Introduction: ordinary love in extraordinary times

Around one late afternoon in October, after many moons and sunrises in Siege, my recently engaged
cousin called via one fortunate landline at her place. Her finance, living a sea and a continent away
already on the line was waiting in anticipation. I was waiting for her first hello to initiate a conference
call. As she said hello M sunai de raha hai , I kept my phone on the nightstand and resumed making
notes for my upcoming test. Their anticipation, long wait, managing time zones and long thank you
were always new as the first day.  Each call was precious. On bad days, when scheduling and
matching times would disrupt their conversation, in utter pain she would wail ab modi ki hi kami thi is
rishtet me.

Next day, I travelled from North to South Delhi, just for a cup of nunchai and to hear someone talk in
Kohur. Some minutes in, there was another phone call from a distraught Kashmiri from Australia
calling to be connected with his recently engaged fiance in Kashmir. 45 seconds and possession of a
landline acquired a position of privilege and luck. In times of extreme deprivation, basic breathing has
a way of becoming a luxury.

Memory moves, sticks, slides, and opens up emotions that are shaped by contact with objects
(Ahmed, 2004: 18).

Through this ethnographic unfolding of remembrance, the question that I keep revisiting persistently
in this article is: can we read these lived and endured experiences of grief as registers through which
the idea of the political can be re-inscribed and re-imagined in Kashmir?

The conventional understanding of political implies a contestation or a relentless power relation

between the state and its people in which the state claims the monopoly of legitimate use of
physical force or “the state is seen as the sole grantor of the ‘right’ to physical force” (Weber,5 1965:
136). In this asymmetrical negotiation of power between the state and its people, there has been a
foregrounding of only forms of the political that are explicit, evental or sayable in nature such as
formation of political parties, or staging of political rallies. Therefore, the idea of political has always
been inevitably associated with and marked by an action or the force of a sensational event.
However, while conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a conflict zone such as 2 Ethnography 0(0)
Kashmir wherein traumatic experiences of unabated political violence saturate the everyday, this
conventional notion of the political is too limited as it does not capture the non-sensational: the
sensory, the emotive and everyday experiences that circulate in a violent political space.

In the context of Kashmir where there is no tangible end to the continuing political violence,
imposing pre-fixed notions of resistance or establishing a “standing-language” (Segal, 2016: 6) of
grief can be constricting because the gendered practices of surviving the everyday will always fall
outside these limits.

In my case, how is this longing and grief felt by these people, lovers more damaging that an ordinary
skirmish in relationships? How are these people understanding their own predicament, how are they
experiencing it and how does it affect them? How is love/relationship tied to politicis

The condition of military structural oppression in Kashmir is deep and wide. Through constant
presence it has organically binded itself with the people and their lives. This is to say that nothing
exists outside of this system of oppression. This system exists in the every nature of everyday life. An
army camp at every corner within the valley dictates the very nature and experience of life in
Kashmir. Nothing remains untouched. Therefore this particular pain of separation and longing is not
self inflicted, not ordinary rather its directly caused by state action/disruption. These people
frustrated by the sheer amount of effort one had to put in to communicate were scarred with
wounds of distrust and broken relationships.
There is love and then there is love in times of Siege

G confessed having felt inadequately reciprocating her partner’s efforts to communicate. Two
people living in two time zones; one frustratingly slow and cruel other uncontrollably fast and. She
was of course living in the both with her family and partner being there and she in Delhi. The life
outside Kashmir did not stop, thus she had to keep at it even when it was physically painful to
function and participate.

In these narratives, their Dagg may not have turned immediately political, but the experience of this
unsayable and numbing pain led people out of their homes, and sometime brough them in direct
confrontration with the state authorities. These intimate relationships to me seem intense concoction
of hope and resilience. The hustle that came with frustration also give us insights into how people in
their actions, may subconsciously subvert the state dictats. In recent years Kashmir has seen comlete
negatation of the right to publicly gather and protest with restrictions even on social media (cyber cell
keenly monitors all accounts). When mere presence of VPN in mobile phones or accessing social
media sites, like facebook is deemed criminal everything that refuses this negation, abstraction and
erasure becomes an act of resistance. People resist by aspiring for a normal life in a maddeningly
abnormal socio-political situation. In the same context when all and any form of communication was
banned; lovers writing letters, travelling across districts on foot to look for their partners, waiting and
hoping becomes a remarkable feat.

I further Kaur inquiry into how confronting the fear, helplessness and chaos of violence caused by
conflict of is not apolitical. This essay is only an preliminary introduction on the subject of the
everyday practices of politics highlighting how “the spheres of social and individual life which are
affected by violent history in most direct and intimate ways”

how does prison effect a human behaviour? Imprisoned, having been called an open air prison- what
would have that done to people who were suddenly left all by themselves. People who had lovers
living outside had a different predicament; two people living in two time zones, both suffocating but
on different accounts, the same source of suffering demanding two different course of action.
Leaving gaps for insecurity,desperation and sometimes distrust.

This essay is a preliminary discussion on the subject of Shia Kashmiri women’s subjectivities. Overall,
a case was made for establishing Shia women’s capacity of embodied resistance through religious
practices. In subtle ways, these practices enhance self-expression and a unique understanding of the
militarized patriarchy in Kashmir. These flourishing practices hint at strengthening of political
identity and offer a possibility of shifting a rigid gendered paradigm.