A CRY FOR KASHMIR

My very first trip to Kashmir was quite an experience, because it was not a leisure trip or a holiday but I hesitantly travelled all the way to Kashmir to meet my in laws for the first time and get MARRIED! Kashmir, the name which was in newspapers and news channels for all the wrong reasons, never in my wildest dreams I (a darpok) thought I would go there.My only imagination, about the place was,just lots of army men and lots of them, curfews, bomb blasts and there might be a bullet heading only towards me from somewhere!!No I am not joking!
Throughout my journey, Marriage was the last thing on my mind,all I could think was I might get killed there or my family.The most horrific thoughts one can ever imagine!
When we got there in Srinagar,the capital of Kashmir,it was busy not as busy as Delhi but fairly busy and the city was Normal(Thank god).So Kashmir wasn't Afghanistan or Iraq,It very much seemed a place in India,there was a connection.But i was so reluctant to come out of my thoughts from the picture I had made up,My mind refused to look at the beauty and perfection of the Dal lake,it was so serene and the whole place had a saintly silence.From the Hotel balcony i could look at the Dal for hours,could have looked at each colourful shikara and houseboat,one would pay anything to see the sunsets and the mountains which surrounded the whole place like they are guarding the loveliness and being the only undeviating lovers of this heaven.
But,sadly I did none of that,who knows there might be a bullet heading towards me,if i step out of my room,what a fool I was!I wish I had taken full advantage of my first encounter with this heavenly abode.
The only stories we are familiar with are unfolded by the media,no one I knew had or wanted to experience first hand account of the place,Kashmir.After five years of marriage and coming accross the actual facts of the people I met and spoke to,saddens me deeply........
No one knows what Kashmiris have and are going through,Its a far cry,which the rest of the India refuses to hear.We are proud Indians,who are proud that Kashmir is a part of India and Pakistan can never come close to even have a glance.Kashmir has always been talked and spoken about as a non living entity,without any soul.Just a mere winning trophy for India. Kashmir has always seemed a part of us yet so foreign and forgotten.Yes, forgotten is the right word....No one thinks about the lakhs of living beings and their pain and their identity.
How does it feel being humiliated and beaten in your own motherland, How does it feel to go out of the house with a constant fear,how does it feel being questioned and killed with no reason......
Kashmir never belonged to India nor it belonged to Pakistan,Its a truth may be bitter for us Indians,because we were deliberately made unaware of this fact.Kashmiris were promised a fair vote,a fair chance of choosing,a choice every human being deserves and has a right.
Kashmir is a witness of hell and beyond.The world's biggest democracy has sent the Army not to protect but to terrorise,not to spread happiness but hate n detest.Democracy is a mere word and
an unpracticed institution.
Kashmir is waiting.............is anyone listening?