CAN YOU DEFINE MY "GAON"

[My first article written for my school magazine when I was 13]


"All of us wait eagerly for our vacations just because of two major reasons.Firstly we get a little relief from studies, secondly we get time to visit our village.

I came to Chandigarh ten years before and joined my school when vacations were very near.My friends inquired from me where my Gaon was.I was speechless just because I never knew what the word Gaon meant?But as they told me the definition of Gaon meant where all your relatives live and where you go to spend your holidays.That very night i asked my parents and they told me, we don't have a Gaon,we hail from a city.On asking,they told me it is in Kashmir known as Srinagar,"Shall we go there?"was my instant reaction.They said nothing as they thought I would forget after some days but I didn't.

Whenever my father used to listen to any news about Kashmir, I used to be dragged happily, towards the news as my Gaon's name came on TV.

But as the days passed, months and years went by, I grew up and understood the real ground situation of my Gaon. I felt sad and helpless. My Gaon had become a place of massacres,firings and bomb explosions killing thousands of innocent people including old,young and small babies whose actual crime is still unknown to me..

Many left their homes and hearths for good,and never looked back.I am one of the children of those uprooted people who have become displaced in their own country. Like me their children don't know their roots and the motherland of their parents/grandparents. So the Gaon for me is just my imagination.

Today, I'm mature enough to define many things but I still don't know the definition of my Gaon.

Can you define my "Gaon"?

"Ahh Kasheer"

Well my appearance has always revealed my roots, and for those who have not seen me, I am a Kashmiri Pandit girl. Since my childhood Kashmir has always fascinated me in some way or the other. So here is something which is closest to my heart, my homeland "KASHMIR".