Many years ago, one afternoon in Kashmir an 18 year old was getting ready to hang out with his friends when he and his mother heard a loud noise. Having lived in Kashmir all their lives they immediately figured a grenade had exploded on the street in front of their house. The first reaction, like a reflex, is to lie flat on the floor so that if any shots are fired you would not become another number in the total casualties of the conflict. So the mother and the son did exactly that.
The mother told her son from another room not to go out. Whenever a grenade exploded in the streets of Kashmir it would be followed by shooting and result in more deaths. However, that day was different. There was complete silence on a usually busy street only to be broken by the painful shrieks of women. This teenager slowly raised his head to look out the window. He saw two women lying in the middle of the street crying for help with no one else in sight, as if everybody else vanished. He could see the helplessness of those women and feel the fear in their hearts, the fear of death.
If nobody helped them they would bleed to death, he thought. So he rushed down to the street to help them. As he reached near these women, he heard the sound of loading guns. He turned around and saw at least 20 guns pointed at him by the security forces who were outside the outlets. He also noticed lots of people huddled in those outlets, scared and surprised. Everything was clear now, the silence and the vanished people. The teenager realized that is it. This is the end of his life. He thought about his mom who still thought her son was in the next room. He thought of the rest of his family and his friends whom he was never going to see again. His life rolled in front of his eyes in those few seconds. His first reaction was neither to become a hero nor a martyr, so he raised his arms and started heading back toward his house. However, just before he would enter his house the thought of those women dying on the street came back. At this moment, he turned around and started running toward those two women while yelling for help. As he reached the women, he was joined by around 10 other people and a car came which took those women to the hospital. It was learned later that those two women survived.
The teenager rushed back to his home and when asked by his mom if he had gone out, he replied, “no, I was just closing the front door”. Unlike some other days that day was good because no lives were lost. Many years later peace still remains elusive in Kashmir and people continue to die young. If you are living in peace, cherish and value it. There are people in this world who never get to see it.
Salaam (Peace).
Nayeem
P.S.: This article originally appeared in the Coloradoan on August 14, 2011
