Eternal & Platonic and so Extravagant

Aditya Almora

I have remained besotted with nature, I have appreciated the rising sun, often empathized with it when it sets, I have seen gold and silver ornamenting the neighbourhood when others portend thunder. Those birds chirping early morning sounds music to me, the winds often whispered in my ears and we together created notes of music at the solitary top of those hills.

The rains brought me memories of childhood, of the paper boats that never sailed, of the art of origami that I so much desired but never comprehended. These trees they have stood here for long, they were always the older, caring members of the locality, and so vivid are those evenings when they counselled me through the hedges and rocks.

The Wedding Adventure…

Anees Zargar

It is not only snow abodes, gushing waters or green valleys that people of Kashmir are blessed with but this place is heaven for adventure sports. Apart from trekking in high mountain peaks, River rafting in fast streams, going for a wedding party in a curfew is yet another adventurous sport people prefer nowadays. I myself have tried it few days back and trust me, it is breathtaking and once in a lifetime experience. My cousin brother got married last week and I owe him for giving me this opportunity.

My first task after leaving for marriage ceremony was to face some ten to fifteen police and paramilitary force right outside my house. As I walked near they greeted me with words, “Tu kahan marne jaa raha hai? Where are you going to die?”

The Days When We All Wept…

Azaan Javaid

The first visuals that shook us were that of Tufail Matoo. As this young boy in his early teens lay still on a stretcher, one could see his head split wide open due to the bullet injury. I could not only see the dead boy but the dreams in his hollow eyes which were vanishing slowly one by one. I thought to myself that did he even in his wildest imagination dreamt of not coming back alive from the play ground where he was shot..All that I used to think while I was playing as a kid was returning home and see the lit up face of my mother. How unfortunate must the mother be as she received the body of her only lad soaked in blood? We wept for Tufail. We wept for all those who had the same fate and we wept for the ones whom they left behind. We wept for the whole day.

As the funeral of a young boy was passing through the curfewed streets, it was fired at .The crowd eventually had to run for cover. All of them ran but one didn’t. The last one standing was the father of the slain whose body now was lying on the street amongst the heap of dust and rocks. He didn’t isolate his dead son. I wondered what was it that he protecting him from. His son was a free soul and at peace, at least that’s what we want to believe.