{"id":4449,"date":"2025-05-03T19:20:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-03T13:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4449"},"modified":"2025-05-03T19:20:46","modified_gmt":"2025-05-03T13:50:46","slug":"short-story-tube-light","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/short-story-tube-light\/","title":{"rendered":"SHORT STORY TUBE LIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

By Zahid G Muhammad <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tubelight\u2019<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stood across the road, grey hair glinting in the sun, her silhouette sharp against Nehru Place\u2019s chaos- perhaps waiting for a bus. \u00a0\u00a0I intended to cross over to visit the computer. Messy traffic\u2014it blurs your vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe looks like a Kashmiri\u2014she is definitely a Kashmiri.\u201d Whether in the crowded and haphazard Nehru Place Market or among the teeming millions at Kaaba during Hajj, Kashmiris are distinctly recognizable. Many pilgrims from African countries and Arabia often mistake us for Palestinians, Turks, or Bosnians and usually ask, \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I told them I was Kashmiri, a few would nod knowingly\u2014making me believe they had heard of us. The majority, however, would give me a weary look of ignorance, making me feel small. Perhaps they thought we were some forgotten people living in some remote village in the Sahara Desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why was this old lady with rumpled grey hair looking at me with such askance in her eyes? She is perhaps the mother of my classmate, S\u2014 She is her carbon copy. But why should she look at me? She\u2019s never seen me before. Once, when I visited S\u2019s house, she wasn\u2019t there\u2014only her brother and sister were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s been decades since I last saw her, dressed in black robes on convocation day. I remember I had made her blush with a funny remark: \u201cIs this the belle with intoxicating, brimming eyes who launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Zandar Mohalla?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1990, when I had shifted to Delhi, many of my intimate classmates had already left home. In the long list of those who had moved to Delhi, I often looked for familiar names\u2014classmates and friends\u2014but S was never among them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The contours of the old lady\u2019s face suggest she might once have been as pretty as S and invited some attractive verses like the one I had showered on S: who is wise in love, love most, say least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the traffic slowed, she crossed the road and came straight toward me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said, \u201cHello! Wake up. Aren\u2019t you Roll Number One? We had nicknamed you \u2018Tube Light\u2019\u2014you always went silent, and it took time for you to chisel out a sentence before you spoke your mind and heart.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That nickname\u2014Tube Light<\/em>\u2014lived in some dark corner of my mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDidn\u2019t you recognize me? I\u2019m your classmate, S.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at her, I suddenly realized\u2014I had forgotten that I, too, had greyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(ZGM) <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Zahid G Muhammad <\/p>\n

Tubelight\u2019<\/p>\n

She stood across the road, grey hair glinting in the sun, her silhouette sharp against Nehru Place\u2019s chaos- perhaps waiting for a bus. \u00a0\u00a0I intended to cross over to visit the computer. Messy traffic\u2014it blurs your vision.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe looks like a Kashmiri\u2014she is definitely a Kashmiri.\u201d Whether in the crowded and haphazard Nehru Place Market or among the teeming millions at Kaaba during Hajj, Kashmiris are distinctly recognizable. Many pilgrims from African countries and Arabia often mistake us for Palestinians, Turks, or Bosnians and usually ask, \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n

When I told them I was Kashmiri, a few would nod knowingly\u2014making me believe they had heard of us. The majority, however, would give me a weary look of ignorance, making me feel small. Perhaps they thought we were some forgotten people living in some remote village in the Sahara Desert.<\/p>\n

Why was this old lady with rumpled grey …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kashmir-talk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449"}],"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=4449"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4450,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4449\/revisions\/4450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}