FINALLY, some one hears me out (I am on newspaper..!!!)

Page 8 of the Greater Kashmir, which made me famous...ALMOST...!!!!
I told you I need some motivation for blogging, be it some comments (which rarely come!), the international traffic (which actually is increasing everyday) or some burning issues which make me open the laptop and start typing or else you will see an end to my already struggling 3 month old blogging career...! (still can't recover from the "Google AdSense" depression...they kicked me out...!!!!)
Well ,yesterday happened to be a special day for me and my motivation...22 COMMENTS on a single blog...(whoa..!! Am I dreaming or what...!!!!!!)...but miserably most of the comments were targetted against the sentiments of my fellow Kashmiris and were highly debatable issues…
as I told you before,there are a lot of stories which are not reported in the media and go un heard in the rest of India thus making it difficult to make them sound authentic and credible....(unfortunately they happen to be the stories of Kashmir).....so it was quite predictable to see the anger in the Indian public which reflected in the comments....(still wondering which comments??...read the previous blog "Kashmir Burns (blogging LIVE from war scene) " )
It was a highly turbulent and tense day in the valley with protests taking place in every nook and corner of the city, infact I couldn't sleep till late midnight because this time the VOCAL protests continued late into the night and robbed me of my precious sleep...(what a shame..I sleep when my city burns and my fellow people shout out loud for the ones hiding in their homes to come out and join their hands in this revolt against opression and human rights violation…)
Yes, the people were all fired up against Indian armed force's late night actions of breaking into houses and beating up harmless women and innocent children...but still it didn't make any sense to raise pro Pakistan slogans.....maybe the attrocities by Indian armed forces pushes the people to turn towards Pakistan as a ray of hope (wish they had the vision to see beyond a Muslim majority country...!!! and see the real UNDEMOCRATIC truth behind our so called sympathetic neighbours....!!!)
But somehow, I did manage to put my conflicted conscience to rest and went into a deep slumber ..!
Woke up today late in the morning with the same fear of not knowing what worse the day holds for me and my fellow people who had been suffering since last twenty years and were now caught in the middle of a marsh from where none of the ways look like leading to heaven...! (hope you got that)

As usual,the first thing I do in the morning is to search for the local newspaper "Greater Kashmir" which happens to be the only source of un biased, unheard and untold stories of my valley....but I couldn’t find the newspaper on the dining table nor anywhere in the kitchen…it was already quite late(almost noon!!) and I supposed that after drinking the habitual glass of milk (in fact chocolate milk...!!) I would as usual find it in the store room with rest of the out dated newspapers…!!!
Alas! It wasn’t even in the store and that’s when I realized that I was living in the middle of a valley in which every single home was surrounded by an army regiment and your ‘identity card’ forms your basic right to prove that you are not an extremist….!!! (pity me and my fellow peers who can’t go out of their homes without an ‘Identity card’ and if somehow some of the younger youth forget it……then we may never see them again..!!!! )
The civil curfew is actually so strict that hardly any newspaper is available in the morning…..(aaahhh…thus goes the chance to read some true stories for the day…!!!)
And then as expected, I logged online to see what my friends had been up to or what they had to talk about on ‘Orkut’ and ‘Facebook’…..
Suddenly as I logged into Facebook, one of ma friend buzzed me up with ‘Congrats’…n I wondered what for…..!
That’s when he sent me this link which changed my fortunes for ever……!!! (hahhaa…wish it had changed my fortunes for real….!!!)
http://www.greaterkashmir.com/full_story.asp?Date=14_8_2008&ItemID=29&cat=21

My eyes stuck on the headline:-
"Kashmiri bloggers discuss Muzaffarabad march, police action, curfew"
Some kind of 'déjà-vu' feeling which I usually have before such things…. there it was....my blog on newspaper.........whoa...!!!!.........Such an adrenaline rush…!!!
I went bonkers, seeing the article with my MISPRINTED blog address....(unfortunately the newspaper misprinted ‘2virginz’ as ‘virginz.blogspot.com’) which unfortunately didn’t help me increase my blog traffic....!!!
But anyways I felt as if I had achieved something big, really big…I had attempted to tell the other side of Kashmir’s story and now I had a reason to believe that some one was listening…..

