In Srinagarโs media and academic circles, Meha Dixit is no random researcher. The erudite and eloquent lady with Indic features is an old fixture in the city of seven bridges where she first arrived as a rookie on the heels of the 2010 upheaval. A decade later, Dixit has come of age, with her Piece…
SRINAGAR โ Sheikhpora Pandit Colony in Central Kashmirโs Budgam district wore a deserted look on Friday. The previous day a Kashmiri Pandit teacher and a Sikh teacher were gunned down by โunknown gunmenโ. Two days before their killings, a renowned Kashmiri Pandit businessman, Makhan Lal Bindroo, was killed in his shop. Otherwise a bustling place…
SRINAGAR โ Kashmirโs top separatist leader, Syed Ali Geelani, who died late Wednesday evening was laid to rest at a local graveyard, against his will, and amidst extraordinary security measures. The funeral was tightly controlled by Police as only a few relatives of Geelani and some neighbours were allowed to participate in the prayers. Geelani,…
We have great facilities here. polished rods, double-coated with grease and oilโ specialized wires for electrocuting; pliers, easy to handle, precisely sharp. and burners, we got rollers made of walnut wood and nails of varied sizes. A machine, portable and specially designed, with valves to insert truth- attached to a pit, through a pipe, where…
To tell the truth, on the face of a tyrant, is a brave act. This book is an act of revelation. Gowhar’s book is a result of more than a decade of his journalistic career. Research and his personal experience of Kashmir makes him own the narrative. Authoritative and emotional, Kashmir โ Rage and Reason…
My son took a bathput on new clothes,left home,riding a horselike a prince;came homeas kilos of ripped flesh. one foggy winter day,some two decades ago,my brotherlost his fingers;an eagle feastedon his eyes. meadows, haunted hamletswhere the grass grows uphill-armed men storm the villageand take men out of their houses,beat themand force them to carry their…
I. why elsewhen elsedo you put our narratives on a weighing scale?exceptwhen there’s your familiar bloodpolitically differentiated from our familiar bloodtogether calling out for help on our streets.(pray ask when has blood ever left my streets?)Quite a time for you to suddenly wake up, no? I heard your reality is throbbing like an inconsolable ache…
I. In the language of a city inseminated with fallen teeth and broken bones. I dream in the language of dead. I dream: my mother’s poems resemble the dark blotch on my left temple. a green horse kneels beside the body of a dead boy. a rat nips at my only letter addressed to the…
Kashmirโs uncertain landscape is endlessly making women its soft target. As she heard the sound of her squeaky doorknob, she rushed to find out who it was. On seeing her husband back from work, a wide smile spread across her face. But that twilight, some years ago, Neelofar (not her real name), 28, had no…