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Shattered Waters of Vitast?

By Tooba Towfiq. Dated: 7/5/2013 9:54:50 PM

Shattered are the rough tides of it and its courses unknown…

We have grown too accustomed to murders that it's easy for us to ignore them now. As I grew up, I was too naive to understand what went around me. As I have grown up; I am too cold to react and too weak to act.
I heard of a "hartal" being called for on Monday (June 1, 2013); I was disappointed. Pitifully, I was more disappointed with the fact that I am not going to have school after a weekend. I was too accustomed and too acquainted with these killings that I found it silly to regret.
I jotted out a schedule for the day and days to come; because somehow I knew the hartals' endlessness .Owing to the anxiety that these sudden jolts and vibes which hartals provide; I became too slothful to do anything fruitful. Therefore, I went about surfing the internet. I tweeted, chatted, downloaded, uploaded, and avoided any webpage that would get me around the details of the killings in Bandipora.
But I had my heart somewhere in that mob which was protesting. I was questioning their spirit, and the source of their hope for justice, in my mind that had shunned every possibility of hope for our land. Being an aficionado of Barkha Dutt I searched @BDUTT on twitter to see what she had in store for Kashmiris today. I saw a few tweets about Uttrakhand and thought it was quite sane on her part not to speak of Kashmir anymore. She must have felt silly. But it was there; she had tweeted. She had yet again marked the atrocities which befall Kashmiris . I felt like replying to her that I felt like laughing when I read her tweet and she should not tweet about a place which is hopeless. But I didn't…
I was reminded of that mob where my heart belonged; A heart that was protesting on some street. Why have I become so cold? Why is it that someone died and it doesn't hurt? I knew the answer- I had seen the bloodshed and all the blood had been wasted. I had seen there were no results. I had heard of investigations and inquiries but no punishments. I had heard the innocent being punished and the guilty without punishments. I was not cold; I was hopeless and meek.
I knew it would all be vain, but I still thought of reading the e-paper. I found that silly too, because I had seen elders around me -speaking against the government and even the separatists. They had read the newspaper but they had failed in realising its purpose. The news should have ignited their very being, but they were cold; Like I was ….
Vitasta has traveled on inexplicable courses; souls have been left behind and long forgotten. Waters of Vitasta have never been at rest. Shattered are the rough tides of it and its courses unknown.
(The author is a class 12th Humanities student Green Valley Educational Institute)