"After all, we have seen this for the past two decades.”

People sometimes ask me if I miss home. Well, I don’t really miss Delhi. But I definitely, most certainly miss my “life”, my freedom and my sense of being alive. A society where people are treated like humans; where the crushing of young children or brutal murders of innocents deserve at least a fair hearing; where blood does not come as cheap as it does in the valley.

People in Kashmir don’t live. The circumstances don’t allow them to. Kashmiris just strive to survive. And many of them are just waiting to be killed- either by the Army, or by the CRPF or perhaps, in the rarest of rare cases, by the militants.

Ever since I came here, reading and reporting about protests, firings, killings, rapes and murders became a part of the professional routine. Be it the crushing of 10 year old Khushboo under an Army vehicle or the death of teenager Ayoub; be it the custodial killing of Manzoor Beg or the recent Shopian rape case- the demonstrations and the Ragda are features I frequently come across.

The two women who were raped were young. One of them was pregnant and had a family. The other was a girl younger than my own self. At 17, she was considered to be a bright student, who was on her way to become a successful doctor. All the dreams she ever harbored were shattered in a single instance. Her life, honour and pride- all crushed under the violence by the forces of Indian occupation.

The whole valley comes out to protest against such incidents. People pelt stones, face tear gas shells and survive firings. Young boys get killed while protesting against why their sisters and wives are dishonored. And then, after two days, everything comes back to “normal”.

People go back to work again, the fear of being killed stronger in their hearts. The women move out again, but not without thinking twice that they may be raped, murdered and mutilated- just like so many others have been in the past. And many of them wait patiently for their deaths; curious to know in what form would it eventually arrive.
This is the “normalcy” that the world’s largest democracy offers to its people.

For the past five days, the strike to protest against the rapes had disrupted the daily life. The city’s heart and centre- Lal Chowk was shut down completely. Not a single bus plied on the roads. Medical stores, shops, schools, colleges, courts- all closed.

The entire city faced a black out for the first day. From Lal Chowk till the Dargah, we could see young boys standing on the roadside, instructing vehicles to switch off their headlights. The Dalgate, which is one of the liveliest joints, was closed too. For the first time, I saw that the houseboats were dark. The whole place looked eerie; as if the town had never been inhabited.

After coming back home, I could hear the protests late unto the night. The university students shouted pro-Azadi slogans, cursing the Indian forces for their ruthlessness. And then…silence prevailed. But the silence wasn’t peaceful. It was like a warning that there is worse to come.

The next afternoon, after I had hired an auto for my office, somebody told us of the ongoing stone-pelting. There were protests everywhere. Young boys were not letting any vehicles-private or public- to move around.

A fruit vendor told us how the protestors wouldn’t hurt me, but they would not spare the auto driver. “They will beat him up and burn his auto”, he said. The scared driver rode me back home and left.

Not a single shop had opened in the past two days. The whole place, which usually is filled with people at all times, bore a deserted look. It was as pale as death.

I waited eagerly for things to come back to the state as I had first seen them. However, the call for an indefinite strike has been declared and god alone knows for how long it will go on.

It all seems strange; something I have never witnessed before. In the newsroom and elsewhere, people continuously debate if the conditions would eventually be worse than last year. The memories of the economic blockade and the discussions provide me a glimpse into what the valley must have faced in those 3 months of the uprising last year.

I feel frustration and irritation building up inside me. Most of my work has been left half undone ever since the strike started.

One night, as we lay wide awake, listening to the Azadi calls of the university students, I mentioned how testing it is to stay in Kashmir. “How can people survive when there are so frequent strikes?” I had asked my room mate.

Her answer silenced me. “We are habitual to it now. After all, we have seen this for the past two decades.”