To the Ummah at Eid al Adha

Eid Mubarak everybody! As you bless others may Allah bless you. Inshallah.

Message from God VI

Talking is an experiment that failed.
It was invented to enhance
communication but has obscured it
beyond all imagining.

Words start all wars,
stop endeavour,
and are the devil’s
entry into your soul.

Listen carefully,
as they can be a silky deceit
in a sheep’s clothing.

Trekking and Checkpoints

There is something very unnerving about waiting at a checkpoint bristling with soldiers.

We were piled into a four-wheel drive on our way up to Sonnamarg. Sonnamarg is a resort town in Kashmir. When I say it is a resort town, I mean it is an Indian-style one. It has a main street with a number of shops, some hotels, a taxi-stand, a pony-stand, and a couple of barracks for the Indian Army. If you thought the wild west was a thing of the past, think again. It’s just moved to Kashmir.

Getting to Sonnamarg takes four hours of windy roads through mountain passes, often behind, or sandwiched between convoys of trucks full of troops with their loaded assault rifles pointed casually at our windscreen. Every so often we pass through roadblocks. They are often attached to military barracks and we are stopped and checked for security reasons.

Hostile eyes under berets peer into the vehicle. They see a group of belligerent Kashmiris and a Western tourist. They wave us on. One soldier even says that they are here for our protection. I wonder who is meant to protect us from them.

Wadud, the poncho-clad older brother of Haaziz is clearly the boss. “Don’t speak to the soldiers. They will come to your camp. Ignore them. Go inside the tent if you see them.”

“They are fuckers!” Haaziz chimes in.

Kareem the chef senses my disquiet. “They just come around in groups and talk shit. Once they come it takes forever to get rid of them. Then you have to give them tea. I’m not making tea for twenty soldiers.”

“Will they search our tents?” I ask.

“Oh no”, says Wadud. “They will just come around because they are curious. . .”

“Of me?”

“. . .yes. They will stare and say things. . .” says Wadud with obvious distaste.

“Don’t worry. I’m used to people staring at me.” I say as I nuzzle into Tariq's shoulder to have a nap.

Later I awake to see Gurkhas perched on hills. They have distinctive helmets modelled on asiatic turbans. Every inch of them is camoflauged, and some even have tufts of vegetation poking out of their headgear. It reminds me of Dad’s Army, and would be funny, until I remember that the Gurkhas have a reputation of being one of the world’s most feared fighting force.

This military buildup is the result of the Kargil war which was fought in 1999 between India and Pakistan. Pakistani troops and Kashmiri militants from the Pakistani administered areas of Kashmir crossed the Line of Control into Indian administered territory. India’s superior airforce and army eventually pushed the Pakistanis back over the Line of Control. The very road I was traveling on now, National Highway Number One was a supply line for the Indians and a vantage point for the Pakistanis to defend their positions. The rest of the world waited nervously for hostilities to cease, fearing that the two old enemies would nuke each other.

The Indian battalions have stayed there ever since. Now their job is to stop militants crossing the border and to ensure the safety of Indian tourists.

There are reports that they are far more busy up there taking bribes and operating a black market trade in contraband. Women have been reporting harassment and rapes and men have been tortured and killed.

The next morning I am en-route to the toilet, which is a large boulder that hides my derriere from the prying eyes of endless pony riding pilgrims. I espy a snaking company of soldiers working their way down the valley to our tent site. I crouch down and wait for them to pass as I don’t fancy an audience for my ablutions.

They congregate around the tent. I consider not going back to the tent until they leave, but then it occurs to me that they won’t leave until I go back. They have already spotted me as I emerge from the boulder.

As I approach the campsite a Sergeant approaches and introduces himself to me. I give him and his troops Namastes and he quizzes me on how long I am staying. He is trying to make conversation rather than being nosey. The troops gather around. There are faces belonging to regions all over the sub-continent. A Nepali gurkha flashes me a big grin. A giant be-turbanned Sikh shyly glances away. Some of the men talk amongst themselves making jokes. Others lay around on rocks smoking. Suddenly the Sergeant gathers them all up and amid much shouting and slinging of rifles they depart.

