Kashmir in my Life
My family is originally Kashmiri (my father is full Kashmiri and my mother is half), but my parents and I have never gotten the chance to visit the land of our origins. The land that had once been overflowing with beauty, prosperity, equality, and serenity is now near inhabitable. Every time I have visited Pakistan, it had always been too dangerous for us to go to Kashmir, so I have never had the opportunity to see the valley and experience its extravagance, much of which has been annihilated by all the fighting that has taken place there. It breaks my heart to know that I have only seen what used to be of Kashmir through pictures, and it's hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I might never get to travel to this area. Despite this, Kashmiri blood is what flows through my veins; it is what makes me who I am, what keeps me connected to the region that I have never physically been to. Before i began this project, Kashmir was not something that I thought about very often. I knew that I was Kashmiri and that my great grandparents had lived there, but to me, it was never a place that held much value because I knew very little about it. I knew that there was conflict over the region, but again it all seemed very distant since it never directly affected me. It wasn't until I started this project that I started to develop a true appreciation for my heritage. I had never been aware of how much struggle the people of Kashmir had had to go through, and I shared the anger and frustration that they felt for the unfairness of their situation. They had never asked for any of the violence that they had had to experience, all they had wanted was to continually living peacefully in their little mountainous region. I am ashamed at how harshly the leader of India and Pakistan both treated these people, just because both were too greedy to allow the state to become its own independent nation. I am proud of how the individuals who families had been forced to leave the area, and who have never been able to retain to their motherland like myself, still manage to hold on to the rich culture of Kashmir. I now feel closer and more personally connected to the origins that I had never before truly understood, and I wish for the conflict that has torn this area apart to finally end.