Hamin Asto: one e mp t y ab o d e

Poem | Saanvi Kaul

The final strikes came in the merciless winter of 1990, when the Kashmir Valley was blanketed

in pristine and untouched snow, the chinar trees bereft of color - i.e, until it was disrupted by a

trail of bloody footsteps never to be re-traced. They told a story of desperate flight, their edges

stained crimson not just from the winter's bitter cold or the betrayals that snipped ties formed

generations ago, but from the wounds of a hurried exodus that would forever change the valley's

soul. Stories I grew up hearing because they were in fact, my history. And unlike most, my family

went back to its roots at a time where Kashmir was extremely turbulent, back to my maternal

home that was nothing but ruins and a silent witness to the phases that came about pre and post

exodus. This poem is a statement, a weeping grail from the heart of a house that was once home.

‘Gar firdaus,‘

There is heaven, they claim

In the middle of that valley,

Beside the Jhelum

and a singing canary.

Haunted still

by bloodstained dreams,

For everything Is more

Than what it seems.

There, A house stood alone

A silent witness on a grave of bones

Until “they” came,

and made it home.

–A family of four,

No longer alone

Windows glowed and

Time, it flowed

Green soon carpeted

The barren abode.

The walls changed colors

‘bar-rue zamin ast’

Peace so dear

and the air so pure,

Who knew it’d be tinged

With chants of gore?

The screams, they cracked

Along the wooden doors

That bore endless proofs

Of piercing bullet holes

Chaos reigned under tyranny

As the morals burned

To crisp insanity,

And The fumes that rose

Came from no chimney

But the charred hearts

Of surprisingly many.

‘Hamin Asto’

And so came the day

When the lights went out.

The blinking eyes,

They witnessed chaos.

Chantings to run away,

To convert or to die,

A memo, a slogan,

A burning splash of hot chai

The house across stood still in despair,

Watching the loss of lives once there

Those who lived, who loved, who grew

Now fled under the night, lit with fumes

No guiding fireflies, just bone deep fear

As ghostly silence threaded the air

“Fled?”--

Not a choice, no will, no say,

Just fate’s decree,

–and A twisted tale

The mobs, they came

But the house stood sentry,

A lonely soldier

In Nineteen-ninety,

During that night

of blood and massacre

That’s seared into minds

And left souls perturbed

‘Hamin Asto’

And then with the dusk

Came a silence, a mere husk

Of the city that teemed with life

Until friends turned foe

And gambled with lives

The house….

It waited though.

With it’s chipped paint

And Coal like halls

Empty remains

In the season of fall

Then stepped in the propagators

The inciters and the wanderers.

The house, it saw them come

Steal, swipe and make it glum

But The house it stood,

Until the walls were soaked

And If one didn’t know better,

They’d think it was blood.

Since The Jhelum too,

had run a deep red,

Recalling sorrows

of the unfairly dead.

‘Hamin Asto’

Decades went

like the river water.

Flowed in essence

Just without the laughter,

No red, just blue

But a city still in rue.

Awaiting those

That were forced to roam

Like migrants in their country

Robbed of identity

And so,

The house, it became a shrine,

A witness bound by roots and time.

No longer home, no longer whole,

It mourns the loss of every soul.

For houses live where love has been,

And die when hearts won’t dwell within.