Whispering Loud!

August 25, 2019 Dull sunny afternoon Kashmir I was barely making it through the 20th day of curfew when a riotous noise in my neighborhood dragged me to the rear window of my room this morning. I saw a cheerful group of 10-12 children, shouting and screaming a plot to each other and I settled myself by the sill and cupped my face in my hands. They were carrying sticks and handkerchiefs in their tiny hands and I could easily comprehend the nature of the upcoming theatrics. After all, what else could the childhood of conflict ridden children look like, even if it unfolds itself in the poetic countryside set up! Freckled, light-haired members of one sub-group held their ‘pellet-guns’, they had beforehand crafted out of aged sun-dried sticks, with a great deal of expertise in their hands and equally freckled and light-haired children of the other sub-group hastily tied their handkerchiefs around their faces. The speed at which all of them prepared themselves was a hint enoug...

Children of the family, that of immediate as well as extended, called her ‘Phoola’, a common love-name in Kashmiri culture which is typically used for addressing aunts. But, when her niece, my elder sister, started to read and she learnt the meaning of the word ‘Fool’, she no longer wanted anyone to call her aunt by the name. It also didn’t take my sister much time to select a new name. If her aunt could not be a ‘fool’, she could very well be ‘wise’. Thus, ‘Phoola’ became ‘Wise’ and over the years, ‘Wise’   changed to ‘Wise-a’. No one in the family ever got tired of narrating the whole context of the name, whenever a family connection or a complete stranger enquired about it. We still tell the tale but, no one among us can tell it the way she herself would. A woman of enormous wit and sharp skills, Wise-a would always seal this droll story with her thunderous laughter. Our account ends with a lament now.   On the intervening night of November 18 and 19, 2019, Wise-a fell ...