23 Years

I know nothing of the struggles of my ancestors

I read about militancy in the news, in history textbooks

I read about the violence & the blood

I visited where once my parents lived

and I listened to my father speak 

about how my grandfather's friend was the first to be shot,

right around the corner

of Chinkral Mohalla

I am kashmiri

but my ears are bare,

my shoulders shudder under cashmere shawls,

and freeze under the Pheran

Rogan Josh doesn't sit well with me

or hagaad or Mutton Yakhni.

I speak a language lost in the paradox of its land.

My skin will stay silent,

but my tongue whispers the secrets I keep

and my heritage is lost in my speech.

Finding my way through the grimy, scorching alleys of Ghaziabad

or the picture-perfect suburbia of Fishers, I never knew-

I was lost in the narrow streets of Chinkral Mohalla

23 years pass and my father comes back

To a place he no longer can call home.

And my grandmother -

she can only offer her tears

to a place that gave her

her children’s childhood -

a rickety, burnt structure

the skeleton of a place that was once ‘home’.

“focus on the future” her words

unnatural, ring in my ears

and sting my skin.

I may not have witnessed the torture,

But I’ve heard the cries of the tormented

on both sides. Listening to your stories

my words cannot explain

I don’t hate, I can’t let their tears waste

I don’t hate because I haven’t hurt that way

I don't hate for I cannot comprehend hate

I don’t hate

And yet I am kashmiri?