[Reader-list] Back home, I feel reborn

[Aarti Sethi]

Dear Kshamendra,

Are you referring to my posts regarding the Delhi encounter in which I have
been skeptical of the police version of events? Please do elaborate on where
my hypocrisy lies. I'm sorry, I seem to have included you in a mail meant
primarily for Aditya. I do acknowledge that you began by saying that
harassment of this nature is something you disapprove of. You have a full
right to ask questions of him. I was reacting simply to the tenor of a mail
that takes as its initial premise that any such description must obviously
be suspect. However my response was primarily meant for Aditya, and I
aplogise for including you in a blanket fashion.

Of course I am always willing to discuss my position regarding the Delhi
encounter and the ethical terms on which I work out my position.

regards
Aarti



On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 7:12 PM, Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>wrote:

> 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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