Young Writers Society

The clouds look like masses of white cotton in the dim March sun, but give way like smoke as the airplane’s wings cut swiftly through them. Through my window seat, I have a nice view of the mountains below. I can see parts of the Pir Panjal range, its peaks still covered in snow from the winter. The mountains look like old sentries, standing upright in attention, as if guarding the Kashmir Valley.

There’s something about window seats. They always put me in a state of contemplation, until I start thinking about myself, where I am at the moment, and where I’m headed.

I reach for my small digital camera – an old model from my high-school days that, for its sentimental value, I haven’t had the heart to replace. I take a few pictures of the mountains through the window and am interrupted by a few quick taps on my shoulder. I look up.

It’s an air-hostess.

“Sir, please switch off your camera, photography isn’t allowed here.” she says as she smiles at me, her teeth sparkling white

“Is that so?” I ask, puzzled for an instant, but then it dawns on me, and I instantly realize what the answer to my question is.

“Srinagar International Airport is a military airport - ek sainik hawaii-adda. That’s why.”

“Oh, okay.”

She’s cute, so the camera goes back into my pocket.

I shift in my seat to a more comfortable position, which makes my neck creak, and reminds me of how tired I’ve been, ever since I left Dubai yesterday. I didn’t get time to rest at the hotel room in New Delhi where I checked in for the night- a night spent staring at my laptop screen, as I read more of those news articles, reports, and watching videos of the destruction caused by the recent floods in Kashmir. I remember Ma's words over the shaky phone signal - Remember, the old house? Your grandfather's house? It might collapse.

I am tired but I don’t want to fall asleep.

It is quiet inside the plane, except for the occasional voices of children, shrill against the silence. I pull out a magazine tucked behind the seat in front of me to read, its paper smells nice.

“She can’t sue you, you see, photography is banned at the airport. Not when the plane is this high.” says the kid seated beside me suddenly.

I turn towards him- this little legal expert, he looks nine or ten years old - probably around the same age as my nephew in Srinagar, who I haven’t seen for the past three years – except in photos, the ones that my brother had emailed me a few months back.

“Hmm, yeah, you’re right I guess.” I can’t think of anything else to say.

“I’m Gaurav Jr. and this is my dad, Gaurav Sr.” he says, again in his lawyerly voice, as he points to his dad – the mustached man. Gaurav Sr. seems absorbed in a book in his hands but looks at us at the mention of his name and nods at me.

“This is not our first holiday trip to Kashmir though.” says Gaurav Jr., continuing his ramble, swinging his feet and fiddling with his seatbelt.

“Where are you from, Gaurav?” I ask, just to keep the conversation going, and keep myself from falling asleep.

“Kolkata. My school is boring though, I’m on a two-week leave right now.”

“Hm, that sounds good.”

Gaurav Jr. lets out chuckle.

“And where are you from?” he asks.

“Srinagar. But I haven’t been here for the last three years. I live and work in Dubai now.”

After about fifteen minutes, the plane starts speeding down and lowering slowly. From the window, I see the expanse of empty land around the Srinagar International Airport and the small houses in the distance. Army vehicles in and around the runways look like small matchboxes, but as the plane lowers they start getting bigger. Looking at the military-green trucks, choppers, barbed wire and tired looking soldiers in the distance, I am - for some strange reason - reminded of my childhood and coming-of-age years in Srinagar. The wheels hit the tarmac runway.

When I step out of the plane, the cold air bites my face- Srinagar’s welcome kiss.

The walkway, even though concrete, feels wet. It appears soaked. As I walk towards the airport building I can’t help but notice the silence in the air. I am reminded of the primary reason for my homecoming – the devastating floods that shook the Valley only six months ago. We’ve seen worse but we’ve never given up, a flood is nothing. It might take some time, but we will heal, Insha’Allah, we will, Pa had written to me in one of our email conversations a few weeks ago, in that overly sentimental we-the-Kashmiris tone that he often adopts.

Whenever I’ve been at this airport, it has usually been packed with tourists, but that doesn’t seem to be the case this year. Having collected my luggage at the carousel, I wish my window seat friends – Gaurav Jr. and Gaurav Sr. a happy trip and head towards the gate. I guess they are among the very few tourists who will visit to Valley this year; I heard in the news that the flood has taken away with it, even if temporarily, the sparkle of Kashmir’s capital city Srinagar, and also stolen away some of the charm of its towns and villages. The roads are bumpier than ever, weeds float on the lakes, no one trusts the river Jehlum right now and even though the spring air now is still refreshing and cool, it doesn’t bring any happiness with it, not yet - the people, they’re still busy picking up the bricks of fallen walls, putting them back together, cleaning their houses that the floodwater entered for up to two floors, getting their cars repaired, giving each other hope, helping each other out. There have also been a lot of robberies, snatching and stealing too.

Calamities bring out the best and the worst in us, I guess.

I quickly light a cigarette as I emerge from the main gate and wait for my brother, Niaz, who is supposed to pick me up. I rub my hands to keep them warm, dragging along my luggage trolley all the same. After about fifteen minutes of waiting by the gate, I look around at the cars parked outside the airport. That is when I see him.

He walks in quick strides towards me.

“Didn’t they frisk you on your way out? You look like a terrorist.”

This is how he greets me, my twin brother, my oldest friend, Niaz, whose name still brings to my mind the picture of a lanky school-boy with dark, unkempt hair and an infectious, pink-lipped smile. He looks older now, though. I can see some gray hair.

“Baya.” he hugs me. We stay locked in this embrace in the middle of the aiport road until a soldier’s whistle makes us realize that we’ve caused a little traffic jam near the gate.

“Paksa, come on, let’s get in the car now,” he says, picking up some of my bags from the trolley.

Are his eyes moist because of the cold?