They are alive!

May i share with you a story of a Shaheed!
Promise that you'll be all ears and pay heed!
It is a story of a Martyr!
from the killing fields of Kashmir!
He achieved martyrdom,
and was buried without a family!
A few weeks later,
some people heard,
people of a far off village,
that a person had been martyred!
They descended on the village,
where the martyr lay buried,
They asked to let them see him,
so it was ordered He be exhumed!
The pitched a tent around the grave,
when the police arrived.
Around the grave of the martyr,
the grave to be exhumed!
The policemen wore around masks,
covered their nose to avoid the stink.
Expecting the corpse to have decomposed,
to smell, to stink!
But, as soon as the grave was opened,
the men around were shocked!
The Martyr's body was as fresh,
the hairs of him unruffled!
The blood of the martyr was still there,
on the clothes which he had worn.
The martyr was alive (with Allah),
he was happy and not forlorn!

Kashmir: Airborne Photography

I wouldn't have uploaded these anywhere but the following news item made it, somewhat, obligatory! :)

Author Basharat Peer Stopped, Freed At Srinagar Airport

Curfewed Night author Basharat Peer and Contributing Editor of the Caravan magazine was stopped at Srinagar airport by police. He was on his way home from Delhi and was soon asked by airport police not to move out.

Basharat Peer told KL that he clicked a couple of photographs of the fascinating clouds somewhere between Jammu and Banihal. A co-passenger, who identified himself as a cop objected to it saying it compromises ‘national security’. It triggered an argument mid-air.

After the aircraft landed, unidentified co-passenger complained to the airport police. Peer was stopped for nearly half an hour. However, after the cops and airlines authorities saw the pictures that were shot by Peer midair, they said there was nothing objectionable and they allowed him to go home.

Photography on the airports is banned by law. But there is no such bar on photography midair.

The co-passenger was identified as P S Sandhu, an IGP in BSF, who was also flying to Srinagar in the Indigo aircraft.

The following are some, what we can call them, Peer'esque clicks!

Empathy! | that the dawn is near

was it a terrible nightmare,
or just a bad dream caught me in a snare,
or just a vision gave me quite a scare?

that when i walk along the road,
the oft travelled, the much loved road,
i feel a sense of loneliness spread manifold!

like the wildfire that spreads from peak to peak,
without a word said, leaving nothing about it to speak
the wilderness along the road, i want to cry and shriek!

does that person on the road, with a gun,
who seems to be forlorn, fate having had him spun and spun.
does he not have a family to have with them jest and fun?

does he not have a young boy at his home,
with whom he loves to play, his love for him an epitome.
does he not feel the boy he just shot dead, the sadness at his home?

does he not have a wife to look at, a home to long for,
when he is on a mission, ready to get killed and kill for.
does he not feel the widow whose loved one disappeared, with no crime to pay for?

all along the road, the wilderness instills in me, a fear,
i fear for me, myself and all others far and near.
will ever anybody say, declare with empathy, that the dawn is near?