[Reader-list] Back home, I feel reborn

Sun Sep 28 19:12:36 IST 2008

Dear Aarti

There are many of your attitudes and "reactions" that I find sad.

If you could be more specific about what you find "sad" in what I have written I could then ignore the hypocrisy in your attitudes between your reaction to what I have written and your own recent posts on another incident. Request for specificity and not vagueness.

You would 

--- On Sun, 9/28/08, Aarti Sethi <aarti.sethi at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Aarti Sethi <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Back home, I feel reborn
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Cc: "Sarai Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "Sanjay Kak" <kaksanjay at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, September 28, 2008, 6:49 PM

I think its really sad to react to a story like this in the manner that the two of you are. Have either of your ever been arrested by the police for anything? I presume not. I honestly cannot think of anything more frightening than to be under the power of the state when they might invoke anything against you including the NSA. I don't think there is any cause to celebrate police harassment or be skeptical of it. Have you not been reading the papers over the last 5 years Aditya? You consider yourself such a well-informed and intelligent person. Here are just  four reports of Kashmiri muslim boys shot in "encounters". Spend a little more time online and many more will surface.

How come at such a young age all humanity has been leached from you Aditya? I find it quite astonishing and deeply saddening that you measure all human beings and experience and human worth in the prism of whether it extends your agenda or not. This apparently makes it completely impossible for you acknowledge that there might be some truth and value to the expereince of other human beings qua human beings.

regards
Aarti

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 6:22 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com> wrote:

Malik Sajad certainly is a good cartoonist. Very good art-work. Content sometimes very hackneyed.

I am not discounting that some sort of an unfortunate incident took place that involved Malik Sajad being harassed by a policewoman or being treated with suspicion at the cyber cafe. I would not expect him to be a blatant liar. It is sad, whatever be the degree, that any such incident has to take place.

A few interesting/intriguing things though in his dramatic narrative.

- Habitat Centre could not provide him Internet access. Possible.

- A cyber-cafe would, in advance of Internet access ask for identification from a complete stranger and not wait till the "owner of the cafe"  had "peered over his shoulders" and checked what he was doing. I could be wrong about this.

- The surprisingly efficiently prompt Delhi Police arrived "within five minutes" of being summoned to the cyber-cafe from a PCO. Interesting.

- Malik had his mobile phone with him. Looks like, inspite of the "within five minutes" arrival of Delhi Police, he had enough time to make a few calls including one to the "Director of the Film Festival". Why didnt he? That would have avoided his having to shout "Somebody please go to the habitat centre and tell them the artist whose installation is there has been arrested!" while he was being "dragged" to the Police Station.

- The Manager of Habitat Centre asked Malik not to call from his (Malik's) phone (or Email) for a few days. Why no Email? Why couldn't Malik use some other phone to call home or the GK office?

Kshmendra

--- On Sun, 9/28/08, Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Sanjay Kak <kaksanjay at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] Back home, I feel reborn
To: "Sarai Reader List" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Sunday, September 28, 2008, 4:55 PM

Just a slice of life story for a young Kashmiri...

Malik Sajad is the young–very young–editorial cartoonist of the Srinagar
paper, the Greater Kashmir. His excellent work can be seen on their website
too.
**

Sanjay Kak
**
**

*The GK Cartoonist Malik Sajad Narrates The Experience Of Being A Kashmiri
At A Wrong Time In New Delhi.*

http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=28_9_2008&ItemID=61&cat=1

