{"id":2257,"date":"2015-02-02T16:12:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-02T10:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2015-02-02T16:20:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-02T10:50:23","slug":"not-born-with-blue-blood-but-red-blood-in-veins-story-of-my-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/not-born-with-blue-blood-but-red-blood-in-veins-story-of-my-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Not born with Blue blood but Red Blood in Veins- Story of My Birth"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

Story of My Birth<\/p>\n

I was not born in some granite-floored nursing home. No Anglo-Indian nurse rocked my cradle in the British missionary hospital near the foothill of Koh-I-Maran. I did not tumble into this world in the maternity ward of the State Hospital- the hospital that has been witness to the macabre of 1856, when needle workers and shawl weavers were chased by the cavalry of the Dogra rulers for protesting against brutal and bigoted tax system and drowned to death in the nearby rivulet. I did not open my eyes in the dingy maternity wards of Srinagar\u2019s only women\u2019s hospital named after great fourteenth century mystic poet Lal Ded- one, who took us on great spiritual odyssey at a time when the West was yet to grow as a society. She talked of dignity and equality, and declared war against the idea of \u2018Varana\u2019 when rest of South Asia was sadly sinking in the morass of caste system- and humanity was being battered under hooves of bigotry. No gynecologist, in white apparel touched my pinkish-white body. Jana Waran that famous midwife of the town brought me into this world. No one ever told me, if I had cried on the first light teasing my half-shut small shirt-button sized bluish-brown eyes. Nevertheless, grandmother told me that I was born with \u2018Gluxo baby\u2019 smile on my rubicund face. Then, there were no gynecologists in our part of the city- midwives performed the job with efficacy. Children knew the houses of the midwives. In hours of emergency, children rushed to their houses. Jokes that midwives often made are as fresh as dewdrops on spring flowers in my memory: \u201cYou are yet to pay full fee for bringing you into this world.\u201d Many phrases associated with \u201chalf-payment of midwives\u201d have found their way in our lingua franca. Names of some famous midwives Jana Waran, Khaji Waran, Aasha Waran, and Moguli are etched so deep in my memory that on remembering them their images roll before my like scenes inside a bioscope. The midwives in their own right used to be great celebrities- modern day big names in gynecology can hardly dream about. They did not belong to the elite families but for their proficiency and experience had a distinct place in the society. It was not about midwife that brought me into this world that my mother talked about to me- but there were lots of stories associated with my birth that she often narrated. I was born at most critical; period of our history- just less than one year after the planeloads of soldiers in olive-green airlifted from New Delhi in wee hours landed on the only airstrip of Srinagar. My mother many times told me that I heard the booming of guns and roar of bombers inside the womb. She out of share naivety, like many others curiously climbed on the garden-roof of our house to see bombers pounding bombs in Shaltang and beyond. Many villages had been raised to the ground. The clouds of dust raised from these villages had blanketed the city for many days. Our land had lost its independence. No one could tell me, if I smiled or sobbed on entering from one world of confinement to another world of internment. All that I learnt later on was that babies born in my year of birth were seen as ill fated. I think I with many of my friends grew up with this feeling and learnt history of politics that made me ominous. It is an irony that the children born in Kashmir on the birth of India and Pakistan as independent countries were considered as inauspicious. My land had been shut to rest of the world- the only road connecting us to the world; the Jhelum Valley road had been closed. Treasure of Kashmir- pearls and diamonds were carried by the last feudal ruler of Kashmir, his wife and the royal Gour ( Hindu priest) in tow along with had left Srinagar with his caravan down the Banihal cart road. My mother often narrated stories about shortage of salt at the time of my birth. The rock salt imported into Kashmir from Pakistan on the backs of donkeys or in trucks no more arrived in the market. My mother also talked about shortage of tea leaves and talked about people preparing tea from some local herb perhaps known as Machran. . Many times, when I look back, I start believing history was breast-fed to me and children born with me- yes it was hard way.<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story of My Birth
\nI was not born in some granite-floored nursing home. No Anglo-Indian nurse rocked my cradle in the British missionary hospital near the foothill of Koh-I-Maran. I did not tumble into this world in the maternity ward of the State Hospital- the hospital that has been witness to the macabre of 1856, when needle workers and shawl weavers were chased by the cavalry of the Dogra rulers for protesting against brutal and bigoted tax system and drowned to death in the nearby rivulet. I did not open my eyes in the dingy maternity wards of Srinagar\u2019s only women\u2019s hospital named after great fourteenth century mystic poet Lal Ded- one, who took us on great spiritual odyssey at a time when the West was yet to grow as a society. She talked of dignity and equality, and declared war against the idea of \u2018Varana\u2019 when rest of South Asia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2258,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions\/2258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}