Baby steps, till your grave.

Tuba Beg

Walk, walk as far as your feet will take you

Clench the earth beneath your toes

Walk, walk till your nails fall off

And when your feet wear out

And your legs collapse because your knees caved in

Lay down , breathe in , deep inhales for the dust just as rich and deep

Every grain of the dusty earth you lay on, taste it, let it burn through every inhale

Claw with your hands

They’ll take you further

You’ll wince, bleed and sweat

But walk you must

Baby steps. Your hands and feet, they’re all the same to the path you walk on

Just another traveller

Yet, walk you must

For once you reach the end, you’ll realise

Resting was never for you

Bearers of Tragedy

Tuba Beg

“Beyi sund doud chui beimaanee, Yas akis banith aaw suyi zaani!”


“Another’s pain is meaningless, he only knows who suffers. Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches”


Narration by – Advocate Tehmeena Majid


Editor – Tuba Beg


THIS PIECE WAS REFUSED PUBLICATION BY A LEADING NEWSPAPER DUE TO THE INDIAN STATE CENSORSHIP ON MEDIA IN KASHMIR.

While the world is stifled, overpowered by the gruesomeness of the pandemic, Kashmir is on its own streak of misery. It seems like a bundle of woes has engrained itself into the collective heritage of the Kashmiri populace. You might have come across narrations after narrations of the horrors Kashmiris face, so here’s another to appeal to your sense of humanity.

This is not a fictitious story; it is the reality of “encounter operations” in Kashmir. However, if that is what helps you visualize and translate, you are welcome to paint a picture using this record.

This dreadful event took place in Machua, a Northern region of Kashmir on October 27th, 2020. It was a normal day to us, well what any Kashmiri knows to be normal. This sense of fleeting security lasted only till 4 p.m. when our whole locality was cordoned off by the military forces, a swarm in uniforms that we have known to never bring peace. Private vehicles carrying army men, carriages with their trunks covered with tarpaulins were zooming past our streets. People soon confirmed that the ostracizing of the cordon was real, we were entrapped, our whole area enclosed. The game of anxiety and fear had begun.

A phone call from my rattled cousin who suffers from cardiac complications, begging for help brought me to tears. Their house was one of the suspected ones. My cousin’s family wanted to leave for their lives.The army yelled at them to stay put or they would be shot down. After pleading for what felt like hours, they were let go.

All of us took shelter in my house, people felt like a war-torn refugee in their own town! We were just shoved into this one single home, the army lacked clarity of directives, they couldn’t tell left from right in that moment. They forced people into nooks and crannies which in no means were safe and mere moments later received shrapnel and even bullets from the ongoing fight outside. Had these people not resisted the army’s directions, they would have wound up dead. It bewilders me, how they carry out such elaborate, sensitive operations under the guise of security and yet understand so little about civilian safety. In situations like these, such grave miscalculations cannot be allowed. If by some means these actions can be excused, what about their active misconduct?

They stormed into houses around the locality, separated children from families, men from women and in one house asked a teenage girl to make them tea! Please let the gravity of that sink in. Even in international armed conflict, families are to be held together, familial safety is an understood priority.

All these simultaneously unfolding horrors numbed my mind. The booms of the artillery would commence any moment now and fear paralyzed me, I couldn’t bear to see my little sister with her shaky hands, pale face and empty gaze. I will do anything to protect her, I vowed to myself. The sound of the first gunshot pierced through the sky at 10 p.m. I looked around frantically, realizing that there were now a lot more helpless faces accompanying me. With every gunshot, I could feel the terror rising, the tension in the house was palpable.