Here’s what the news item read:-
Kashmiri bloggers discuss Muzaffarabad march, police action, curfew
by Majid Maqbool

Srinagar, Aug 13: Kashmiri bloggers are making their presence felt on the net by posting their views uncensored as curfew across the valley entered its second day on Wednesday. A blogger from Kashmir, under the domain name kashmir-truth-be-told.blogspot.com in his August 11 post writes, “The unprecedented brutality unleashed by Indian paramilitary troops on unarmed Kashmiri protestors marching towards Muzaffarabad defies all logic.” On August 12, the same blogger rued whether justice will be done and those responsible for the killing of unarmed people across the valley brought to book. He writes in his post, “I wonder whether the murderers of these thirty protestors will ever see the justice? Or will they be treated as heroes as all other previous Indian paramilitary personnel have been for similar crimes in the past?” The comments, in response to blogs from Kashmir on the issue, pour in from across India and the world. Mrinmoy comments in response to the post of the Kashmiri blogger kashmir-truth-be-told”, “I heartily pass condolences to those persons who have lost their lives in the recent agitations all over the Kashmir. I am from West Bengal and this type of act should be actively restricted. I and all my fellow friends from West Bengal love the land of GOD, the people of Kashmir and their tradition.” Suchi, in her comment to the blog regretted the loss of life during the protests. “I sincerely regret whatever happened in the valley yesterday, if I could, maybe I would want to erase the entire day from history,” she writes.
An eighteen year old Kashmiri blogger (virginz.blogspot.com) in his recent blog writes about his inability to move out due to the imposition of curfew in the city. “Just logged online to see what the world had been writing about the situation in Kashmir. The civil curfew is so strict that we can’t even step outside our houses to breathe the fresh air of the valley, leave aside the daring task of buying very few local newspapers with an unheard side of Kashmir’s story…!” It brings tears to my eye to see such a biased media, the young blogger writes about national media coverage on the present situation. And no, it’s not the fault of ‘an ordinary Indian citizen, he writes in his post. “He sees only what the media wishes him to see…an ordinary patriotic Indian who thinks that Kashmiris are some religious fanatics seeking independence from India without any explainable reasons, or maybe some other fellow Indians putting the situation in Kashmir as a work of some separatist Kashmiri leaders misleading the otherwise innocent and peace loving people of Kashmir.” The Kashmiri blogger also writes about the role of ordinary netizens like him in Kashmir. “When the media fails, it’s the responsibility of the ordinary people to find out the actual truth hiding beneath the superficial truths”, he writes about the present situation in Kashmir. Blogosphere remains a potent forum for discussions—and disagreements—on issues and controversies related to Kashmir. And Kashmiri bloggers continue to login to post their viewpoints on their blogs—uncensored, unedited, and for the world to read.

Holy shit…! I am on newspaper uncensored and un edited…!!!
I rushed to my cousins house who somehow had managed to get his copy of Greater Kashmir and there it was the magical “Page 8” with it’s story about Kashmiri Bloggers….
Wish the newspaper had not misprinted ‘2virginz‘ as ‘virginz’....aah! I lost such a big chance at gaining some audience and some popularity…heh or maybe not!.....(maybe ‘2virginz ‘sounds too complicated for even the most complicated Kashmir issue...lolz)
Anyways, now at least after seeing the mention in newspaper, I have managed to gain enough pride to look back into the eyes of the protestors on the streets who previously looked down on me as some kind of shameless coward hiding in the corridors of his luxurious home....!!!!
Freedom Blogger...PROUD TO BE A BLOGGER