Monday, October 21, 2019

Messy shoes and a cluttered mind

Messy shoes, untucked shirt,unattended stubble on his cheeks and a cluttered mind full of thoughts about back home. Somehow Amir made it to his flight. He was at the boarding gate all along but never realized when the boarding had started. Thoughts about home had kept him occupied all along.

He wasn't usually the clumsy one. If anything he loved Airports and always reached well before stipulated time. He was always excited by the idea of an airport. That feeling of witnessing first hand the hundreads of happy-sad stories around him.  Couples meeting each other after long, Parents bidding goodbye to their kids working in other cities, college friends going for a vacation. There is so much to look and feel at an airport, he would say. Airport's don't judge. Aren't prejudice. Airports represent all the good we are as a humanity. It doesn't matter your religion, how much money you have,  the color of your skin, if you're man, woman or a child. It's an accepting global village. Doesn't matter who you are, you are welcome to be there.

But, today was different. There was an eerie silence in his flight to Srinagar. This was the first flight being operated after Narendra Modi led Indian government had announced the revocation of Jammu & Kashmir's autonomy on 5th August 2019 and an information blackout had ensued ever since.  It had been 96 long hours since he had a word with his Abbu who had went to spend his one month in his ancestral village like every year.

Almost all other passengers had identical stories, carrying emergency food, clothing, money in cash and hope in eyes to reunite with their loved ones unharmed. Whatever came out of this journey was a thing of discussion for some other day but one thing was for certain, Amir, his co-passengers in the flight and millions of other kashmiri's could never forgive the current government for the way they bought about this change.


P.S. - Sitting here in our comfortable AC homes, we can never imagine the plight of people in valley. Just read today that it has been 75 long days since schools functioned.  Let's be a bit more aware about the situations before we casually put our opinions in a discussion - H" toh Modi ne accha hi kiya. State govt se support khatam ho jayega toh terrorism toh khatam ho hi jayega..." Unfortunately, things aren't that simple. Burned fingers once in Demonetization. burned fingers twice in revocation of J&K's autonomy. How are we so okay with such badly planned, half cooked plans of this government?

Once bitten, twice shy, thrice just a moron!

#75daysofblackout

peace out!

cheers,
Me