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Here in this dilapidated stadium young boys in white shirts and trousers absorbed in the game of willow strike a familiar secular scene, quite different from the much feared picture of youth brandishing grenades and guns that one hears about Kashmir . But was cricket ever just a sporting game in our religiously charged atmosphere? Were we not always at the receiving end of the ire of partisan mobs during India - Pakistan matches here? We were stoned and sworn at if India won a match; we were taunted and teased if she lost; we were forced to join their celebrations in India ’s defeat and in their mourning in her victory! We had lost the right to express our opinions and emoticons. Was it not in this stadium, somewhere in the nineteen eighties when, to the utter amazement of the Caribbeans, the crowds cheered every run they scored and hooted the hapless Indian fielders, and jeered at the fall of Indian wickets in the first and only cricket international ever played in Srinagar ? That day, the hate-filled crowds wrote the epitaph for the game of cricket for the young boys fancied the Kalashnikov over the famously indigenous willow. Are we witnessing a change of heart now? Are the boys fed up with the gun and wanting to return to some fun? Why shouldn’t cricket cement ties rather then sunder them apart, and, like music, dance and literature, cut across all boundaries and barriers of language, religion and region? (From "Homeland after Eighteen Years - a 48- hour Travelogue" by K LChowdhury), Read another poem on Cricket in the May issue of shehjar at: http://www.shehjar.com/list/113/1250/1.html | |
*Dr. K L Chowdhury Dr. K L Chowdhury retired as a Professor of Medicine, Medical College, Srinagar. Presently he is the Director of a charitable institution, Shriya Bhatt Mission Hospital and Research Center, Durga Nagar, Jammu. He is a physician and neurologist, a medical researcher, poet, social activist. He writes on diverse subjects medical, literary, social and political and has numerous research papers to his credit, his pioneering work being “The Health Trauma in a Displaced Population” which was presented at national and international conferences. He has published three anthologies namely: 1- “Of Gods, Men and Militants”. Minerva Press (Pvt.) India -2000 2- “A Thousand-Petalled Garland and other Poems”. Writers Workshop Kolkata 2003 3- “Enchanting world of Infants” Peacock Books, Atlantic Publishers and Distributors-2007 He was declared Shehjar's ' Kashmiri Person of the year ' for 2007. | |
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