By Mohammad Shafi,
It happened 18 years ago, when I was hardly 8. I still remember it as if it happened today. Afzal Mamu, a kind hearted man living in a nearby house, possessing a bright, peaceful and hopeful face, keeping always a small home-made purse with him in which he used to keep small tasty Kashmiri apples, sometimes Kashmiri nuts and pears to offer us. Whenever it was holiday, my friends and I used to spend maximum hours of the day with him.
My parents were well aware that my friends and I were very fond of him (Afzal Mamu).Being very naughty during childhood, whenever my parents failed to persuade me on any childish matter ‘Afzal Mamu’ was the only source before my parents to whom they could use in order to motivate me. His smiling face and affectionate eyes were not in need of motivational words. What a peaceful environment it was! Running after colourful butterflies, stealing mouthwatering cherries and pomegranates with my friends from a nearby orchard, running bare-footedly with both arms open among paddy fields under the majestic blue roof of sky as whole world was made for me.
As usual, it was the day when me and my friends after spending the day’s long hours at school, we were very eager to start our routine joyful job. Finishing a cup of ‘Nun Chai’(Kashmiri salty Tea) with ‘Sut’ (Broiled maize flour), I rushed in hurry from my house. As I was on the way to join my friends, Afzal Mama from opposite side, on the way to offer evening prayers, stopped me near the Masjid, kissed my forehead with jolly lips and perhaps wished me a happy moment by pointing towards my friends who were playing under a grandeur nut tree. As I was about to join them, all of sudden, a loud poignant and heartrending hum of a blast made all of us dumbfounded, with all of us staring on each other’s troubling faces in an astonishing mood for a while. As we were still in great trepidation, discontent, disgruntlement and huge hue and cry from all around cropped up. Men, women and children moved helter-skelter and started running towards the safer spot. However, I stood motionless at my original position and meanwhile, somebody from behind caught my hand and asked me, do you want to die? I asked with murmuring sound what happened? “Cross-firing”, he said. “Cross firing”! What cross firing? I asked in mystification. He became angry and warned me to keep mum. At that moment, cross-firing seemed something new to me. People were crying from every side. The man dragged me with him and we took shelter in a nearby house. ‘Firing’ that was going unabatedly outside was just like the bursting of fire cracks by the children.
The environment went quite after a couple of hours. As we were staggered inside a closed room, somebody knocked the door crying loudly. “Who is there? Open the door? Come out quickly with your hands up”? I was asked to open the door. As I unlocked it with my trembling hands, two soldiers dressed in olive green with long rifles in their hands directed us to report in the nearby school ground. As we stepped out from the house, I saw somebody lying on the ground but I could not recognize him because his face was
wrapped with a black cloth and blood was oozing out from his body. On watching the scene, I started screaming and weeping bitterly. As we moved some more steps towards school ground, I noticed blood spots everywhere; the horrible seen pushed me in distress and I called aloud ‘Afzal Mama’,‘Moje’ (mother), ‘Baba’ (father). Immediately, a solider caught my hand, directed me to be quiet and took me to the ground where already a huge gathering was assembled. As I was pushed to the people who were standing in a circle and in between, they were watching something. The women were wailing and children sobbing. As I could not understand what the matter was, I somehow managed to enter into the circle to unveil the suspense. After reaching there, to my utter surprise, I saw Afzal Mama with both arms open and eyes closed helplessly lying on the ground, uttering no word, giving no smile. My heart beat too fast. With trembling hands I shook his blood stained body calling, Afzal Mama! Afzal Mama! However, his lips did not move to utter a single word. Immediately somebody from behind took me away from him. I was still crying violently. Tears tickling down from everybody’s cheeks were quite visible from a distance.
After the soldiers relieved us from the crackdown, I with my friends went under a nut tree. Everybody was silently weeping with tears rolling down from the ears like rain. Soon after that, an announcement on the loud speaker of our Masjid was made. “Nimaz-e-Jinaze khatur gasiv kabristans peth jamah” (Assemble in graveyard in order to pray funeral prayers). After finishing the funeral prayers, people buried him under the earth once and forever.
Now 18 years has been passed. Whenever I pass through that graveyard I feel as if Afzal Mama is crying and asking, “Why I have been killed, what wrong I have done, why I have been detached from my family and the like”? Like Afzal Mama, there are hundreds of thousands of such souls who are repeating the same queries. Some were disappeared during the dark hours of night; some lost their precious years of life in bomb blasts,some in custodies while some during cross-firings. Now a question is always irritating me, “HOW FAR IT WILL RUN”? Is not there any durable solution for all this?