It was now midnight and the air tasted like ash, my sister still looked horrified and I still had no power to make it all go away. I knew this meant that the army had set that house ablaze. We looked outside and could see flames licking away at the pitch black sky; the fire seemed to be advancing. People wailed at thoughts of their homes being engulfed by the fire. It isn’t that easy to invest your life and love into a house, turn it into home, only to have it succumb to this uncertainty. Moved out of his wits at, one of my uncles ran out to check at his house. We yelled in sheer terror, pleading him to retreat as we knew that he was walking into a deadly maze of stray bullets. He was just mere seconds into the street when we heard an array of gunshots. I couldn’t tell what my mind was awaiting but the horror in that moment shattered through time, I felt like the seconds became painstakingly long, until I saw him crouch back in through the door. We briefly checked to see if he was in one piece, our eyes couldn’t believe that he made it back, dodging bullets.

A massive blast at 2 in the night shook the earth beneath us and our cores alike. Most of the details after this come in hazy details, the vacancy in everyone’s eyes, glistening tears, and faces cast red from the crimson glow of the flames; all I could hear was the roaring of the army vehicles outside, again and again. It looked unreal, the sight, like a bloodbath, only we were bleeding inside with our eyes showing it .It was now 8 in the morning and I was stirred out of my daze by more gunshots , it went on until 11 a.m.

I turned to look at my sister, hoping that we could find solace in the fact that it stopped. But, only a glance was what it took for me to know that this would haunt her, like countless others. The panic attacks came mere hours later in the evening; she was reliving the last night, shrieking. She curled up into a ball, clutched her head between her shaky palms and yelled, warning us that the army was coming to set us alight and shoot us down. It took injected sedatives at the hospital to finally calm her down and help her sleep.
I died bit by bit inside at how she ached, at how my family ached, at how we are so fragile and so defenseless. I wondered how the world rallied for protecting intellectual property rights while our entire existence could just dissipate in moments with no one as much as batting an eye. All I could see now was that we too were what Kashmir is , bearers of tragedy , with a horror etched onto our minds and hearts.

You are not a warrior.

Tuba Beg

I know what this is, I can sense it before it happens.

I am aware of what is to come. I can trace it with my fingertips , glide my nails across the compilation of what I am about to feel.

I wish all this awareness took out the element of surprise. It is still as bad as I remember it being the first time. I whisper to myself , bracing for the impact, “You are not a warrior.”

I could cry , but I don’t know if I want to.

I could break , but I don’t know if I can afford to.

My heart sits in my chest, twisted .

My mind won’t help me.

My eyes see, but they don’t really. When I gaze, they glare and fixate.

I try hard to watch the air , as
it turns to vaccum . I want it to flow and move so I can channel it in towards me.

But the air won’t inspire me, I feel like I am watching it scream , “You aren’t real , this isn’t okay , you should fix this but you cannot breathe.”

And then , the air in the room turns to bricks .

All of this takes place to the heavy bass of my heart pounding . It only rises, through my chest , to my throat and I slowly feel the warmth reaching for my neck and ears.

It’s just a rush of blood , I say.

But the loud thumps make it impossible to think any further. The heavy throbs echo in my ribcage. They are all I hear except for a gushing noise. A gushing noise in the background that still persists amidst the troughs of my heartbeats.

Closing my eyes might help , I think.

When I try to inhale and swallow the air , yet again; eyelids shuttering my pupils , slowly, it’s like watching every frame happen in place .

Now I feel my legs numbing away , the room is pitch black ,but I can sense my legs turning pale. Just like a creeper reaching upwards , in twines , white and dreadful. The twines keep climbing and their grip strengthens . They take roots in my skin. My legs freeze. I feel a tingle in my feet , it’s like the static you saw on the TV screen when you were little , only it is in your bones and skin.

I think this is why curling up helps. Almost as if the lesser you are spread out , the lesser you expose to the sky , the lesser it attacks you .

My chest is undergoing a tempest. There are waves rising tall and fierce inside of it. When they gather and arch up , when they threaten me with their painful descent, my heart drops and in that moment , I hear my heart thudding underwater . It’s weak.

I hate all sounds now , when they reach into my ears , they amplify somehow and my heart paces faster. My pupils frantically shift from side to side. They want to make sense of what is going on, but you see, they can’t.

