Is beauty a curse, sometimes I keep wondering. A native of one of the most beautiful places in the world- Kashmir. The beauty of the place and people has no parallel -no the too manicured Switzerland is not a patch as Kashmirs divinity lies in its wild rugged look.

Sometimes it’s like a beautiful bride, the one who was widowed on her wedding night. The beauty stays but so does the curse-the sad,poignant beauty. And we have been living the curse for decades now. We the first generation of children who lost their childhood when guns started roaring in early 1990’s. For years we couldn’t see anything but blasts, bodies-maimed/disfigured, lying on road sides, olive jeeps and armed vehicles, encounters,curfews and cordons. And Guns.

Being Kashmiri Muslims we had to survive two-from the state and also militants. For one we could be militants for other we could be allies of the state.

Everyday we were dying. Life itself took a beating. The uncertainties, whether we would make it back to home from school. Whether we would be able to see loved ones who went to earn a living.

At times stopped by strangers preventing us from going home- due to some cordon/search operations or encounters. Those days would leave us wondering which relative lives closest and how to inform family at earliest. Life threw new surprises every day, mostly the ugly ones - can’t forget a panic attack I had during class 11 exams. I was off to school when a truck off loaded some dead, the shrouds, the blood and slogans. One of the dead was my maternal uncles friend, I reached school but broke down in the exam hall.

School finished, college, I barely saw and by the time things started getting better we were adults. I left my home for job. But with me carried a yearning for peace. The yearning that takes a beating every time a bullet is fired back home, every time blood is spilled. The yearning I am living for last 30 years.