आर्यभूमि

Born with a natural smile, a God's gift, Pathak Chacha was one of the beautiful human being, I came across. The cleft lip, a disorder since his birth, always attracted people, definitely for wrong reasons. I must confess, I too noticed it first and found it weird, but I was a kid then. But that weirdness went away as we came to know him more. Pathak Chacha, often visited our place during morning tea, to the discomfort of the people living around us, the neighbors, who considered him a bad omen, if sighted during morning. Weird, as he was also the creation of the same God, they believed in. Anyway, we enjoyed his light hearted interactions of 15 or 20 minutes of short stays during his morning walk break at our place. For others, he may was a bad start of the day, for us, his visit used to bring morning joy. Pathak Chacha, was a colleague of my father. Born in a family with humble financial background, he achieved a lot he could. He joined the Education Department Engin...

Kashmir, the name referred to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, is heaven on the earth. It indeed is. One of my dream destinations, these days it is in news due to political reasons. Last few decades it has been in news for terrorism, exodus, army camps, wars, tough life and all negatives. Once a destination for film makers is now destination for news makers. This story is about my Interaction with two Kashmiris. Mukhtar and Reyaz, who used to come every season, used to bring Kashmiri shawls and used to stay entire winter. It was late 1990s. I had approvals from my father to play cricket in local clubs. I was playing in a club which largely stayed in a ghetto. And the Kashmiris coming to my town find it more comfortable to stay there. In one of those seasons, two Kashmiris joined our team. They used to come to practice after end of their business hours. They added spark to our team, we acknowledge by sacrificing our places in playing eleven whenever they accompan...