Before The Voices Faded

Jawahar Nagar stood like a carefully tended memory, its homes surrounded by gardens that felt as alive as the people who lived within them. My maternal grandmother’s two-storey house faced a park that pulsed with movement from morning until evening. Each of her three sons had a portion of the house, which opened into a garden shaped by loving hands. Roses leaned into pathways, marigolds burned bright against the soil, lilies rose among the vegetables, and walnut and fig trees stretched upward as if guarding the home itself.

Family gatherings usually meant laughter, shared meals, and endless games with cousins. But that time, the air felt different, heavy in a way a child could sense but not fully understand. Just a day after Shivratri, my middle aunt had passed away suddenly from a brain haemorrhage, leaving behind her husband and four children.

Tradition had brought us together for a meal, and the day unfolded in a strange rhythm. We children moved between play and observation, laughter and hesitation, as though balancing on a thin line between innocence and awareness.

At night, I usually slept beside my grandmother and my mother, but that evening my aunt’s daughters asked me to sleep with them. Their insistence left no room for hesitation, and I followed them to their ground-floor room. Bedding was spread across the floor, and I lay between them while two cousins slept on the bed. The rest of the family settled into other rooms, and the house gradually dimmed as lights were turned off one by one.

A small television flickered at the lowest volume. Watching television during mourning was not considered appropriate, yet that night it felt less like entertainment and more like a fragile shield against silence. Kashmir Ki Kali played softly, Shammi Kapoor’s energy and Sharmila Tagore’s grace unfolding across the screen, their world untouched by the heaviness surrounding ours.

After some time, voices rose from outside. At first they felt distant, almost like something we had learned to hear without fully acknowledging. Slowly they grew louder, filling the night with slogans that pulled our attention away from the film. We tried to continue watching, but the sounds pressed closer, carrying a tension that unsettled even those who did not fully understand its meaning.

The calls urged men, women, elders, and children to come out with whatever weapons they possessed and join the struggle to free Kashmir from those they called infidels. Understanding came only in fragments, but fear settled into us without needing explanation.

My father entered the room and calmly instructed us not to step outside. His steadiness felt like something solid to hold on to, and we sat close together, trusting his reassurance more than the sounds beyond the walls. Elsewhere in the house, the men secured the boundary by placing wires along the perimeter. We were told that anyone attempting to enter would receive an electric shock. To our young minds, it felt like protection, a line drawn between danger and safety.

Gradually, the voices receded, melting into the distance until only the heavy hush of the night remained. At some point, without knowing when, we drifted into sleep, wrapped in the quiet certainty of our little corner, convinced that the wires and careful precautions would keep the world’s dangers from reaching us.

Years later, I realise that what protected us that night was not strength or certainty, only chance. Within our home, we remained untouched, while beyond it the same darkness moved with a different purpose. That night did not pass gently for everyone. It bled into the valley like a dark tide, staining snow and memory alike. Doors splintered, footsteps ran through narrow lanes, and whispered prayers dissolved into gunfire. Homes that had held laughter only hours before were turned into scenes of massacre, and the cold air carried both smoke and silence. We survived, but survival felt heavy, because that night did not simply pass; it carved the valley with blood and fear, leaving wounds and shadows that would haunt lives long after the voices themselves had faded.