Valley

Rocks. Gunfire. Labored breathing.

The valley used to smell of tulips, it had been colored like a dream, especially come spring. Fresh air lazily floating, bringing scents from one garden or orchard to another. Cherry trees, peaches, pears, plums, all in bloom. A dream. More than a dream. More beautiful than reality. More real than dreams. Chilly cozy air stringing through the sky. The best of paintings could not compare.

His grandfather’s eyes twinkled as the man remembered the valley of his youth. Tears formed in his own as he was told these stories of peace and tranquility. Tears formed as his grandfather named the places he was talking about. Back then, that road had hawkers on all sides, selling freshly squeezed juice, beautiful Muslin shawls, it smelled of oil, and paint, and peace, and joy. Everyone wearing their shalwaar, women walking around by themselves. People with faces free of worry, unlined. That road was now deserted but for a few checkpoints where rifles stood pointing at the residents of the valley, the hands holding them attached to bodies that were cruel and harsh, and enjoyed inflicting pain on them. That library had been a center of knowledge, that mosque a community center. The library was hollow, as if all life had left it. The mosque was filled with terrified people.

The people, the people used to be peaceful, friendly, welcoming. After seventy two years of being oppressed, they were divided into two camps, fearful and quivering, or angry, and turning to violence. More and more youth were turning to the latter.

Rocks, gunfire, labored breathing. 

He was running. Trying to get home before the curfew. Before they saw him. If they did, they would shoot him.

The religious festivals had used to be loud, he was told, the entire community celebrated as one whole regardless of creed or religion. They were one community, no other lines or distinctions mattered. They were one people.

Then that line seventy two years came along. Radcliffe. Leaders on each side of the line started fighting. Powerful people, that really, in most cases had never visited the valley, arguing over it as if winning it in the acrid divorce would prove their superiority over the other. Same color of skin, same language, same history, same culture. Divide and conquer really was a powerful strategy. So much so that even a century later, these communities were divided on the basis of one thing, religion. Still. Even though they had lived in harmony for many centuries before.

And now they were having to bhugat the rewards, or in this case, punishments. He got back home. Waited breathlessly for a knock he thought would come. He thought a soldier had seen him, as he turned the alley. He hadn’t. The one that was assigned to this havela. The one with the sneering eyes, the evil look. The one that had beat his uncle to death. The one that had watched as his friends had raped the man’s sister.

He didnt die today. But the rocks being projectiled through the air, the gunfire in response, the labored breathing as they ran over gravel, those came daily.

He didnt die today.

He would die tomorrow.