Letter to 13-year-old Shahnawaaz: A victim of Pakistan's malice

As you struggled to hold on to your young life this Monday night, I sat thousands of miles away in a theatre watching 'Bajirao Mastani'. The grand biopic, a tale of love, loss, epic military campaigns and duty towards land and people had me yearning for an equally opulent story on Maharaja Gulab Singh and some of his bravest men like General Zorawar Singh.

Resigned to the fact that my history has become offensive to some, thanks to politics and policy, aided equally by the silence of those who know better, on one hand, and those who are nothing but opportunistic scholars, on the other. Both lack honesty and courage.

We have been failed by both, Shahnawaaz. We have been asked not to take pride in our roots and told to dilute both our happiness and pain lest we make our "sibling" angry and invite a temper tantrum they famously threaten us with all the time. This is costing me my sense of honour in my identity and history and it just cost you, your young, precious life.

If any apology is due, it is to you. You should not have had to die at 13. I read that you were in class seven. I wonder what subjects you enjoyed or if you enjoyed school at all. Did your school have teachers who were regular and passionate about their work?

Or were they just killing their time till a transfer to a better school in a not-so-remote mountain village came through? I choose to imagine you had a teacher who filled you with the joy of learning, allowing you to travel far with every geography lesson and inspired you to become your favourite hero from history. I am sure, being from the mountains, a young boy like you worked hard around the house too, not only doing your school work but helping in the farms and maybe collecting firewood and water for your mother.

Did she reward you with your favourite food or a few rupees that you could spend at the small kiraane ki dukaan (grocer's shop)? Did you like your todda with makhan or had you heard of pizza and dreamt of having it one day? What games did you play in your terraced fields? Another 12-year-old boy from your village died the same fateful day on August 15 this year, even as the rest of the nation enjoyed their public holiday.

Were both of you together, playing, when the 60mm mortar shell hit you, right after the Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated us on our Independence Day and spoke of the necessity of talks between the two nations?

I am not sure if you followed politics but if you did, you must be laughing at all the meaningless gesturing. I tried hard to look for the name of the 12-year-old boy whom I choose to believe was your friend, but his name is lost to me and "victim" is how I see him addressed almost everywhere.

Did you love music? I wonder what kind of music you listened to. Our country has ardent music lovers who get very upset when a ghazal concert gets cancelled. I do too, because I love ghazals and especially singers from Sialkot, once a twin city of my hometown Jammu.

But I also lack the courage to go to an air-conditioned auditorium in the capital when these gestures aimed at stopping the shelling of your village don't work out. I sense your mother's eyes questioning me. She must have been barely surviving each day since that day in August when you got injured. A part of her must have died with you this Monday night and what remains of her probably cannot make sense of "Aman ki Aasha", at least not today.

I cannot even begin to understand her pain but I am angry too. A cancelled concert gets more attention than the death of a 13-year-old and before that, his 12-year-old friend amongst the five others from his village. There is no furore. You have not set Twitter ablaze. You and the constant war zone you were living in are exhausting and tiresome to keep up with and react to. I fail to understand this indifference.

The statistics and numbers are all out there. There were probably 36 ceasefire violations in 2015 alone, before Darati, your village in Balakote sector, Jammu got shelled on August 15 this year. The exodus in 1989 came and went and remains unresolved. It's been 26 years of the exodus and strife but the war zone you were living in, is 68-years-old. Shame on those who speak of those 26 years and not of you. Those who talk of Jammu and Kashmir and speak only of Kashmir are also responsible for your death.

They wear blinders which does disservice to villages like Darati but it is self-destructive for them too. If the so-called experts cannot correct the semantics and call it the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir instead of the state of Kashmir we will fail Balakote, Hamirpur, Kishanpur, Jugnu Chak, Nawapind, Gharna, Sia, Abdullian and Chandu Chak and many more, all in Jammu province. Shahnawaaz, I promise you, I will ask about your village at every given opportunity.

I have even been told publicly by the senior-most leader of a regional party which has been in power for a very long time, that Jammu is not discussed or part of the semantics because "who wants Jammu". If no one wanted Jammu why are we losing young boys like you, your nameless friend, nine-year-old Moin Khan, and 17-year-old Mohammad Sheeraz since 1947? Why were the 130 villages and 60 border outposts targeted last year, all in Jammu province?

Seven thousand people were evacuated from border villages, all in Jammu province - Hindus, Muslims alike - in January this year. One estimate said 32,000 villagers had been displaced. For some, numbers matter Shahnawaaz, for your family of course, you alone are enough to leave them with a lifelong void. For you and the others too, we will keep asking the questions no one likes to answer honestly.

Only when I learnt of your death today I realised with a shock that you have been in the hospital since August 15. I have been to the area you came from and know how it is a stark contrast from the depressing government hospital environment you spent four months languishing in. I wonder how your family coped with the emotional, physical and financial stress. Were they travelling to and fro covering a distance of more than 250km?

Was someone with you all the time and how did they manage that? Did anyone come asking for you after the initial press coverage and the politically correct indignation and condemnation by politicians? Your friends back in the village must have missed you. Did you have siblings who missed you annoying them, a sister whose pigtails you pulled at, a brother you played with? I hope all those people who truly loved you, could afford to make the long journey to see you.

I could have written about you Shahnawaaz but I chose to write to you because I saw your name only in the last paragraph of the few newspapers reporting your death. I wanted to start with your name, you beautiful 13-year-old boy, and end with it.

I wanted your father Iftihar Ahmed Khan and especially your mother, whose name I did not see anywhere, to know that you are not what the headlines say about you - a " victim of Pakistani shelling". You are Shahnawaaz Khan from the beautiful mountain village of Darati, with ruddy cheeks, sturdy of stock and a spirit which a 60mm mortar cannot break. I will always remember you by name and always ask the hard questions for you.

On the night of December 22 you broke free from all the political cowardice, dishonesty, and narrow-mindedness around you. I imagine your spirit soaring free and light above the mountains we both love. May you be at peace, Shahnawaaz, my dear child.

Your fellow JK-ian.