May Be, I Just Want To Vent Out.

Work begins at 9 nowadays and it’s April! Every day one awakens to a gloomy morning, wondering whether the clouds intend on romancing the sky only or they wish to make some love to earth also. Blame it on the beautiful colours of beloved Earth; the clouds quite often betray the sky!

Breakfast is a trivial meal as the more important task, every morning, is to decide what to wear? Oh, believe me; it takes an Einsteinian intellect to make such decisions. To be in spring and to have to choose between the woollens and the not-so-woollens is a predicament for a woman.  And, as sacrilegious as it could be, even after many reviews, we all end up in the layers of woollies. Sigh! 

As if all of it isn’t enough to ruin a lady’s day, there are potholes on which we drive, vehicles, the drivers of which very seriously consider these potholes as roads and then, O Lord, there are people, the sons of Adam, the crown of the Creation...people like this man, I could have butchered today morning.

My Thursdays are extraordinarily busy because of the additional assignments at work besides my primary obligation of teaching Chemistry. Contrary to the common belief, we actually work. Nonetheless, being thursday, my day began earlier than the routine and on my way, at one point, I had to manoeuvre my car in a very narrow space between two yellow school buses. It is actually quite a wide road but the two buses, coming from two opposite sides, had stopped side by side. One wishes to be patient when children are involved so without showing any signs of anger or anxiety, I tried to get out of the narrow track but, people…

 A middle aged man, bearded and dressed in a pheran, was chatting with one of the drivers and his body posture/language was such that it actually seemed like a task to get out from there. So I started to honk. No response. Again I honked and then I kept honking.  The arrogant dimwit turned around, looked at me and said, ‘Cze kiah Mehbooba Mufti seathh chhiya hulp tulun .’ (Why are you in such hurry, woman. Has Mehbooba Mufti invited you for induction in her cabinet?). And that tone!

Kashmiris have splendid sense of humour. Taken. And here in Kashmir we seek much pleasure in making fun of mainstream politics and the politicians. No Qs, we have reasons to do so. But politics is not what Kashmir is all about. We are a lot more than a piece of conflict ridden land and we should never forget that. We should never give up on Kashmiriyat. Or we already have? Have we lost ourselves while yearning to be some other variety? May be, we were never a perfectly polished people but we have also not been this crude. At least appearances were never so deceiving.  A salt and pepper beard doesn’t go along well with profanity. Having been brought up in the lap of the culture that boasts of rich and profound Sufi lineage, it was a shock to hear to such words from a bearded Muslim looking Kashmiri man. I didn’t want to believe it. Neither his words nor the look in his eyes. But, I quickly regained my ground.  I pulled my window pane down and made sure that this was the worst morning of his life. In such situations, I think it’s necessary to retort so I did. Why should a woman be a victim of a sexist remark that a chauvinist thinks, is a joke? Hopefully he will never dare to speak to someone else the way he did to me.

 I didn’t write this post just to vent out but I truly wish that; amid the crisis, in spite of the suffering of decades, we do not lose our foundation. Our rich culture is our footing, let’s not drop it.

P.S : - Don’t provoke a working woman. Not in the morning.