC. His knowledge in terms of world affairs is so vast; Palestine and the Iran history are on the tip of his tongue. This trend is also evident in the entire village. There are hardly any people who have television here but still the people have comfortably made themselves aware of the world around them.

There are slogans written in every nook of the roads. ’Mera Bharat Mahan’, ’Shaan se bolo hum Hindusatni’ and so on and so forth. I have no problems with these slogans, but all of them are forced on the Kashmiri people. The majority of the people here can hardly read and write in Hindi, our ’national’ language. For these people these words are just scribbles. It has resulted in nothing but alienation of the entire state. There are methods used by the army to ‘control’ the civilians. One of the mildest examples would be the use of sticks by the army to hit the civilian vehicles, to make way for themselves in the highways.

It’s been years since our country’s propaganda machine has been feeding us inappropriate facts about Kashmir. But it is high time now that we stop measuring our patriotism vis-à-vis Kashmir. Kashmir has always been treated as a piece of land, where both India and Pakistan want to show their supremacy by possessing it. It’s high time that we realize that Kashmir also belongs to the people staying there. If people start pondering about this thought it is not far that one day we will see peace resting in the valley.