Author: RA

No, No, do not worry. I am not raising funds for anyone or asking you to contribute. But think for a moment – you are here because you had the advantage of education. Here, both in terms of this social space which gives you the privilege to reach out, as also your place in the society, a secure job, a business or a profession – your very existence. All in all it is the education which has brought most of you here. So, as and when you get a chance, wherever, in whichever way, however little or small, please do help an underprivileged child enroll in a school, help her/him study. Pokhrama Foundation is doing fantastic work. All I have done is designed this brochure.

Today, twenty years after the carnage that claimed over 2,000 lives we must revisit the judgment that gave Evil a name. This judgment, in Zahira Habibullah Shaikh & Anr (Citizens for Justice and Peace) v/s State of Gujarat, 2004, the Supreme Court minced no words: “The modern day ‘Neros’ were looking elsewhere when Best Bakery and innocent children and women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime can be saved or protected. Law and Justice become flies in the hands of these ‘wanton boys’. When fences start to swallow the crops, no scope will be left for survival of law and order or truth and justice.” For those who suffered there has been no closure instead majoritarian violence has since been tearing the country apart at regular intervals.

The winter is not done yet, this year
cold breeze keeps coming back
from the mountains and high passes
closer to you. I keep thinking of you 
how are you? Last night 
my hand was in your pheran pocket
I found a cold walnut from last winter
the kangri was missing though.

There is fresh snow up there 
I am told. Is it true that lake froze again
did you get milk – you must drink tea 
did you get some vegetables  
did Farookh come, with his loaded shikara 
What did you eat last night, or drink
I hope you have some salt. 
I tried but couldn’t cry.

Open the window carefully, 
and just a little, only to peep
lots of snow rests on western slope
guards with guns have a barrack there, 
they shoot if anything moves – 
remember Zooni our love, our pet
remember? poor bitch had stepped out to pee.
did you go out? I remember our door faces east
one can see the Zabarwan – a white sheet  
in this season, like Ammi’s grave stone
in Habba Kadal qabristan.

Here in the city I don’t step out
it is cold here too, in barren Arawalis
I can’t walk barefoot on cold terrace stone 
it reminds me of young boys without shoes
outside Hazartbal, of women wailing 
at the banks of Jhelum.

The winter is not done yet, this year.

-Rajinder, 22 February 2022

Thinking of my Kashmir

तकसीम से पहले जिस घर में वो रहते थे उसे ढूंढने हम अपने वाल्दैन के साथ लाहौर गए। अब्बा मरहूम की फेरिस्त में दूसरे नंबर पे हीरा मंडी जाना लिखा था, और वो गए ।  वो शेखुपुरा में पैदा हुए थे पर बचपन ग्वाल मंडी इलाके में बीता। उनकी और मेरी ज़िन्दगी के वो यादगार दिन थे। 

बाज़ पेड़ बेवजह खुश रहते हैं।  शायद मौसम या मिट्टी में ही कुछ होगा।  जे एन यू। बसंत। 

Some trees need no reason to exude joy. It possibly is to do with the season or the soil. JNU. Spring.