Shamshad Kralawari.
This editorial is dedicated to the innocent victims of violence—children, parents, and families whose lives were shattered by terror, whether inflicted by powerful insiders or non-state actors. Truly by the enemies. It is a tearful tribute to those who grieve in Gaza, in Delhi, in Kashmir, and beyond. Their sorrow is not isolated; it echoes across courtyards, kitchens, and classrooms where joy once lived. Let this piece honor their memory. Let it denounce all forms of terrorism— ideological or institutional. Let it affirm that no cause can justify the murder of innocents. And let it carry the lanterns of those who still wait to sing.
In a world saturated with headlines and desensitized by repetition, Khalid Sameer’s voice arrives not as spectacle, but as sacrament.When I watched a video of Sameer Khalid, a grief-stricken Gazan parent, on YouTube, it echoed the grief of the recent Red Fort Delhi blast and made my eyes moist..” “Who can bring my children back?” he asks—not to indict, not to perform, but to remember. His testimony, delivered in quiet cadence before a global audience, is not a political statement. It is a father’s elegy, a song from the rubble, and a call to conscience.
Sameer does not name the aggressors. He names his children. He names the courtyard, the birthday lanterns, the cake in preparation. He names the moment before the blast—not to dramatize, but to humanize. In doing so, he restores what war tries to erase: the sanctity of ordinary joy, the rhythm of familial tenderness, the architecture of memory.
His words are not crafted for virality. They are carved from loss. “My wife was in the kitchen preparing the cake. My daughter was hanging lanterns. My son sat waiting to sing.” These are not lines from a script. They are fragments of a life interrupted. And when he says, “I fell to the ground… my arm was gone,” the sentence does not seek pity. It seeks recognition. It asks the world to see not just the wound, but the wound’s origin.
Sameer’s song begins where his story ends. “I stood in rubble / Where my home once lay / The smoke was rising / Night replaced the day.” These lines are not metaphor. They are reportage. They are the poetry of survival. And when he sings, “The heads of power turned their eyes away / And children’s laughter bled into decay,” he does not accuse. He testifies. He reminds us that silence is not neutrality—it is complicity.
Yet, astonishingly, he does not call for vengeance. He calls for peace. “I am not here to spread hatred,” he says. “I hope every family can live safely.” This is not a plea. It is a principle. It is the ethical residue of a father who has lost everything but refuses to lose his humanitI first encountered this testimony on YouTube. The room was silent. As Sameer spoke, the audience—strangers from different lands—were all in tears. Not tears of despair, but of recognition. Of shared humanity. Of ethical awakening. These tears were not weakness. They were a peace prize. They were the world’s quiet answer to a child’s hope: “Papa, one day, I hope you can sing your songs for the whole world to hear.”
The room was silent. As Sameer spoke, the audience—strangers from different lands—were all in tears. Not tears of despair, but of recognition. Of shared humanity. Of ethical awakening. These tears were not weakness. They were a peace prize. They were the world’s quiet answer to a child’s hope: “Papa, one day, I hope you can sing your songs for the whole world to hear.”.”
In Kashmir, we know the weight of such testimony. We know the ache of interrupted birthdays, the silence of courtyards once filled with song. We know that grief, when dignified, becomes a form of resistance. And we know that editorial writing, when honest, must do more than report—it must remember.
Sameer’s voice echoes the tradition of poetic resistance. His song is not unlike the laments of Habba Khatoon, whose verses mourned separation and exile, or the whispered elegies of Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who turned personal sorrow into collective resolve. In Gaza, as in Kashmir, poetry is not ornament—it is oxygen. It is the medium through which memory survives and dignity speaks.
There is a moment in Sameer’s testimony that deserves to be etched into editorial memory. Just before leaving home, his son calls out: “Papa, when you come back, we can start singing the birthday song.” That sentence, so ordinary, so tender, becomes unbearable in retrospect. It is the kind of sentence that war does not know how to hear. It is the kind of sentence that must be carried by those of us who still have the privilege to write.
Sameer says that for a long time he did not think he would go on. But then he remembered something his child once said: “Papa, one day, I hope you can sing your songs for the whole world to hear.” That sentence kept him alive. That sentence is now our responsibility. Let’s defeat those who want to bleed the humanity and Shake our base.
Shamshad Kralawari is a poet, literary critic, and public broadcaster ,educator whose work bridges Kashmiri memory, ethical verse, and civic reform. Through editorial activism and dialogic teaching, he challenges symbolic appropriation and advocates for cultural stewardship.