I arrived home from Delhi yesterday.  I took a deep breath when I laid eyes
on the landscapes of the valley.  My mother was waiting for me at home. Her
face was pale and her eyes were full of tears. My father held me for a long
time as if I were away for years. My brothers gathered around me as if my
return was unexpected. My mother asked me in a weak voice, "Were you okay
in
Delhi?" "Yes," I nodded, "My exhibition had a huge
response. Everyone
praised my cartoons and I enjoyed the trip."
They looked worried and I sought the reason for their worry." They
replied,
"Sajad, some policemen in civilian clothes came here to verify some
information about you while you were in Delhi. You didn't call us for four
days. We thought something bad has happened to you. We were all crying." I
was surprised. My family already knew what I had tried to keep secret for
the sake of my mother's health. At home I felt safe again, and I narrate to
them the ordeal I went through in New Delhi for being a Kashmiri.
I was invited by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust to create an
installation art in the OPEN FRAMES, EXPLORING CONFLICT, an international
film festival about peace and conflict held at the India Habitat Centre. The
festival began on the 12 September and lasted eight days. My installation
titled "Terrorism of Peace" featured my cartoons hanging from rolls
of razor
wire with some alcohol bottles hanging on the wire, exactly the same way as
found around bunkers of troopers on the streets of Srinagar. I put some mud
and stones on the shiny green marble floor of the Stein Auditorium to give
the installation the real feel of Kashmir.
On Saturday afternoon, the second day of the festival, I drew a cartoon in
my hotel room for my Sunday Slice column. I took a picture of it with my
digital camera and headed to a cybercafé about 150 meters from the habitat
centre to mail it to Greater Kashmir. After I mailed the cartoon I visited
the Greater Kashmir website and my cartoon website. Meanwhile, I heard
another browser seated on a nearby computer chatting over the phone about
the serial blasts at Connaught Place and Greater Kailash I. Soon everyone in
the café joined in on a discussion about terrorism and the blasts. While I
was watching news videos on Greater Kashmir's website, the owner of the
café
peered over my shoulders to glimpse what I was looking at. Soon the owner
and others started to talk about me in hushed voices. "He is Kashmiri! We
should check his identity!" they whispered. The owner approached me and
asked me for my passport in a soft voice.  I gave him my identity card and
told him that I don't have my passport with me. He took it and xeroxed it.
He studied my identity card for a long time. He asked me where I was staying
in Delhi and I gave him the address of the Habitat Centre. He asked me which
websites I had visited. I listed them for him. I could hear the customers
saying "He is looking at websites from Kashmir!" Then someone said
loudly
"Why should we take responsibility for this boy. He could be anything!
Just
call the police and let them verify who he is!" I started to panic.
"I am
Kashmiri," I thought "No one will listen to me."
There was a PCO in the café. They called the police and told them that there
is a Kashmiri in the café and that they should verify my identity. I asked
the café owner to call the habitat centre to check my identity as well. They
refused. I pleaded with them to just call the centre, but they wouldn't.
Two
fat police constables and a woman inspector wearing two stars arrived within
five minutes, wearing a we-have-got-the-culprit look. Her face frightened
me. Her hair was jet black and short like a boy's hair cut. Her eyes were
stiff like black moles on her face. She held a very fine stick in her hand.
She entered the café shouting "Who is the guy? Who is the guy?"
Before
anyone pointed at me I raised my hand with my I card, shouting back,
"Madam
it is me, it is me! Here is my I card!"
She didn't look at the card, but slid it into her pocket, and ordered a
constable to search into my bag. They studied my camera as if it were a
bomb. They told me to pack everything in the backpack.  I quickly managed to
eject the memory card out of my camera and slip it in my pocket, since my
photographs were the only proof of my installation at the habitat centre.
Before they confiscate my mobile I memorized the number of the director of
the film festival. The inspector shouted at me "Salay bahar chalo!" I
shook
with fear. I didn't know what to do. No one would listen to me. The
constables literally dragged me out of the cafe. Someone shouted "We
should
place him in the bus." I was shocked and cried, "Please listen to me!
Please
listen to me!" Almost two hundred people gathered on the road to see the
"terrorist"--Me! The crowd was so big that it created a traffic jam.
I
shouted in the air "Somebody please go to the habitat centre and tell them
the artist whose installation is there has been arrested!"
As they were dragging me to the police station, the inspector shouted at me
"You Kashmiri bastard! Why do you people have problem with being part of
India? Sala…!" At the police station, they seated me on a bench with
another
person they had arrested. He had dried brown blood all over his face. His
eyes were sharp and red. It was obvious he was drunk. I pleaded, "Please
listen to me. I am a cartoonist in Kashmir! I am not a terrorist! I am
innocent!" They ignored me and listened to their wireless radios. They
continued to hurl abuses at me. Another woman inspector wearing civilian
clothes with a wireless radio in her hand shouted at me "You bastard, you
speak such nice Hindi! Why do you have a problem with being part of
India!"
I replied, trying to be as transparent as possible, "Madam, I am speaking
Urdu actually, which sounds like Hindi."
The inspector woman who dragged me to police station began to record the
evidence:
1: He was looking at the website with diagrams of guns on it.  (This was her
definition for my cartoon website kashmirblackandwhite.com!)
2: He was searching for information about the Kashmir conflict. (I was
reading some articles to prepare for my talk about the "Dialoguing peace
in
Kashmir" at the Stein Auditorium on 17 September.)
3: He had a camera with a memory card in it. (Obviously my camera is a Canon
digital SLR and it can't be without a memory card.)
I was crying. I couldn't feel my fingers and feet. I felt like I had been
electrocuted. The incandescent lights in the police station were shining
brightly, but it seemed to me very dark.
I had no hope now. I thought of running away from the police station. "The
habitat centre is only 50 meters away," I thought. "Even if they
shoot me I
would be injured, but I can prove my innocence."
But I didn't want to give them any chance.  I thought my life was over.
"If
there is no hope of life, I need to accept the reality," I said to myself.
But somehow this thought actually gave me strength. "I am not going to be
scared of them any more," I thought "They are not going to listen to
me any
way." I stood up and said to them sternly, "Come kill me! Shoot me!
Do
whatever you want, but keep in mind that I am a guest here and my work is
being displayed in the Stein Auditorium! Hang me or label me a terrorist! I
am going to sit here silently now!"  Then they finally called the
Coordinator for PSBT. The number was busy. I asked her "Madam, can't
you
come with me to the Habitat Centre to check whether I am speaking truth or
not? It is only 50 meters away." Finally, after fifteen minutes, she
relented and agreed to take me to the Habitat Centre. They held me by the
collar as we walked to the centre. Once we entered the gate no 3 of habitat
center, she continued to curse Kashmiris. At this point however, I was in
the habitat centre, so I shot back, "Mind your language!" My voice
was firm
and she became quiet. When she saw my work in the auditorium, she started
shouting "You Kashmiris have a problem!" I wasn't in their grasp
anymore, so
I picked up a stone lying in the mud of my installation and started to smash
my installation. The sound of the glass frames breaking echoed throughout
the auditorium. Those watching a film inside the auditorium came outside to
see what had happened.  The policewoman ran away.
I called GK to inform them what had happened, but the Habitat Centre manger
instructed me to not leave the premises and not to call from my phone, or
email, for a few days. After three days I called home and the GK office. The
PBST issued a letter to the security agencies that I am their guest and they
are responsible for my accommodation and tickets. I thank God that I was a
guest of the habitat centre and not alone as a cartoonist for GK. Otherwise,
the story of another missing Kashmiri would have been all over the news
here. I watched the news channel that night to see if they would flash my
name….
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