Gulmarg

The sound of the guns had receded. The hills had gone silent. It sky had no birds. The war had ended. So had the village. Only the punctured houses reminded of something wrong. Twelve mile away on the other side of the hill was a different world. People, mostly women, children and some old men. Some of their eyes couldn't yet stop flowing once in a while. They were not in their  control, a few children played hide and seek in the same camp. They had no idea why the tears were flowing at all. Probably they did not even know why tears were.
A young girl Rukhsaar, around 18 sat there unmoved. Her eyes were deep, as if they hid a whole world in them. She was fair as most of the other Kashmiri girls. Her face was white. She wore an old robe which covered her almost completely. She had almost no ornaments, as simple as a new born child. Who would she dress for in any case? Both her parents died the previous Sunday when she had gone to fetch water and her house was hit by a shell. She would have died crying that night itself had her neighbor Asma not visited her. She fainted multiple times during that night. The tears had almost dried out. She knew most of the people there. But she hardly talked now, no one did. A week back, the whole village was her own. Its the same people, but the village! She doesnt think that much. The day passed on.
That morning, a young man in his twenties had come to the camp. It was not very common after all. Why would someone want to share the sorrows of others. He was in his mid twenties. A lean tall man. He wore a pagdi, traditional among the shepherds. He did not smile. Hardly gave an expression. He had a flock of 40 sheep. He had been roaming in these forests with the sheep for three days. Yesterday he was in the village. No one lived in the village anymore to tell the story but the houses did. In these three days he had met just 7 people. He saw her in a minute.
All through the day they hardly exchanged an eye contact. Deep within, her heart was throbbing. She could feel her palm beating. Her heart gave the beats that it would when she had first met him. The wait for the night was way too long. The sun did not seem to move all day. She could not share her feelings with anyone around. Finally, the moon was in its full glow. The wolves cried from deep inside the forest. The crickets chirped. The camp was absolutely still. Even the children were asleep. The sky was dark with no stars. It was all open and clear. The moon did not want to hide that night. It wanted to see them. Rukhsaar knew exactly where he was. Her eyes might not have spoken a word but they could see it all. He huddled his sheep moved across the camp passing through it. She stepped out behind the sheep. She was one of them; following the master wherever he led without questioning why. Thee hours later, they were 4 miles from the camp. She stepped out of the sheep. Came closed to him. She smiled for the first time in the last many days. He was here. Gulmarg was here. Summer was here. The flowers in the valley looked at them, the moon did, the stars shone. They sat in the full view of the moon in each others' arms. The two were tender like the flowers. One flower entangled in another. A new day was to dawn. The valley was now silent. Not the sound of the gun, it was their giggles that filled the Gulmarg sky every evening for many days.