Kabir

Just before my brother was taken away, I had started to discover girls. Well, this one girl. She was a neighbour, and two years older than me. But she had this way of giggling that sounded so friendly and so happy. I would watch her going off to school with her sister. I would make sure to be busy outside when she came back. I just watched, and when she looked at me, I would look the other way. It made her giggle. And listening to her laughter made me happy.

Then, our world changed. She stopped me once, after my brother had been taken by the army. She started to say how sorry she was, but I just walked away and left her standing there.

After I joined my brother, I had barely seen a girl. I mean, I had passed them on streets when we were in the city. But we were mostly hiding in one place or the other. And even those who hid us and sympathized with us hid their daughters before they let us into their homes.

I hadn’t spoken to a girl in years. I’d learnt many things. Firing a gun. Putting together crude petrol bombs. Strategies for killing. Strategies for staying alive. But girls? I’d learnt absolutely nothing about them. I didn’t even know what I’d say if I got a chance to talk to one. The only thing I could talk about was aazadi.

Aman didn’t find it funny when I said that. He looked sad. ‘You’re eighteen. This is not the life you should be living. At this age you shouldn’t be knowing how to patch an exit wound. Or how to kill a man. You should be worrying about girls. And pimples. Crap like that.’

‘I do worry about girls,’ I said. ‘I worry that I know nothing about them. And that I’m never going to.’

‘A relationship between a girl and a boy is the most beautiful thing. You have a right to discover it. With this life you never will, Afzal.’

‘I will find myself a girlfriend!’

‘Where? Running from safe house to safe house? When you go to town to throw bombs? This is not the life you should be living.’

‘I have chosen it,’ I said. ‘I’m a patriot. A freedom fighter.’

‘Whose freedom are you fighting for by giving away your own?’

‘This is my choice!’ I said.

‘Is it really?’ he asked softly.

‘Yes. I choose to fight for aazadi. With aazadi, a new life will begin for my people. We will no longer be under the tyranny of those who despise us. Who kill us!’

‘Are these your words? Are these truly your words?’

‘Yes. I have seen the injustice myself. I have seen my brother suffer. All Kashmiris are my brothers. I want justice. I want freedom. I will die for it!’ My voice faltered and stopped. I realized these were my brother’s words. His beliefs, not mine. What did I really want?

And the answer slid into my mind. A cup of coffee. Just a simple cup of coffee. Because to be sitting in a cafe drinking a cup of coffee was a freedom that I had never known. A personal freedom. And it beckoned me more strongly than the freedom my brother talked of. One simple cup of coffee. And maybe someone across the table smiling at me as I sipped it.

Even as I thought it, I knew it could never be. I was paying a debt to my brother by handing my life to him. But it would never balance things out. The debt was too big and made up of too much pain. I could never leave.