My eyes well up with blood, I see red for an instant. My chest still aches , my limbs still tingle. I can’t tell when this will end. I just lay there until I am suddenly up and awake. It dims away , gradually ,never allowing me an immediate relief. My chest still aches.

I am still not a warrior.

If my Soil Could Write

Tuba Beg

Speak to me in rippling bullets ,

I cannot understand words anymore.

Murmur to me in the smoldering sizzle of houses burning down,

I have long lost my taste for ornate sentences.

If you must tell me how you feel,

Can you gush out your emotions like wails leaving a mother’s mouth?

I fear, it is all I can comprehend now.

When you tell me how beautiful the blush of the cherry blossoms is ,

can you break it down for me , in hues of blood?

I’ll spread them out like a palette to pick from;

a spectrum ranging from the blood leaving the head of an 8 year old Sameer

,to the crimson tinge of the blood leaving Young Asifa’s veins.

Shall you talk to me about the dangers of your modern warfare,

guide me through it , with the rumbles of a hungry child’s stomach.

A child who watches rubber boots storming into his house, his mother dragged by her hair, his father kicked into a corner.

Flip around the pages of your dense memoirs like Malik must be tossing and turning in his sleep,

on damp , coarse prison floors.

When you tell me that your springs smell fresh and rejuvenating,

help me navigate with the blood and stuffy sulfur he must smell.

Oh sing to me , won’t you?

Sing to me in cries of pain ,

melodious gasps and sobs of agony,

voices breaking down , the crackling sounds of the last breath leaving my people’s throats.

I don’t hear leaves rattling or lakes lapping against shores anymore ,

I hear the sound of bullets cracking open my children’s breastbones,

they crackle one by one , exposing their hearts, offering their all.

I hear shells leaving guns, I hear the heavy thudding of armor.

I hear the shudders from the lips of the woman who saw it all,

who laid her sons down in me , gave them over.

I see the bands of the old man’s iris blur away,

rendered translucent by the tears welling up

as he watches my sky bleed down, once again.

Tell the world, in words they understand that I want to burn down their

odes and manuscripts , their agendas and files, their statistics and documentaries.

I don’t want homages to be paid to my dead, I don’t want artists portraying my brave

I don’t want the world to build me a pity shrine like it did for the Bosnian’s , the Armenian’s and the Sudanese.

I want what my people want, now and here.

So, tell me , will my words reach me back?

Can you take your time to read this while we burn?

Tuba Beg

While the extents of your comprehension over this issue probably end at the news TV screen and red headline banners , while you didn’t question why the news channels cut to an abrupt break as soon as a Kashmiri was interviewed, while you didn’t wonder why outsiders ( tourists and students alike) were gathered up and shipped out of Kashmir like flocks and herds, here is what was happening in Kashmir that I know of ,as I experienced it.

So before you form hasty opinions and conclusions over our territory and our future with one eye closed and one fixated at Aaj Tak TV, speak to a Kashmiri, a witness of the horrors of G.O.I. , in other words, educate yourself.

I sat inside my home ,like countless Kashmiris , idle , with no internet , no cell phone network , almost nothing to do but witness this wrath for the nth time. I’m only 22 and have experienced this more times than I can recall.

Pellets, pepper gas and tear gas were rained upon empty streets by the CrPf from their vehicles as they zoomed by , EMPTY STREETS , to terrorize an already besieged people.
I heard at least 3-4 loud blasts a day , dangerously close to my house. Young men were being picked up by the CrPf and police , just that, not arrested , not detained – PICKED UP, snatched off the streets with no records or reasons. If you think this leaves behind a developed Kashmir to soothe your eyes around your summer getaway, I’ll tell you what it leaves behind, it leaves behind wailing mothers , sisters , fathers, brothers, aunts and uncles , cousins and neighbors, friends and all of Kashmir.

There were instances of the Central Reserve Police Force intimidating, threatening to kill people trying to get by the biggest hospital- SKIMS , motioning to use their guns and terrifying them .
In these times, they resort to barbaric authoritarianism , curtailing the necessary movement of people, after all they learn from the best- scores of Government representatives , GUNDA-RAJ indeed.
If you call these animals your “Jawans”and these puppet masters your “leadership” the hatred you are subscribing to is indescribable.