“They weren’t so bad”, I observe.

Kareem stretches out in the tent to commence his morning nap. “No they weren’t. Thank God I didn’t have to make them tea.”

Copyright Leah Cornish-Ward 2008

Check out Idiot's Stew people! It is quite chuckalicious!

Idiot's Stew: So, what do you drive?

Idiot's Stew: So, what do you drive?

Message from God V

Bear humility in the face of God.
Accept that victory is
hollow without love.

Humble yourself to other’s taunts
wether there is truth in them or not.
You don’t have to accept,
but if you don’t
heed God’s discipline,
he will make you kneel.

Message from God IV

Peace can be radical
when it takes no prisoners,
no casualties,
but
defeats war,
conquers fear,
and vanquishes ignorance.

Message from God III

Go easy on God.
He was young once too.
He made mistakes,
was rash,
angry,
jealous,
grandiose,
gauche
and judgemental.

As the mountains age,
so does God.

His wrinkles do us proud.

Message from God II

Passion is its own reward.
When fighting for something
you believe in,
better to live a thousand lives in one day,
than a thousand years in one life.

Message from God I

It is fitting that
God should appear
in the world and
partake of pain and
sadness.

His strength comes
from knowing the limitations of
creation and having the
guts to own it.

To see your offspring feel pain,
and to live through it,
and not give up when your
heart is breaking;
is the crown God wears.

That is why,
when you need him,
you only have to call.
He’ll pick up.
Whether you hear him is up to you.

While at my table one day. . .

You are going to think I have lost it but a few years ago I was sitting at my kitchen table scribbling some notes for a book that I was going to write. It is hard to describe how I felt that day but strange is a good start. I started writing and everything was fine until I felt a force guiding me away from topic. Being a very disciplined person when I am writing, I tried to switch back but was continually blocked.

After I submitted and gave in, I realised I was getting a message from somewhere. I recognised the source and went with it. It was the most unconscious writing I have ever done and I hardly remember writing it. It was all over in about half an hour.

The feeling I had when I was writing it was a feeling of supreme power and elation. I have only felt this feeling on four other occasions. It was like all of my conscious ego had gone and all human pain was absent. I'm sure that people must feel like this on heroin or in religious ecstasy. All I know is that it was a gift that if people got more often, the world wouldn't be in the mess it is now.

I had an overwhelming feeling I should publish it and that in doing so I should not profit. So here it is. I will put an new post on every day and I will differentiate these posts from my others so that you know the source. I will call them, 'A Message from God.'

From a Christian to the Ummah. . .

To all Muslims on this happy day. Felicitations to you on Eid. May Allah bestow all His blessings upon your house. Inshallah.

Saint Peter is a Soldier

The signs at Srinagar airport say “Welcome to Heaven”. Little lines of pansies prostrate themselves under the wind on the way into the terminal. A Sikh signs me in with a form that asks me where I am staying and when I will exit Jammu & Kashmir. I half expect to have to show my passport but he grins at me and waves me through. I am in northern India, but it may as well be another country. I’ve never been to heaven but I am sure that it doesn’t have this many soldiers.

I sit in the back of Toyota Qualis, swaying like a sack of potatoes without a seat belt. I am sitting near the door, worried it may swing open at any time and deposit me in the path of a Tata lorry or a Bajaj scooter. We are barrelling down tight streets that look like Europe, but smell like India.

Jammu & Kashmir is the northern-most state of India. At least that is what most of the world thinks it is when they bother to think of it at all. More accurately it is 101 000 km² of contested land inhabited by seven million people that wish that Pakistan, India and China would get out of the way and let them live in peace.

Due to some diplomatic apathy and political bloody-mindedness about 60 years ago involving the UN, Nehru, and an instrument of accession, Jammu & Kashmir has been occupied by Indian soldiers in the most densely concentrated military build-up in the world. That’s right. There are more soldiers here per head of population than Palestine.

