Arshid Malik
I have been waiting for a long, long time now. I am not able to sleep, eat or drink properly as the absence of my beloved torments my body and soul, day in and day out. When this wait will be over, I wonder as I sluggishly work my way through my daily routines craving for a good night’s sleep. My whole body is ridden with aches and I swallow medicines like jack fruit. I could have been better had I been able to dream her up but that is something I cannot do for reasons unknown. All I dream about is dead people, their faces smeared with blood and gore.
It has been a long time now and I cannot bear the weight of the wait any longer. I wish someone could help me out. I wish someone could set me free from this eternal bondage to love and belongingness. I wish I would get out of bed one morning and I would see her standing right by my side, smiling her effervescent smile. I would not touch her but just sit there and look at her.
The silence of the days is ruptured by commands shouted out by soldiers carrying heavy artillery, and I lose my touch with my beloved. She is so very calm and soothing by nature and all this shouting is absolutely disturbing her core. The nights are fractured by high intensity light beams aiming to keep the wanderers away. The dogs bark in the distance and I turn around in bed, my eyes wide open like that of an owl, itching to say goodbye to the ossified promises that life offered me in the prime of my youth. My blood flows slower now and my breathing is hitched.
It is painful. I miss my muse.
My muse is my motherland, my beloved. I have been kept away from her like a new born from her mother. I am not allowed to bask in her glory. I am not allowed to embrace her when I am disturbed. There are so many enlisted men who have avowed in the darkness of the night to keep me away from her. They would offer their life to keep me away from my colloquial mother, my motherland. In fact they have been around in different guises to keep my brothers away from her ever since it started – this “keep away” drill dance of the alien dragonflies. They fought, my brothers I mean, offering their lives in strife, battling to break the chains and be with her, but the dragonflies with their hard cut agendas knew better.
It is painful to stand witness to this occupation. How long will they hold our motherland away from us? They perhaps have started to think that one day the whole thing will appear as mere vestige to us and we will move ahead and they are right. Many of my brethren have almost forgotten in time. The peculiarity of the struggle is such that many a men fall to the traps of the imposters. But there are many like me who will never give up come what may.
A child, every child, needs its mother. We are no different. We need our mother. A known accomplice of mine, a son of the soil, went searching for her back in 1992 and he was shot in the back. Thousands have been “slaughtered” and thousands more are willing to be “slaughtered”. Why won’t they just let us be with her? She is our mother, our motherland. There is no need to kill and get killed. They, the Others, could let me sleep a single night, couldn’t they?
Note: This is a subaltern piece of writing and beholds a universal appeal.
