|
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
Oh, this hopelessness !Humra Quraishi The year seems to be ending on a rather dismal note! Today as I see tense looking people queuing up in front of banks , or sit clutching hundred rupee notes with a desperation of sorts ,or stand talking of nothing else but 'rupaiyyas', or else cursing their fate to be living in this chaotic era where nothing's seems to be going right, I'm reminded of the one-liner I heard from a Trilopuri based Sikh carpenter,Balwinder, who looked stricken with grief after the 1984 anti – Sikh riots and had kept muttering, "Ajeeb sa mahoul hai… ab kuch bhi ho sakta hai." (It is a strange situation… anything can happen.) I'm more than reminded of this one-liner today in the winter of 2016 because I do sense a hopelessness on not just the faces of the masses but also in their gait and expressions and day-to- day living. If the smog didn't kill hundreds this demonetization will. Not just because of the lack of buying or selling prowess but by the irony of it all. Already semi- starved people have begun coming up with queries: Wasn't this government supposed to get back black money from offshore accounts? Wasn't this government supposed to expose the corrupt politicians and business tycoons? Wasn't this government supposed to drag back the likes of Lalit Modis and Vijay Mallyas who seem well -nestled in the UK? Wasn't this government supposed to better our lives but here we are all dying in these strangely twisted times …what sense does all this make? Justice to the riots-hitPolitical 'promises' of getting justice to the riots hit ,is one of those pending promises, and as the situation exists it will continue to remain in the pending slot ... A riot is a riot. A pogrom is a pogrom. A massacre is a massacre. Loot - maar - kaat takes place in each of these, whether the humans are from a this or that community. Last week a book launched here in New Delhi on the anti -Sikhs riots of 1984 - '1984: In memory and Imagination –Personal essays and Short Fiction on the 1984 Anti –Sikh Riots ( Amaryllis ) carries essays and personal writings from several of us - Ajeet Cour, Kirpal Dhillon, Hartosh Singh Bal, Rana Chhina, Rizio Yohannan Raj , MS Madhavan ,Aditya Sharma , Jaspreet Singh, Mridula Garg and several others . My essay is also tucked in this volume but I'm focusing on the piece written by Preeti Gill.
Preeti Gill
Titled 'A Question of Identity', Preeti Gill writes in that
stark way , offloading her thoughts ever so blatantly. I
quote from her piece -
"When I look back on 31
October 1984, the first
thing I recall with stark
intensity is the silence of
the street below my
office in Delhi's
Connaught Place. The
sort of silence you
associate with desolate,
empty landscapes
stretching vast and
endless as far as the eye
can traverse. Certainly not what you would expect the
very heart of a throbbing metropolis, which is also the
capital of the country, to look like in the middle of the
day. Outstanding reportageThis time of the year is the PII- ICRC annual awards time for outstanding reportage and also photographs focusing on "Reporting on the Fate of Victims of Natural/Man-Made Disasters." This year Rubin Joseph and Santhosh John Thooval, both of the Malayala Manorama, bagged the first prize in the 10th edition of the PII-ICRC Annual Awards,and they'd focused on impact of endosulfan on children in Kerala …The first prize for the Best photograph on a humanitarian subject category was awarded to M u r u g a r a j Lakshman, Chief Photographer of Dinamalar, for capturing compelling images of the rescue efforts during the floods in Chennai.. Also awarded was B. Muralikrishnan, Chief News Photographer of Mathrubhumi, for an image showing an Afghan soldier, who benefitted from a hand transplant, expressing. his gratitude to the wife of the donor. Strains from the Valley …There's something incredibly special to the Kashmir Valley. It beckons! Continues beckoning till you actually reach there. And then it doesn't let you go away…Even if you sit miles away, physically away that is, your soul and emotions continue to be there…hovering around in the Valley. Memories grip even now, as I sit writing those philosophical relays I grasped whilst travelling in and around Srinagar.
Dr Mir Nazir Ahmad
In the Valley, I have heard such offbeat strains to
death that those set perceptions to it have long receded.
In many Kashmir locales, graves are situated well within
home compounds, garden stretches or the mohalla
confines. As though the dead have not really gone away!
Many times, when I visited my Kashmiri friends' homes
after a considerable gap and asked about their children
or parents or spouses, I was told of the 'departures' of
several of them, and told in no ordinary manner but
actually taken to the graves along with one-liners along
the strain :"He belonged to Allah , gone back to his
Creator, gone to a far better world than ours …resting
in there !" I have heard mothers not just praying at their
children's graves but as though conversing with them
.Of course, one way conversations ! Each time I have interacted with an apolitical
Kashmiri, those interactions cannot be termed ordinary
.Extraordinary they turned out to be as there was an
array of accompanying philosophy. What I couldn't
locate in volumes after volumes, I have learnt through
my years of interactions with my Kashmiri friends
…their words enough to suggest that don't take pains
and losses and upheavals and dents to heart as there's
always a tomorrow with fresh arrivals! Each time I'm
sad and sullen, I tell myself
not to sit forlorn as
tomorrow might drag
along lesser hitting
realities. When I was researching for my book on the Kashmir Valley I had visited his home.He had shown me the sprawling garden stretch , complete with trees of all hues and forms( including fig trees ) and a water fall. As we sat at one end of the lawns on that unusually hot afternoon I'd looked around, in the hope of spotting a table fan, he'd smiled ,"Nature sure to intervene …it will rain before evening sets in..." Within a couple of hours it had rained, with he quipping, "When things get unbearable we human beings become impatient and don't wait for Nature's interventions to play the vital role ." Dr Nazir had so much to offload and he spoke with such detailing that each little anecdote or happening or incident became so memorable. |