His favourite song

… and we decided to meet
Again.
In the orchards of almonds
blooming flowers, shimmering sun
the temping smell of garden
I waited for long.

I looked at Zabarvan,
the calmness of Dal,
the rowing noise.
What on earth could stop him from coming?
He never broke his promise.
Phone rang, Kashmiri music.
It was his favorite song,
Unknown number I thought for a while…

I ran to the hospital, Sweating.
Perspiration covered my forehead,
drained my body shaking with fear.
Traffic jam, horn blow,
vendor’s noise, smoke, stink.
Borrowed cigarette choked me,
water gushed through my eyes.

Some one offered water,
in a dirty steel glass.
I drank without hesitation.

I could read the hoarding,
SMHS on left.
I got down from the bus.
Fingers tracing his name, trauma ward.
Sign board showed straight and left,
I rushed up.
The ward was crowded,
I made my way.
I could barely see him,
he wall all red.
He hated to wear red,
he always said it was the colour of women.
Bathed in this colour now
he looked at me with a faint smile.

Doctor caught my hand
took me away, my hand was sweating.
He felt uneasy,
firm and strong hands loosing grip.
I wanted to run away.

…again trauma ward,
Faint smile had not gone,
eyes still wide open, staring without blink,
body cold
lungs not breathing.
Phone rang,
Kashmiri music, his favourite song
he wasn’t listening.

Who killed him?

Morning breeze,
I heard the yelling words
Lal-Chowk, tower clock
Its hour needle still missing.

New bus!
Smell of steel, suffocating.
Young faces, all around.
Exotic perfume, a relief.

Conductor,collecting money.
A young boy,
green tie and grey pant.
Not very tidy.

His old dented geometry box
Half-broken, half tattoed
coins made clinking noise,
he paid the fare.

Memories revisited me.
School, my old school days.
I always walked the distance.
It had been some years now.

Ashai bagh bridge,
Nageen and Dal met
What Nostalgia!

Obscure, but I see
Minaret, architectural excellence blend with faith,
Dastgeer sae’b,
hearts filled with prayers.

Green knots tied,
they call them wishes.
Who knows what the wishes are?
rewarded or not!

They asked driver to turn,
hundreds of voices together.
Who were they?
No one dared to ask

“They killed feroze”, some one screamed.
Everything blacked out, I was blind,
I can’t believe them, he
Has a promise yet to fulfill.

How could they,
it wasn’t easy
to fix between two finites
An infinite.

Kasheer- a war!

Once before I die,
will you have a sigh.
Set me free for a day. And,
I will go my way.

Let me walk a fray.
Promise, will loose my way.
You have been trying hard,
atleast to scare my heart.

Once before I die,
Let me stroll my bay,
I will salute the flag, not yours but mine
as high as I want to it be.

Once before I die,
let me be, who I am.
You have made me loose
my identity.

Once in my life,
fill my bare chest with- bullets,
place they will want to be.
Feeling the force of my gravity.

Once in my life,
I will walk free,
loose my way back to destiny
and absolute eternity.

Beat me up to death,
I will not give up.
Dancing in the pool of blood,
I will sing a “freedom” song.


.. and I promise I will fight and be strong,
your loss shall not bring you shame,
your generations will be proud of ye, for you fought me.
For you are fighting men.

awaiting Destiny!

Not my hand,
hold me.
…and let the moon
lit our dreams.

A walk, by the lake
as stars awake.
Moment of
you, me. Promise be!

Gorgeous is moon
and your eyes,
not the shimmering sighs,
of wave.

Matters what when we along,
not the beauty of sea and
song.

Life is beauty,
and you beautiful.
When you are with me
and we alone.

Seeing your tears
fall the cheek. I admired
them gentle or bleak.


Rub
the tears on your cheeks, light
will twinkle on our dreams.

Give me a jiffy to exist by,
or I wont live nor die.


Life is beautiful when you along,
better than the people all around.
Promise me life
and I will dream,
or the death so serene.

Kashmir Awakes.

…and,
kashmir wakes up to a
Dream. Walking bare foot,
the roads of history.

Stirring the irony of now,
rebelling the chains of future.
Re-inventing its own existence,
exiled for some years.

Finally,
I hear -
Kashmir Speaks,
for himself and all others around.

Its beauty so chaste and lyrical,
tales of exhilarating past.
Old woven fairy tales and
lullabies in moon lit night.

Its talks of ugly scars,
dare to the natural rhythms.
Of denounced dignity, lifeless existence and
courageous revolts.

And more of;
barbed wires; shackled mountains; blood stains.
fear of death; heroism of youth; young widows.
fighters; victims and brave mothers.

Speaks of everything witnessed,
every secret borne in its chest
of life and young death, of
beauty and the beasts.

Beauty; dazzling snow clad mountains,
gigantic chinar tree’s, small water springs,
twinkling sunlight emerging from dal lake.
Zabarvan: Mahadev: Kolohoi: Harmukh.

Young dreams and old experiences,
killing the gap of generations.
Living thoughts and the will,
taking to height the new woven worlds.

Much remains to be unsaid
but promise be,
we will hear it again
…and pin the hope on freedom to come.