A swarm of people – young men, women and children , protesting with nothing but anguished words and slogans , demanding justice and echoing ” inqilab zindabad ” and “jis Kashmir ko khoon se sencha , wo Kashmir hamara hai” kept walking on , joined by more people along way ; the voices reverberating against the walls of the silent void that had replaced the cheerful sky for days now.

All this while India’s news channels and government kept repeating that Kashmir is at a peaceful stance, while BJP’s representatives claimed not a single tear gas was fired!

I know this because the sea of protestors went right past my home and my kin and blood was open fired upon near Eidgah and not because some fascist pig dressed in a khadi waistcoat leered over the microphone saying, “Ghati me haalaat samanye hai” , not because a “news reporter” picking and choosing , sifting through the truth , the actual truth and exclaiming just what suited their narrative said , ” Everything is peaceful in Kashmir.”
I know this because the raining gunfire ripping through the silence of some nights didn’t let me sleep.

We were scared to move out of our homes, even when we were in dire need of it , even on days when your news channels showed a few scattered cars and people on Lal Chowk road. We were scared that if picked up by the army or forces , we too would be shipped off to a godforsaken prison and our family would be left behind searching frantically, with no cell phones, communication networks, no government representatives to go to.

This isn’t an exaggeration of the situation, the BJP’s statement on ” lack of development ” due to Article 370 was one.

This is just what has happened around my vicinity, that I know of positively, ergo a fraction of the Kashmiri truth at the moment. What happened beyond this , I don’t know of and was just as oblivious to it as everyone else in the world with just one difference, I was not misled . I did not buy the idiocy of pseudo- development and reservations being paramount to freedom and personal safety of countless people.

They have ruined more for us, but this was Eid-ul-Azha. Imagine being tormented around Diwali or Holi . We have a practice of distributing the sacrificed sheep amongst relatives, friends , neighbors and the needy on Eid ul Azha . This Eid, we couldn’t practice our religion well because liars disguised as harbingers of development tell you that the limitations are for the safety of KASHMIRIS. We were wary of returning with our lives from Eid namaz as well.

Anyone who stood by the recent constitutional shitstorm , realizing its repercussions or not is equally inhumane . We have been betrayed and lied to , I wouldn’t say this comes as a shock to any Kashmiri, you have established your legacy of lies and monstrosity with us.

So , the international media , some of which actually reported a shard of the truth is, in your opinion WRONG and your media which is perpetuating this bubble of a hunky-dory atmosphere while millions of people are shut inside, decisions made about them , no food supplies arriving in the valley , yes , no food supplies entering ( they lied to you again) , peaceful protestors being attacked and all leaders , left and right captured , law and order suspended , is an accurate representation? Is it? Is this your truth?

We know how far from the truth you and your media are , so here , this is our truth , this is my truth ,
” All these bullets , pellets, PAVA (go Google this and let the horror sink in) shells, tear gas, insults , threats , molestations, wrongful arrests, battery and assault hurled at us by these people , may Allah SWT return these to them in worse forms , In Sha Allah. The world may fail to bring us justice , but Allah surely won’t, In Sha Allah ”

They will keep suppressing us as long as they can but , let’s reiterate the words of your Bhagat Singh – “Inqilab Zindabad! “

This place we call home.

Tuba Beg

I would firstly like to thank my elder sister Dr. Sumaira Beigh for this message . It is a piece of her mind, I only edited this. However, it is a sentiment that all Kashmiris house deep down in their hearts, smeared perhaps across their frowns , constantly ravishing them in the abysses of their eyes and gnawing away at their sense of self-existence.

My sister says , ” A few months ago, I asked a student why he missed his exam. He hung down his head and said he and his friends were dragged out of their car by the army when they were enroute. He said, despite their desperate attempts to show them their identity medical college cards, the army beat them to a pulp with no remorse or consideration.”

