Photo by Abid Bhat
To draw the world’s attention towards their plight, Kashmiri netizens once again came together to highlight their wretched state of life amidst pandemic lockdown and political uncertainty.
Jyotsna Bharti
CAPTURING the valley’s glum mood, some of the telling posts faring online these days talk about a boy from the battered landscape.
The barely ten schoolboy, who never had a regular schooling since last summer, is being pictured as a tormenting kid—making his way to a rubble site, he knew as home, before losing it in the name of ‘collateral damage’ some days ago.
As he sits to retrieve his torn and burnt notebook pages from charred corpus, the famous apple cart of Kashmir keeps rotting around him, to chagrin of growers.
At about the same time, inside four-walls of their home, captive and jobless Kashmiri youth are wondering about their ‘cut’ in the 10,000 ‘fast-track’ jobs announced in J&K, close on the heels of new domicile law.
As anguish heaves, the escape route remains blocked during COVID curbs. The community festive events like weddings, and solidarity mourning occasions like funerals have been held hostage by a virulent entity.
In the state of lockdown, as Indo-Sino faceoff dominates the discourse, many in the valley fear, that in the fight between ‘Dragon and Elephant’, it’s the grass which might end up get trampled.
The prevailing picture is beyond what New Delhi promised before and after the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s Special Status — that the controversial move will usher ‘developmental prosperity and dignity of life’ in the region.
Ten months later, as the promise delivered in high baritone voice on the floor of Parliament remains elusive, the region is fighting both vagaries of uncertain politics and weather.
To express their concern, Kashmiris took to micro-blogging site, Twitter, to express their plight and situation, through hashtag #LifeOfAKashmiri.
#LifeOfAKashmiri is a mother looking for her missing child, a wife waiting for her husband’s dead body, an old father crying at his youngest son’s unnamed grave, a house turned to rubble, a poet’s work set on fire, an unending tale of triumphing miseries.
— قفس۔ (@waaazea) May 30, 2020
These young Kashmiris write eulogy, mostly reading as elegy, about the uncertainty of life and dispossessions in their homeland.
#LifeOfAKashmiri is priceless and quite tough at the same time. People here have experienced many harsh things and we Kashmiris are among the strongest in the world. We are alive smiling through the tears and giving cheers. Being a Kashmiri always makes me proud. Alhamdulillah.
— Adnan Altaf (@adnanaltafmeer) May 29, 2020
Raising a point on rising lockdown distress and destitution, they talk about lost childhood and destroyed home.
#LifeOfAKashmiri uses his lifetime earnings to make a house, same is blown in just seconds.
— Bhat Zahid (@Zahid_bht) May 29, 2020
There’re some who bat for peace and harmony—irrespective of the bloodshed and mental disturbance they face in their lifetime.
Not necessarily #lifeofakashmiri is all about miseries and pain, sometimes it’s THE BEST! pic.twitter.com/ktds5C42S7
— BLANKSPACE (@liyakathere) May 29, 2020
But majorly, as these young Kashmiris brave everyday security snarls, media hounding, and implementation of new orders and laws in absence of an elected government, they tend to express the dark side of their lives, beset with the insecurity of life, unhappiness and bleak sense of future.
Only in the #LifeOfAKashmiri future is not that uncertain. It mostly involves Curfews and hartaals during the summers, an internet gag in the autumn followed by the delusive contentment of 4G throughout the winters.
On and on it goes, an endless loop.
— Daheem Amin (@AminDaheem) May 30, 2020
A Kashmir-based blogger chose to give a poetic direction to the pain of the Kashmiris, strongly showing the hope and faith towards life in the valley.
#Lifeofakashmiri is just this, less gloomy time followed by more gloomy time and this cycle goes on endlessly.
— Delibal (@rakhshandah_) May 30, 2020
However, as poetic as it sounds, it couldn’t hide the pain within and without.
#LifeOfAKashmiri
No caption needed, picture says it all. pic.twitter.com/WreJczLt3R— شیخ معاوية (@sheikh_maviya) May 29, 2020
These young Kashmiri netizens signify just one thing in common: The uncertainty of life in the valley today.
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