My government advises that no Australian should travel here. It’s easy to understand why. On the outside Jammu & Kashmir looks like a dangerous place. There are regular grenade explosions, clashes with militants in the border regions, terrorists infiltrating the city, landmines, civil unrest, and kidnappings.

I am here though, despite the misgivings of my family, to travel with two Kashmiri friends. I have a gut feeling that I will be safe with them and this proves correct, however, what I don’t anticipate, is the danger that they face every single day.

Tariq and Haaziz have grown up in Srinagar. Tariq comes from the city part of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu & Kashmir. It is a bustling Indian city with a difference. Most of its people are Muslims. The women get around mainly yellow, green and blue salwah kameez and hijab. The men wear white kurtas and niqab or western style slacks, shirts and ties. This side of town is traditionally known as the militant side of town. It has the oldest mosque in Srinagar, and the Martyr’s graveyard.

Haaziz lives in Nageen lake, a small lakelet within the Dal Lake system. His is a semi-rural life on a tiny piece of land bounded by two houseboats. The Doonga is the family’s boat, where everyone sleeps in three rooms, all rugged up together in temporary bedding that is packed up in the morning under rugs. There is a detached kitchen shed and bathroom and tiny yards for ducks and chickens. Dogs and cats visit everyday and try their luck for scraps and Haaziz' mother has had a cote built for her white pigeons.

A large houseboat with fancy furnishing and carpets is the family’s tourist property which provides income for five people. It operates six months of the year until the snow comes. Anything that upsets this idyll severely affects this family and the many family’s that rely on the tourist trade.

Even though Haaziz and Tariq are as different as chalk and cheese in their upbringings and outlook, they have something in common. They have grown up in a country that has been occupied. They both refer to Jammu & Kashmir as Kashmir. They relate to it as a separate country. They both love India, especially the cricket, and both revere Ghandi but when it comes to India’s claim on Kashmir they draw the line. They have seen too much death at the hands of the soldiers to remain rational about the geopolitics of the region.

These men are ordinary law abiding citizens in their twenties. They are interested in everything else that young guys are into, chatting up pretty girls, shopping for the latest fashion, smoking and drinking and hanging out talking trash with their mates. Neither of them would hurt a fly.

When we were stopped twice within two hundred metres at roadblocks by soldiers they got out of the rickshaw and protested. Even though one of the soldiers became pushy and said something rude about me, they remained calm. They argued rationally, showed their IDs’ and got back into the rickshaw.

I could tell that they were used to this behaviour. Two men that were previously chattering and laughing were now sullen and humiliated.

“That would not happen if Pakistan were running Kashmir”, says Tariq.

“Shuttup with that shit”, retorts Haaziz. I catch the eye of the rickshaw driver Mohammed. He is Haaziz' cousin. He is orthodox Muslim with a white niqab framing gentle eyes. He smiles back at me in the rearview mirror. It is a smile of resignation.

“Next time, I’m getting out”, I say. “Maybe they won’t be so obnoxious with a westerner as a witness”.

Haaziz pats my hand. “Don’t be worried. Here is safe.” He looks out at the street flashing by, unconvinced.

Tariq is quiet. I can’t see his eyes through his sunglasses but I can tell he is seething.

I settle back into my seat and stare out through the windscreen. Another road block is coming up. I remember the sign at the airport.

Welcome to Heaven.

Copyright 2008 Leah Cornish-Ward
Unedited

When in doubt. . .

When you are depressed about life remember to look on the bright side. If that doesn't work there is always

1. Chocolate
2. Wine
3. Self-destructive behaviour

What? You want to live forever!

Ok, here we go. . .

I am 38, still not grown up, and trying to create my own opportunities. The world is a hard task-master and the way it works is still secret. So with this in mind I give birth to this blog. Hell, at least I don't need an epidural for this creation. . .