Exodus of the 20th century

11 February 2021

By Mrs. Anjali Bangroo Srivastava

The thing about memories is that they look invisible, but each time you revisit them they are felt so intensely, the same way you had experienced it for the first time. These are the memories, where you feel caught up in a deep well and you are trying hard to come out, but you sink deeper and deeper into it. It is like a void, which never gets filled. Some wounds do not heal how much hard you try. They change into a scar which keeps reminding you about the wound that caused it. Year 1990 is that wound, which has never healed and has left a scar which makes my heart sink. 

I was around 17, when I first understood the meaning of terrorism because this is what I experienced at a tender age. I have crystal clear images of the havoc. Suddenly thriving Kashmir had turned into a battlefield, people were homeless, sad, scattered, hungry, directionless and above all scared…. scared for their lives and the lives of their loved ones. 

Everyone around me was terrified, holding each other and their materialistic belongings, whatever they could get hold off. I wish our memories; sense of belonging and entire life story could be packed in one box. Everyone around us was clinging on to each other, having their last look at the houses that they built through generations, each generation adding to the glory of their ancestral house. All we could hear was the sound of banging doors, abusive slogans and constant stones being thrown at our houses. Our hearts were breaking and terror rising, with each broken glass, with each stone reaching us, it was not just the glass which broke, but it broke the trust within us. The trust that we belonged. 

When the voices would get stronger, we would hold each other much closer sitting under staircase switching off all the lights and hearing the slogans which would get closer with each second. They said, “leave the valley now and leave your daughters to us, we know what to do with them”. We were ten girls being in a joint family. 

Experiencing terror so close, leaves your heart and soul wretched, that wound which I was talking about earlier begins here, When the death seems few metres away and you are just gasping for breath, everything falls apart in front of your eyes with no fault of yours. This scars your life forever and you never get over it.

The valley, which was green fresh and beautiful looked different now, something had changed. The roads were ghostly and the pristine green which covered the valley had started looking pale and yellow. It looked as if nature had also absorbed all the negative energy and refused to bloom. 

Our neighbours were same but now the daily conversations had converted into silences and it was a deathly silence. They did not know what to say and we wanted to hear what was not being said. 

Sometimes I think there are so many natural disasters which happen, and there is nothing much we can do about it. Disasters like flood, tsunami, earthquakes which leave people deserted and directionless. The face of fear is same, the emotions, the turmoil, the agony, the pain, the panic, horror, just everything, the only difference is that some havoc are nature’s plan, but then there are some created by us so called superior homo sapiens, some disasters can never be controlled but some are manifested. 

#AngieśScribblingPad