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to uncovering the issue of Kashmir. Frisking and personal violations to civilians are of no surprise here. Sounds fun and heavenly from this “Janat-e-kashmir” , don’t think so.

I can assure you , all Kashmiris have their personal and first hand experiences to speak from. Growing up I remember shuddering at the sight of army vehicles, they brought back the trauma of the armed man barging into our homes, muddy boots thudding on our floors and stairwells.

Disrupting our lives at midnight, demanding us in our own homes to prove our identities. Would you enjoy that? Wouldn’t it enrage you?

Amidst peaceful protest against human rights violations, acts of violations the history of which is perhaps the most mature and long running of all things historical here, a 10 year old was shot in the chest.

In what universe do you expect the parents of this child to show love and compassion towards the murderers of their child? If they tell you they have a terrorist entrapped in your house or that your house is caught in a crossfire and burnt to ashes , would you celebrate the fact that you sacrificed your home to your “nation”, like a blind diety? A nation of which all you remember is paramilitary , suppression, killings , chaos, no real solutions , confrontations with you and your people as the stake and the “collateral damage”. Would you happily accept the fact that you won’t even be compensated for the wreckage left behind , the walls of your home that are now rubble and dust? What was your fault, you wonder….

Thousands of women here are living with the status of ‘ half-widows’ branded across their souls and all their existence. Ever been made aware of this by your favorite prime time newsdesk reporter, has a sole being from your accolades of favorite “news-show” hosts prompted you to think of this? Of how these women face excruciating mental agony , their minds skipping from conclusion to conclusion about their long vanished spouses… of whether they have been long dead or are still alive, being tortured somewhere in an army camp .

Maybe the liberal ,free world will relate more to first world issues, let me explain the problem to you via the “freedom of expression”, will you? Ever felt suppressed and suffocated that something you choose to express yourself with is considered threatening? We face that everyday, maybe this is already a global minority issue but the considerations are far graver here. Parents here are reluctant towards allowing their sons to grow beards, fearful that they may be branded and detained, yes detained as terrorists.
Such is the grip this fear holds over the psyche of the people of Kashmir. Soldiers sworn to protect their people , kill our people here .

I don’t expect the people living in the rest of India to understand us. It’s not their fault, per se. They are brainwashed and derailed by the media – warfare, kept so afar from reality that the only justice and fairness most of them can perceive of is attacking any Kashmiri they sight, ostracizing them from educational communities , yelling profanities at them , generalizing a whole region’s population to words of profanity . These people think the only way to do this issue justice is to smear someone’s post or some video with comments full of cussing and cursing.

If you could just open your hearts and minds enough to ask us, we would show you the scars we have been left behind with in the form of the thousands of orphaned children , violated and disturbed women from the villages of Kunan and Poshpora they have raped ,a 19th month old child blinded by a pellet . We wonder , don’t these atrocious incidents speak to your consciences , how full of hate must you be to respond to the incident of Kunan Poshpora as a pile of “baseless allegations”? Oh yes ,yes the Indian Government responded with this.

Being one of the most militarized zones in the world, Kashmir has witnessed killings, enforced disappearances,torture cases, rapes by the Indian armed forces.

It pains us to see people dying on our turf, be it armed forces or a common man. We want peace and more importantly justice done to our offenders .We want just like you, to leave for work not fearing our safety and life . We want just like you to return home to a safe place. We want just like you to see our people flourish and must I point out “exist”.

If you wish to make a humane move, go and locate the issue behind the convoy attack and resolve it . Stop harassing us. We are no slaves. With two nations fighting over Kashmir , where does a Kashmiri stand amidst this? Scope your perspective for the answer to this question- Does a Kashmiri life matter to you or are we children of a lesser God? Be truthful , to yourself atleast and please ,oh please, tell me that you didn’t find a hypocrite.

Our internet might be suspended, as they do so that “no more word gets out”. Until then, think long and hard about the truth. You owe it to yourself and the jawans you lost.

Respectfully,

A Kashmiri.