Caught between survival and metamorphosis

Daanish Bin Nabi 

The daily life cycle of a protestor makes a curios read. Let us begin with the daily diet offered to Kashmiris by New Delhi and served with most admirable hospitality of armed forces. It is a two-meal two-times a day thing that begins with a breakfast wherein armed forces simply look at you as if you are a perpetual convict on run. The military guys seems to have been trained to say without speaking a word, by just the look – try it and we will nail you before your thought ends. The icing on the cake is when a person is frisked, for no reason, literally no reason. A military guy looks at you and if your thought even wanders you run the risk of being questioned by the roadside with the rest of the people with a sympathetic face – poor lad, he will get it today.

Then comes the lunch, where if you are not arrested for protesting against the mother of all violations, you at least get few dozen pellets. Usually, you get hit in your eyes, except when the military guy is not trained enough to shoot straight or the gun has lost its precision somewhere in between the ordinance factory and the streets of Kashmir. Message conveyed – don’t lodge a protest, keep your head down or just do the fun thing like eat pakodas with chai.

In the supper, if you happen to have fostered your anger and the feeling of protest, you may get lead, which is cheap by the way in Kashmir, a heavily militarized place. In dinner you might still had not have it all – beating, thrashing or being detained is normal.   

But let us put the protestants aside, and take stock of a different kind of a problem. Who are we? The existential question stares us in the face more often now. There is a plague of Identity Crisis in Kashmir, if you already have not figured it out. We don’t know who we are because we don’t know really. The problem begins with an ‘E’ and ‘T’ and ‘H’ for we either don’t realize our ethnicity or have little regard for ethics. It is miserable existence as after dodging bullets and pellets, we are stuck at the unknown end trying to figure out who we really are.

When I asked a friend recently do you know hayah, his first guess was that I was referring to a girl. I had to take help from English language and say it in a way he could understand. I asked again, do you know what respect is – and he took it for contempt. Earlier the older folks were entrusted with this job – to do some sort of social disciplining, but then it has become so out of fashion that elders reserve their comments as they have some serious apprehensions. When exactly did it happen that change overtook us and transformed us completely dislodging us from our ethnic values and traditions? We once upon a time used to listen and pay attention – that has become a folk tale now.  Many in Kashmir in fact describe our changed behavior as “Behayee kareik aam”. And when society stops respecting and listening to their elders, the values and culture are doomed.

This is no 70s or 80s, this is 20-20s and it is hip, even if it means it is shallow and non-sense. Who cares.

The Alpha male of today is a complete mismatch to that of 70s or 80s. Back then he was the de facto head, and it worked well with the society. Today even the alpha is a beta version as respect, is hard to come, to be earned or gained. The role of the erstwhile alpha on social occasions like marriages was clear-cut – do it my way or don’t do it. Today, most of the occasions pass with people arguing as who is going to take the lead role. No one follows orders anymore, and that is chaotic. 

Then there were the teachers, and today we have simply people who have taken up the job of “tuition-ing” because somewhere down the line we missed the plot – what was the role of teachers supposed to be and how were they to be evaluated. The old folk even this day mark their teachers with reverence. 

Looking back at the last 30 years we clearly see the behavioral change in society as well as in individuals. The older folk existed in strange realm of protection – they would play in dirt and mud, eat snow and icicles for sheer fun, bathe in boggy streams and yet remain healthy. Virus and bacteria were afraid to get in their bodies. Today we know how it is – a few degrees change in temperature goes with a visit to doctor. Today’s generation is like wispy technological streak that you can obliterate with a soft air blow.

Respect is not the only thing we seem to be missing. The new X-generation which can be put below Z-gen in overall material they are made of, are also becoming more arrogant. The “know-all” virus has caught them all. No matter who you are the next kid on the block knows everything, at least more than you. Then some are hungry for one thing – backbiting.  They hardly care for their parents, forget about second relation. A teacher who forms an important ingredient of our society has been degraded to the lowest ebb by the present generation.

There are people who believe that whatever respect for elders was left was removed by TV first and phones now. It holds some weight, because people are consuming content and using technology in such ways that fit neither the ethnical sphere nor the ethical. The mass consumption and no guidance formula have weakened the original structure of our society.

And on top of it when your generation is completely taken away from your roots and diverted to some other culture, cult and traditions which is totally alien to the generation and its elders, a society cannot be productive. In Kashmir’s case, we were taken away from a rich culture that flowed from Ottoman to China.

So even if we survive against all odds, we need to have a good look at what becomes of us.

Published in Rising Kashmir on January 6, 2017. Mail at daanishnabi@gmail.com