No mobs, no stones, no bullets. Except those that we overlay reality from an imagination moulded by a world that has found an eternal home in our unsuccessfully repressed paranoia. Exacerbated by the jawans peppering the landscape with guns on the ready or watchfully peering out of convoys of canvas covered trucks to shield its secrets from unnecessarily inquisitive eyes. A paranoia that imagines wild scenarios of hostage taking and wonders about the intent of every Kashmiri it encounters especially those that are keen to sell stuff, with a sweet persistence that would put the hounds from hell to shame. And there are hordes of us to sell to. Tourists eager to experience paradise on earth; the ethereal beauty of the silent mountains adorned by wisps of a reluctantly melting snow that morphs into a proudly raging milky river before the burdens imposed on it by humans and the intuitive knowledge that the ocean is near, tame it into a deceptive placidity; chasing winds that move mockingly through the straight laced unsmiling pines and firs and over the green expanses of rambling meadows to caress us with a surprising gentleness, soothing the harshness of the poorly mediated sun. All of which should have evoked an expansive joyfulness laced with a quiet reflection of our need to subsume this jannat with death and destruction. But, instead, seems to be drowned out by voices unable to contain their desire to immortalise themselves enjoying each moment for a posterity that fades as quickly as it is recorded.
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Swathes of mercifully untamed green sweep like a benign virus across the valley climbing the steep slopes, merging with the fluffy pines begging to be hugged. Green is the highlight of many homes, reflecting off the roofs and sometimes the walls. Green is the camouflage worn by the army eager to blend in. Green is the colour of the religion that has established itself in dominion. Relegating other paths, to the mirage in the sky, to the displaced fringes. Green, then, is the seductive certainty of an even lusher paradise spread wide open for a select few. A certainty so compelling, it is worth killing and dying for.
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Go north. And keep going north till the sometimes free floating anger, muttered at those that permanently monitor, is but a ghost that you may not have dreamt. Go north. And keep going north till the droves of tourist with their manic desires, which were also yours, have been left behind like a mercifully fading nightmare. Go north. And keep going north till the revulsion of garbage so mindlessly thrown transforms itself into dust, that hangs in the air reminding us of where we come from and will eventually become, forcing a circumspection that withdraws the about to disgorge hand. Go north. And keep going north till the black drapes that cover a fleeting beauty have been shorn to reveal a rosy fresh faced innocence that brings back a self conscious desire coursing through the body. Go north. And keep going north till the playful river finds an echo in your heart and all that binds you dissolves like the poison swallowed so magnanimously by Shiva. Go north. And keep going north till the sight of the gangs of the grime covered labourers from Bihar hammering away at the mountainside, powered by spice layered vegetables and coarse rotis, fill you with hope of a motorable road in the future. Go north. And keep going north till the shepherds that walk the terrain almost aimlessly, carrying all they own, make you question the sense of purpose that limits your life. Go north. And keep going north till the remnants of the faded trails of the old silk route, etched on the stony cliff walls arouse vividly raunchy fantasies. Go north. And keep going north till the green disappears and the mountains stand in their nakedness, unmasked, bearing their essence unashamedly, in the dispassionate compassion of the Bodhisatvas whose spirits roam freely in them. Willing for you to listen to the stories buried deep in your heart. Willing for your heart to reflect the different hues, resonate in the cracks and crevices and sensate with the textures they are made of. Go north. And keep going north till the stiffness of a death inducing monoculture is transformed into an uncertain symbolism that is yours to interpret. Go north. And keep going north till the burden of a tradition that has come down almost unchanged in time and from an even remoter mountainous place imbued with the mysterious, urges you to transcend it and earn your release from the cyclical, extrapolated from the seasons and the planetary movements.