Firdaus

This is the play ground which echoed with the laughter of numerous innocent children and now bares rusty skeletons of swings and slides. On another corner there were abandoned houses

. She told me there were strings of days with no electricity, no television or any media exposure. That’s how she lost her eyes. Even public transport ceased for a while, and she lost her feet then.
I hear an alarm, which was in fact a signal for people to run and hide due to news or assumption of aggression or threat of turmoil, but strangely, people continued to walk on the streets, probably because they have realized there is no place to hide.
She holds homeless, even hopeless inside her.
When I was about to bid adieu, I saw many standing with pictures of their husbands/brothers/sons in hope of them coming back. The ladies appeal more than often and claim their rights and perhaps claim their relatives too who've been cuffed under suspicion. I see some of them stand with tears brimming in their eyes. Someone told me that innumerous women burst out crying in the middle of protests, with no mention of the void in their lives whatsoever, and yet no one raises eyebrows because they all understand the pain.

She is Kashmir. And this is the poignancy I felt when I visited her this June.

PS: The title means 'Heaven'