Three Faces-Four Years

Dr K L Chowdhury 

(Chowdhary, one of the leading Physician Specialists of Srinagar practising as a migrant in Jammu for the past four years, witnessed the holocaust in Kashmir during 1989.90 and has been keeping in close touch with the happenings in the Valley since. He depicts, in verse, the situation as it was and is not is in 1989-90, 1991-92 and 1993-94: Editor)

 

Face One-Year 1989-90

Scene: A premier medical Institution in Kashmir

Fellow medics, students,

doctors, nurses, residents,

sweepers and attendants,

ambulance drivers, gate keepers,

of 'Azadi-all soldiers,

let us to the mosque, to the prayer,

the Friday sermon, hear! hear!

Come hurry, your work can stay

the patients are not running away,

praise be to Allah

the all Merciful, the Eternal Healer,

Lahilahi Illalah!

Welcome all ye faithfuls,

Chosen Worshippers, true believers,

of Islam, all soldiers,

Gird up your loins, comrades in arms

unite for the holy 'Jahad',

let us in this domain,

usher in God's reign,

the true 'Nizame Mustafa',

Lahilahı Illalah!

 

Come forward brave 'Mujahid' youth,

destroy this evil forsooth,

take the suffering in its stride,

all sacrifice is but trite

for the noble cause divine,

as much yours as mine,

Success knocks at the door

else martyrdom and heaven for sure.

Cleanse this land once for all,

of the usurper, the polluter,

the infidel, the informer,

the 'Dale Batta' and 'Batten'

symbols and agents of 'Bharat'

that erodes our 'Kashmiriyat

"KP" go back,

Indian dogs go back,

Sikh and Muslim are brothers,

wherefore all others,

this land is ours.

Islam 'Zindabad'! Pakistan Zindabad!

Praise be to Allah!

Lahilahi Illalah!

 

Face Two-Year 1991-92

 

Scene: Roadside Scene in Jammu

O, you fugitive 'Pandit'

you 'Batta Migrant';

wandering here like a vagrant,

why did you run away

and betray your motherland

waiting for deliverance

from cruel Indian governance?

You were lured by Jagmohan,

ace infidel, arch villain,

for relief, ration, residence

and the promised plots of land

in this place of stone and sand,

leaving us behind,

cannon fodder to Indian guns

to be bombed out of existence.

You betrayers of 'Azadi',

you chicken-hearts and cowards,

running away like frightened birds

to these pigeon holes

and dales,

cheating your Muslim Peer

spurning your "Mauj Kasheer."

Together we had lived and deterred

together we should have faced & suffered,

and fighting side by side,

accepted death in its stride.

You did not have to care

when we were with you there,

not get a scare

by a few threatening letters,

telephone calls or warning posters,

or when taken away in fetters,

by our interrogating boys awhile,

if you had nothing to hide

but prove that you are bonafide.

Nor if your kin got killed,

throttled, drowned, hanged or peeled

for being informers

or of CBI, RSS, RAW

unholy members,

agents of "Bharti-Samraj,"

enemies of our revolution

agent provocateurs.

If you had a clean record,

why run away of your own accord,

to spread lies about us

besmirching "Azadi" thus.

You betrayers, self seekers,

of homeland idle dreamers,

with your renewed treachery,

you hatch another conspiracy

for a 'Pandit Land', and thus

lusting for our share from us.

As the revolution reaches every door

Inshaallah, in a few months more

'Nizame Mustafa' as of yore

will be here once more!

 

Face Three-Year 1993-94

Scene: A K.P. Refugee Camp in Jammu

Dear Pandit, dear brother

dear colleague, friend, neighbour,

in leaving the accursed valley

you really proved the wiser.

You have lost your hearth & home,

we our dignity and shame,

you your status and job,

we our freedom & honour.

You left behind your estate and farm

our pride hath come to eternal harm,

you escaped from fear & terror

we are condemned to grave horror.

While you give tongue to your thoughts

ours are tied in tedious knots

and truth is a casualty with us

as we speak in the militants' vein

against what our consciences ordain.

You live in torn, tattered tent

yet your heads are not bent,

ours are stooped in servitude

to the gun-totting multitude.

The "Cordon and Search"

and the "Crackdown"

is a slur to our honour,

but worse still

the swoop on our privacy

and the lust for meals, money & maids

by the marauding boys with AIDS,

flouting all canons of religion

destroying the movement

ere it has hegun.

It is now a free for all

no longer the holy "JEHAD".

but a class war my pal;

those who swept our floor

blackers, bootleggers and more

carry the gun and order us about,

paupers of yesterday

are today's lords with real clout

the real Mujahid alas! no more,

but Egyptians and Sudanis

Pakis and Afghanis.

In your flight from that hell

your intellect preceded you well

as ours goes pell mell.

The values we shared have fled with you,

also our traditions and culture true,

and while Kashmir burns in hatred

its heritage blots from the face of earth.

We rue for the freedom we fought

and curse the 'AZADI" we sought

as the foolish struggle comes to naught

Can we find a way out,

can't we, dear 'Pandit'

together break ground

to turn the wheel around?

Courtesy:- Dr K L Chowdhury and December 1994 Koshur Samachar