Aching heart!

When my mind wonders a lot, causing an inability to think of anything else but that one incidence, I resort to jotting my thoughts down. But this time, I am unable to frame sentences, or come up with appropriate adjectives to describe my emotions. I just keep thinking of parents who lost in minutes, what they had been working on for years.

Yesterday I was moved by the horrific incidence. 132 school children killed in the mass massacre by Taliban gunmen. One Hundred and thirty two children. The numbers rose as if, they weren`t children, but a bag of peanuts. Yesterday’s visuals were horrendous, but today`s are worse. Grieving parents gearing up for the funeral of the pieces of their hearts.

As I read their heart wrenching stories, a million thoughts cross my mind. What if that mother would have listened to her son complaining of a head ache and not wanting to go to school? Will she ever be able to live in peace knowing that she pushed her kid to go to school that day, when he didn’t want to?

That 5 year old girl’s first day in school, resulted in her DEATH. Quite the contrary of what her parents had planned for her. Will her parents regret the decision of sending her to school altogether?

As kids, we prayed for heavy rain days so that our schools would declare a “Closed Day”. Would this kid have ever imagined what the after effects of a Closed Day would bring for him? The sole survivor of grade 9. All his classmates are gone. His friends, his foes, that girl he had a secret crush on, that boy always hidden in the back row, his bench mate who wouldn’t share his notes with him, that girl who always told on him, his best friend who marked other fellow students with him, that boy who always shared his lunch with him, his teachers that he liked and those that he didn’t. All of them are gone, and the worst part is, that he saw them all fall. He is left alone, probably with an injured body and a soul. Will he be scared for life?

Those traumatized children who were lucky enough to escape alive, will they ever be able to go to school again? Seeing their classmates being pulled out and shot, their teachers being burnt alive… will they grow up as a normal children?

Yesterday in the news, I saw a picture of a bloody canvas shoe, the size of a palm. Today, there was a blog post on that shoe, on how this man cried seeing that shoe because his daughter wears the same size. This morning when he got his daughter dressed for school and put on her shoes, he couldn’t help but think of that kid with the bloody shoe. This was just one man who jotted down his feelings. I bet there were millions of other parents across the globe, who didn’t have the heart to get their kids dressed for school today.

Today, I am 16 again and am back in my school. Where giggles echo in the hallway, kids are punished outside the classrooms for misbehaving, students are running in between classrooms, pulling pranks on each other, and high fiving each other for successfully bunking their classes. Not in the scariest of my nightmares, can I ever imagine growing up with a visual any different from that. Torn notebooks, pieces of clothing and children’s shoes scattered in the hallways, pair of broken eyeglasses, blood drenched floors, and burnt walls. This is not the image of a school that any child would want to be left with.

With an exceedingly heavy heart and a throat choked up on tears, I extend my condolences to all those who lost their loved ones. And for Taliban, God damn you to the deepest pits of hell. Leave us alone. Not only Pakistan bleeds today, but on this atrocious day, the world bleeds. On this day, humanity bleeds.! 

Haider- an opinion

Haider: An Opinion.

I saw the movie and it is a wonderful movie. It is undoubtedly Shahid Kapoor and Tabu’s best performance so far. The movie is a must watch for its intense drama. However, there is a streak in me which did not approve of the movie.

Before I begin I need to reiterate that such movies should have had to be vetted by the J&K Police, and the Army before being cleared by the Censor Board.

I was shocked to see how the Indian Army was humiliated by a great filmmaker. Army had to blow up the house with a held up militant, who caused casualties of the army troops, and suddenly Army is the villain and the person hiding the militant is a victim? My dad was posted in Srinagar during the 90s and everytime we heard the news of a “fallen” soldier, I would blame the family in Srinigar who hid militants in their homes. They put our fathers’ life in danger, how are they the victims?

The army had to do what it did in the valley back in those days. But those were the days when militancy was at its peak in the valley and it was hard to identify a militant from a civilian. The valley is so peaceful today, because of the Army!

And then the other anomaly seems to be the torture by J&K Police. Indian Army or Police do not do water boarding as a policy as shown in the movie. Obviously this electric treatments, shooting down captured prisoners, etc, just does not happen as policy.

I have been to Kashmir and I am in awe of Indian Army. They are helpful and their work on developing infrastructure in the valley is commendable. I refuse to believe that if a civilian came to an Army jawan with pictures of his dad, the jawan would throw all the pictures in the air like shown in the movie. I did not understand the need of scenes like those in the film.

Apparently, the censor board approved Haider after asking for 41 cuts. Obviously this movie was supposed to be a much bigger and more venomous attack on Indian Army - but something unexpected happened - the Kashmir Floods. Indian public may have a very short memory but the floods happened right before the release of the movie and in that the Army Jawans sacrificed their lives saving the Kashmiris, or more importantly, the people of Srinagar.

After they state on the screen:

"IN THE LAST TWO DECADES, THOUSANDS OF LIVES HAVE BEEN LOST IN THE KASHMIR CONFLICT"

They feel compelled to state:

"IN THE RECENT DEVASTATING FLOODS IN KASHMIR, THE INDIAN ARMY SAVED THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS. WE SALUTE THEIR THEIR EFFORTS AND VALOUR."

So, we make a movie to demean them and then we have had to salute their efforts and valor. Such is the cruel turn of events.

However, One ought to remember that films are made for public viewing and not a niche audiences.

So, watch the movie for its intense drama and fabulous performances. Also, spare a thought for the Kashmiri's and displaced Kashmiri pandits who have lost their home and their loved ones in this conflict.