BY Z.G.MUHAMMAD
When I compare my childhood with those. Who witnessed blood flowing through the streets like rainwater after a heavy shower. Saw their nests in flames. Saw neighbour’s house torched and up in flames, chests of their friends ripped from top to bottom and sewn like gunny bags.I am often reminded of a verse from ‘In Jerusalem’ a poem by Mahmoud Darwesh:
Then what? A women soldier shouted
Is that you again? Didn’t I kill you?
I said: You killed me..
And I forgot,
Like you, to die.
Our childhood was not different from that of generation after but for our inner resilience, we had learnt to make best even out of the adversity, and tell them that ‘we refuse to die with a whimper’. I remember as the holy month of Ramadan started fading into history, after the sunset songs of festivity, rouf by women in our mohalla greeting Eid echoed from almost every compound.
Some spontaneous songs brimming with longing for the loved Ones in prisons made eyes of a few friends and classmates of mine soak with tears. Their fathers were suffering incarceration for their political beliefs; some had been in jails for years.
The approaching Eid brightened their hopes. During our childhood, the government often as a goodwill gesture released political prisoners and students detained under Preventive Detention Act (PDA) or Defence of India Rules (DIR) in large numbers on the eve of Eid. Mostly the detainees were released on the day of Arafa or a day two before the festive occasion.
The government machinery and Radio Kashmir called these a goodwill gesture.
I often heard stories about political workers detained and pushed across the Ceasefire Line for their political beliefs during the month of fasting. Sitting amidst elders, mostly men with long flowing beards and angelic faces on the lawns of Jamia Masjid, under canopy of chinar trees, I had known stories about people having been randomly arrested between 1947 and 1953. Most of the jails in the state were filled to the capacity. None ever told me, if during those years political opponents were released on the day of Arafa or not. Nevertheless, I have very vivid impression about releasing of political workers of our mohalla belonging to the Jammu and Kashmir Plebiscite Front, the Jammu and Kashmir Political Conference and after 1964 the Jammu and Kashmir Awami Action Committee on important religious occasion, mostly on Eid.
Notwithstanding the fear of snoops, (29/15) entire mohalla or locality celebrated the release of a political worker with all zestfulness and celebrations continued for days together. Receptions were accorded to some workers on their release. I remember in our mohalla when a political worker Ghulam Hassan was released, the then towering leader Sheikh Abdullah visited
his house and addressed people from a window of his house.
Those days, release of top leaders was celebrated as a national festival. Living in politically vibrant part of the city, I have been witness to a number of such celebrations. Public places illumined with candles and earthen lamps after sunset. It was tradition, on their release leaders would address massive public gathering at Jamia Masjid, Mujahid Manzil, Gool Bagh or Hazouri Bagh – even sometimes in Eidgah. In open jeeps bedecked with flowers, passing through roads festooned with buntings, they arrived at the public meeting with big processions; those days at least there was some semblance of democracy and voices of dissent were allowed some space.
I remember downcast faces of some of my classmates, whose fathers would not be released on the day of Arafa. Instead of complaining about it they immediately started talking of mulaqat’ with their fathers at Srinagar Central Jail on Eid.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
