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Volume 2, No. 2 - July 2002

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"I Just Watched"
Anu Munshi

The sweet taste of nostalgia left me breathless. 
I reckon it was for a moment, but eternal. 
It slid past the chinar trees, the minarets, even the icy tunnel.
And there I was, just eleven years old.
A house was on fire, our neighbor’s house. 
The little Muslim children were running over with “kavlis” and gathering
water to throw at the fire. 
It was leaking from the roof and drops fell on my body. 
Why amongst all this did I feel a calm sensation? 
I just watched.

Thorns went ripping through my grandmother’s feet, or was it her heart? 
My father had left just for the day, only to return to chaos. 
Only tears, not water, would have to quench the thirst of that fire. 
There were plenty of tears, but alas, none from my eyes. 
I just watched.

I handed my ten-day-old sister to Nadia. 
She took her Quran and prayed that it would all end. 
It didn’t. 
Neighbors threw furniture, books, bed sheets out the windows. 
They wanted to save something. 
We left our home. 
The same home we built with blood, sweat and tears demanded more tears. 
It wanted more blood. 
That is exactly what it got back. 
The blood of our Indian javans, the sweat of their mother’s brows, the tears of Kashmiri eyes. 
And still, I just watched.

I watched families being torn apart, women being widowed, daughter’s committing suicide and men without jobs. 
I saw the elderly wither away in tents. 
I saw the man I had always looked up to living in a lonely room with newspapers covering his windows along with broken glass. 
I saw his tears, his longing for a home, his nostalgia. 
And I wept. 
I wept for hours and left. 
I promised myself that I would make a difference. 
I promised that I wouldn’t and couldn’t watch any more. 
I promised to be the daughter of Kashmir, our mother. 
To this day, nostalgia is like the radio of my inner memories. 
Some nights, it’s on...in my dreams. 
I twist and turn the knob...the stations are alive, breathing, forcing me to taste the past.

[Ms. Anu Munshi is an ethnically cleansed Kashmiri Hindu refugee from Kashmir, India and currently lives in Akron, Ohio.]

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