Send me a snow clad sheet of sky Bearing no scar How shall I paint? In white words The enriching contours Of your boundless mourns? When I begin to paint Hold the sky in your hands As the stretch of my canvas Is unknown to me...
At this age, it is depressing to think that young kids in Kashmir are dying. Yet, I think violence is not the answer. India is a democracy that allows everyone the right to express his or her views. But how does one express one’s anger and anguish?
I have always believed that views can be put across through dialogue and debate and not through violence. But what do you do when your voice has been taken away and you have been pushed to a corner with the bayonet poking at your neck?
Why would little children pick up stones instead of pencils, pens and brushes, India has to ask itself. When they ask for freedom, it brings back memories of why I left. Just for one reason... Freedom and fear. At my age I cannot take too many risks. At their age, they too can't. But they have been forced to.
I see this as just a passing phase. But it is no less serious. One has to remember, however, that India is a big family and when a child in the family makes a mistake one doesn't throw him or her out. You try to make him understand. Somehow this family has failed to do that. It happened to me and now over 60 years it is happening with Kashmir.
India has become the land of puzzling paradoxes. On the one hand is an artist's freedom of expression, a right that our society is founded upon and one that we appreciate on a deeply personal level. On the other is the cherished value that allows all Indians to live harmoniously in a multicultural society with sensitivity and respect towards the religious sensibilities of other cultures.
People say that I am living in exile just as they say that Kashmiris want to separate.
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