My Tryst With ‘The Last Hug'
By Pardeep Singh Bali
09 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org
It was last spring of the season and the Indian administered-Kashmir Valley was at the zenith of exhibiting its scenic beauty. The green trees, nascent flowers scattering fragrance, chirping of birds and crystal clear water of Dal Lake had added magnificence to the landscape of the place.
To discharge professional duties, I was travelling to Shopian district of South Kashmir to cover some encounter between dreaded terrorists and Indian forces. As they say, the beauty is never aloof and is always chaperoned by pain or danger.
Shopian, around some 64 kilometers distant from the summer capital of the state, is among the most bestowed and beautiful places of Kashmir with bounty of natural exquisiteness. On first look it seems, the place has been carved out of heaven itself with lush green fields, surrounded by meadows and fast running alongside rivulets.
Not aware about the period of encounter, I took cab from Lal Chowk----a heart of the summer capital city, at around 9 am and reached Shopian by 11:30 am. It was April on end, but still the cold was lurking. Despite fully packed with warm woolens to endure the bone chilling morning cold, I had to request cab driver to switch on the heater. My team from New Delhi was very excited to visit encounter place, as they have not ever witnessed any such event.
Our cab was running like anything on the almost deserted roads with negligible human presence. On reaching city outskirts, our cab might have applied first brakes, probably near army camp of Badami Bagh, wherein a group of well-built army soldiers approached our driver, while many cordoned off the cab, as if it was boarded by militants, anyways these are regular features of Kashmir. After getting satiate, the Army commander allowed us to take further journey, during which we witnessed just a long cavalcade of Army convoy.
The driver was also hesitant to overtake them, as you cannot afford to offend them even by only overtaking them, even if you are hell of in hurry. We somehow took our rest of the journey being a privileged one, escorted with Army convoy.
We reached the place when things were wrapping up, encounter was done, five people including three militants and one soldier was dead, including a civilian who lost his life in the cross firing, when a bullet from security forces hit him on his chest and died on the spot. The forces claimed him to be accomplice of the militant, so was shot when he was trying to flee from the building (which was already blown down by using mortar).
Standing alongside vehicle, I was looking for some high official to get version of, who were busy identifying slain militants. After doing formalities, the bodies were handed over to the villagers for last rites.
The encounter site soon started changing moods, from bullets, it started raining stones, then aerial bullets, followed by protests. This drama continued for next one hour, then everything disappeared from the scene, and I was left with silence and a mist of dust.
When I was taking version of Army officer about this operation, I saw just another face of mourning, wherein people who were protesting a moment ago were all crying while carrying body of the deceased civilian. Seeing it, my instant question to army official was about his death, as usual they denied taking claims.
I was looking at the gloomy facet of Shopian village, dull and almost shivering eyes gazing at not so clear sky. Amid those mourners, I heard a lady wailing, she sometimes laugh and sometimes cry loud. Her body language showed that she had lost some one very dear to her.
She hugged the dead body in such a way that my conscious and sub conscious mind felt the pain of that lady. Tears rolled down my cheeks, she evoked me to be a part of mourning, she moved me to touch the innocent body and adieu it upto local grave yard.
My eyes were stuck on the lady, who was continuously crying and yelling for her brother, she was pounding body's chest, asking him to get up. She was telling him to get up to have food, at least water. She was scolding him for going out without asking. I saw a teen touching feet of the dead again and again, I saw mothers wailing around. The atmosphere was more than a gloom.
People around were like mute spectator with tears flushing out from every eye. I had no courage to approach the lady to tell her (that I exactly don't know what am I supposed to tell her). She was looking at me when I tried to shoulder the corpse. Her inquisitive eyes were asking me about her brother, which I hardly knew before this. Amid tears I left the place, but till date the unsaid questions raised by that sister is haunting me, my mind was not at peace, it was sulking throughout the journey of more than two hours. The hug of that lady to the dead body was still lingering on my mind, which compelled me to rethink, are we living in free society or are we ruled by brutes, having no mercy chapter in their books.
That experience shook me from inside and the driver, who was noticing my restlessness catalyzed my pain by saying, ‘sir ji this is regular feature here, some died untold and many disappeared unasked' this is Kashmir and welcome to the valley of dead.
This fiction hit my mind while listening to the song of movie Hyder-So Jaao na sung by Bashir. The song beautifully depicts the actual truth of the life, especially in Kashmir, where one finds solace under graves only. Government might be working to usher materialistic peace around, but true peace is unattained and seems difficult to attain, if innocent deaths continued.
Pardeep Singh Bali is a Research Scholar in Journalism and Mass Communication at Punjabi University Patiala. He has been working as an active journalist with local daily newspaper of J&K-India. He likes to write on varied issues, besides doing research.
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